Page 79 of Marked By the Devil

“You keep going with the agency,” he said, picking up on my rash idea. “I’ll start doing the same with the other branches and departments.”

I rubbed my brow, wondering if my headache was from not having coffee—which had smelled way too disgusting today—or if I was… just… pregnant.

“Um, we should hop on the EMT too. We could have the fire department show up for a false alarm and that would prevent anyone from heading into the clubs even when they’re closed and empty.”

“Good, good,” he praised.

“What about jamming up traffic?” Carina asked. “Coordinate a hack on the lights and all and stall traffic in the area of the businesses.”

“But that still doesn’t give us much time to help all the residences,” I argued.

“If they don’t need as many people guarding the businesses, that’ll be more to cover the homes,” Elena said.

I nodded, not stopping once as I rushed through skewing all the messages and coded references to the hit. They weren’t even really hiding it much, talking about it like it was just a “job”, like something that was given to them via a work order from a superior.

The men came upstairs, filing into the room. With all of them crowding in here, there wasn’t as much space for anyone to move. They were all so tall and huge.

“What are you doing?” Adrik asked. His tone was hard, but not in a cruel manner. More like he was stressed and trying his best to manage the situation.

“You can’t hope for diplomacy. You can’t fight back with limited men to cover all the locations. You don’t have enough time to properly close up and vacate all the places they’re going to hit. I’m scrambling their messages and interfering with who is supposed to be where.”

Viktor set his hands on my shoulders, looking over me.

“It might work,” Trojan said, still on the call. “It might work.”

“It might work well enough to mitigate the damage and lessen the overall hit.” I took a moment to explain how I was skewering it all, swapping times and even just outright canceling some orders. Trojan piped up again as well, telling him what he was doing.

“And that could work.” Adrik said it, but it came out like a question. His doubt wasn’t an insult. This was a hasty idea that hit me belatedly, but because I’d been working with tracing all this correspondence already and was familiar with the communications of agents and officers being directed on different projects, it clicked for me. None of the agents and cops were being told to do the damage, but just to look the other way when it all went down so no one was caught.

“It could work,” Viktor said, already championing my idea. I knew he would support me, but I had to have Adrik’s approval too.

I waited, tense and impatient. Between the worry that my idea wasn’t going to be good enough, that I could fail the Bratva, and the queasiness in my stomach, I felt stretched thin and unable to withstand the pressure in this room.

“Then go. Go!” Adrik stood there with his hands on his hips. “However you can pull it off. Stop them from even starting this attack.”

I nodded, grateful that he wasn’t going to be mad. I cleared my throat and kept typing.

“Maybe… give… me some space?” I asked tentatively. I didn’t want to shoo them out, but I was trying my best to concentrate.

Act.

Act.

It’s time to go.

Act.

Do it, Wren.

Staying level-headed and keeping my emotions from getting the best of me was no easy matter. But I would give it my best. I would not think about the chance that this illness was not a bug, but a baby. I would focus on scrambling as much of their communications as I could.

Viktor kissed the top of my head, not getting in my face. “Can I help?”

I shook my head, my eyes glued to the screen. “No. Thank you.”

“Nothing I can do?”

You could give me a sign that you might want to commit to having me and keeping me here for a much longer “stay” since I might be carrying your baby…