8. Finley
Finley
Eventually, I moved out into the living room since all my mates wanted to be around me as I buried my head in research.
Zander brought up the whiteboard he had as we started to make notes and categorize who were the key players in each group.
Clearly, we knew who the Senators were but what we needed to know was who around them held power.
Each person we dove into connected back to someone in the Dark Ring or the Senate.
Everything about these two groups was intertwined on a level that was frightening.
Someone made sure to provide snacks and drinks and reminded me to eat or drink as I worked.
This is where I thrived in my profession, plotting, planning, and dissecting every nuance of the person I was dealing with.
Now, this was a much larger scale project with so many moving parts and pieces.
We needed to be prepared for whenever Morwyn provided us with Delilah, so as we got the information we needed from her, we could act.
Rath and Derven were amazing, adding bits and pieces about people you wouldn’t know unless you spent time around them.
What they drank, who they spent time with at parties, did they dabble in one dark, twisted addition or another.
Each of these things gave me another way of taking them down.
Spike a bottle of their favorite liquor, plant a person to get them right where I needed to take them out.
This job wasn’t going to be over quickly.
I wanted them to know they were being hunted.
Start with the people who wouldn’t be as noticeable first, but without them there, they were missing a cog in the mechanism.
The plan that was taking shape would allow me to attack them at all sides so they couldn’t predict where I might strike next.
“Zander, I know you have the jet but do you have something a little less noticeable?” I asked as I was mapping out some strike points. I would need to get to many states fast without drawing attention to what I was doing or leaving a trail.
He looked at me, confused. “Smaller?”
“Yeah, like a plane that can only fit like four people, flies into small private airports, that sort of thing. Your jet is a little more noticeable than a personal plane that a hobbyist can have,” I explained.
“No, little dove, I don’t have one of those. I got the jet to travel with the band and have more space instead of a tour bus,” he said.
I nodded, realizing that it would be far too easy for him to have one lying around.
“That doesn’t mean I can’t buy one,” Zander pointed out. “It’s not like I can’t afford it, and who would think twice about a rock star wanting his own plane?”
I cocked my head to the side, thinking that through. “Can you fly it? We couldn’t hire a pilot to do these runs. It would draw too much attention.”
“I can,” Derven shared, raising his hand.
“I mean, it’s been a little while, but I flew in the second world war and kept the talent up ever since.
I’m sure my affairs have been kept in order while I was trapped with the Dark Ring.
It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve disappeared for half a century or so.
That’s why it’s so important to have staff you can trust.”
All of us gawked at him as he shared this information with us like it was completely normal.
I suppose being someone who never died and lived among humans, you would want a life, hobbies, and things like that, but it would leave a trail behind.
Making it slightly more reasonable that he would have people who kept up with making sure his identity was hidden.
“I’ll need to call them and let them know I’m re-entering society, but that shouldn’t be hard to manage.
I’ll just need to make a trip to New York to pick up all my current paperwork and whatever name they have me passing as,” Derven continued, oblivious to our shock.
“Zander, do you think you could lend me the use of your jet to fly there? I wouldn’t have any of the documentation they would need for me to fly normally. ”
Looking down at the list of people, I found a few targets I could take out while we were there. “That works for my plan,” I shared. “We just need to use Zander’s fame to our advantage so they don’t realize it’s me that’s doing the killing right away.”
“Hold on,” Lane cut in, waving his arms like a referee.
“Sweetheart, I need you to explain to us what your plan is, all of it,” he warned, giving me a stern look.
“Right now, I feel like you have half the plan in your head because you are working way faster than the rest of us. Spell it out like we are a new trainee that you are working with.”
Handing off the laptop, I walked to the whiteboard and circled a group of names in red.
I traced who those people connected to and underlined them.
“Think of it like a building. If you want to collapse the whole thing, you need to take out the support. You don’t start from the top.
You set charges at the base. These people I circled while on their own are insignificant, but when you see who they support,” I said, tapping on the names underlined.
“Things become unstable. What happens when the help they relied on far more than they realized is gone? It leaves them reeling, looking for a way to fill the gap. Meanwhile, other things are going to slip and show me where I need to hit next.”
Each of the men were riveted to what I was saying, some nodding along as they understood my train of thought.
“When I see the next line of support to remove, it will cause a ripple effect all the way to the top. This whole system is built on no one knowing what the others are doing. That way, if they were ever caught, there’s no way for them to betray the group as a whole. Does that make sense?”
“This can all be done without Delilah?” Colt asked. “I thought you said she was going to be the ticket we needed to get in.”
“She is, with the top tier of the Dark Ring,” I informed them. “When I get to them, I want the ground they stand on to be so shaky when we hit them, there’s no coming back. A building that is demolished from the foundation up can’t be fixed. It just has to be rebuilt.”
“What about the Senate?” Elias Questioned. “This will take down the Dark Ring, but I don’t see it doing the same thing to the other.”
“No, you’re right, but what it does do is take away the outside support.
There are so many people of both parties dealing with each other back and forth.
When you chop off a limb, it slows them down.
The connections, dirty secrets, and money they were receiving in exchange for silence or to turn a blind eye are no longer there,” I detailed as I marked out all the Dark Ring members on the board, leaving the Senate, which made up only a quarter.
“The Senate might have more power in the eyes of the public, but behind the scenes, it was the Dark Ring pulling many of the strings. They became more bold once they knew the Senate couldn’t do anything.
I believe I was sent to kill Delilah as a signal that the Senate didn’t want to be a pawn in their games anymore. ”
“So, how do we attack the Senate?” Noah asked. “It can’t be done the same way. It’s not built on a system of blind recruitment. Everyone knows everyone and many are in each other’s pockets with mutually assured destruction between them.”
“While the Senate might have control in most of the world in regards to supernaturals, the ones they don’t control are the humans.
The humans have their own government per country as they always have.
The United Senate was created to ensure that supers were controlled by their own kind together, creating the rules,” I paused, taking in each of my mates, knowing this idea was risky, but it was brilliant if it worked.
“My plan is to turn the court of public opinion back on them, leak some of this information, and show the skeletons in the closet. This will draw all the senators’ attention allowing us to come in and destroy them one by one. ”
Mason let out an impressed-sounding whistle. “Damn, snuggles, now I see why you are damn good at your job.”
“So, where do we come in?” Ayla asked, scaring everyone as she magically appeared in the living room.
I’d known she was there. Ever since I caught the feel of her magic stalking us at the zoo, I could pick up on it much faster.
The reason I didn’t say anything is I wanted my men to see her skill and understand how good she was.
My reasoning for that was because I wanted her to come with me on these jobs, leaving my men to be the distraction, and they weren’t going to like it.
“Holy fuck balls,” Mason yelled, almost falling off the couch. “Goddammit, Ayla!”
The others flinched and showed clear signs they were surprised at her appearance, so I knew they hadn’t noticed. Rath and Derven were the only two who didn’t react, but I wasn’t sure if that was more of their trained response or if they could tell she was there.
“Oh goodness, that is far more fun than I thought it would be,” Ayla said with a snicker, her eyes crinkling with delight.
Elias slowly stood and approached her, walking around her, sniffing as if he was trying to figure out how she did it. Being my Tracker, it would make sense he would be unsettled by the fact she could get this close to me without him noticing.
“How did you do that?” he asked, his voice full of curiosity and irritation. “Is it your magic that conceals your scent, or do elves simply not have them? Rath has a faint one, but I wasn’t sure if there had been something done to him while with the Dark Ring.”
Ayla frowned at his question. “I will have you know that I bathe quite regularly. I shouldn’t have a scent.”