Still, she loved him. The thought struck her hard. She could see the truth with a clarity that she hadn’t been able to before, as if the blinders had been removed and the world suddenly looked different.
Close on the heels of that realization, she also accepted that she’d commit to being with him no matter the sacrifice. She had to let her family go in order to create a life of her choosing. It sucked, but Arden knew she couldn’t save Niall or her parents. They’d made their decisions and would face the consequences. She could no longer carry the burden of that. The decision twisted her up inside, but it felt like the only way she could truly live.
Her datapad blipped with an incoming message. She almost didn’t look at it but then figured she couldn’t ignore her life forever.
Niall had somehow managed to break her firewall. Are you coming home? he asked. In his pings, he always seemed lucid. She knew better than to trust that.
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard until she typed: Eventually.
There was a pause. She fingered the side of the datapad, about to turn it off, when Niall’s next ping finally appeared.
It’s time to stop crying about Colin and return home. Niall had always lacked empathy, and this time it cut her deeply.
She would never stop mourning.
Tomorrow. Mandatory, he typed. Blackout is a go.
Arden closed her eyes and squeezed them hard. Then she let out her breath, forcing herself to relax before she typed: We’ll be slaughtered.
He replied: We can’t lose this window. They’re grieving as well. And they’ll be too focused on the wedding to anticipate our move.
Her hands shook as she typed. Wedding?
He responded: The Croix heir is marrying his fiancée in the morning. It’s all over the visicast.
What? That couldn’t be true. Her stomach cramped.
Arden’s first reaction was to deny. To insist the information was a lie. Then her rational brain kicked in. She shut down the ziptext program and pulled up the current visicast stream.
A picture of Dade and that girl took up the screen. Their bodies were entwined. The girl smiled up at Dade, looking radiant. Arden couldn’t hear the newscast because it was muted, but the ticker feed ran the latest wedding gossip as well as a countdown to the nuptials.
Arden felt faint.
This was what he was hiding when he looked so guilty and sad? Why hadn’t he told her? Why didn’t he ask her for help?
Arden could have kicked her own ass.
She’d chosen wrong. She knew that now. She should have chosen Dade and not continued with Lasair. Maybe then she’d have Dade, and perhaps even Colin would still be alive. She needed to choose him now. There was no way she was going to let this farce happen. Not if she could stop it first.
And stop it she would.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Everything was going according to plan until it wasn’t.
Dade needed to die. It was the only way to get out of a marriage he didn’t want and to sever ties with his family. He couldn’t simply leave. His father would never let him go, especially now that Rylick was dead. He didn’t have many options left, and time was slipping away too quickly for him to come up with a less drastic plan. Dying would be the only way to gain his independence.
Thankfully, he had friends willing to help. Number one being his fiancée-turned-reluctant-witness-to-his-death.
“This is not a good idea,” Clarissa said. She had dressed for the scene in an outfit she could move fast in: purple synth-leather pants and an oversized white sweater that hit her midthigh, the fabric woven with repelling phase-fire fiber. It shimmered with a pearlescent sheen as she moved. Gold-colored metal panels had been threaded through the weave, creating the appearance of scales and adding yet another layer of protection.
“It’ll work,” Dade said, trying to reassure himself as much as her.
Clarissa made sure her guards were some distance back before she grabbed Dade by the elbow, dragging him into a quiet space between buildings. Clarissa’s breath misted in the cool early-evening air as she leaned in to speak. “Maybe I need to break it down for you: this idea is ridiculous.”
“What else would you suggest?”
She shrugged.
“Exactly.” If there were another way, he’d take it. It wasn’t like he relished living the life of a fugitive. It was simply the better option.
They’d chosen one of the high-end shopping strips that Clarissa favored for their plan. Dade had accompanied her there from time to time, so this outing wasn’t unusual. And more important, as long as he was with Clarissa and her guards, his father had let him out of the Tower.
His hands were weighed down with her bags while pap-drones buzzed around to get a picture of them on the eve of their wedding. Dade couldn’t see them, but he knew they were using long lenses to capture any juicy tidbit for their vid-rags.
“I don’t get why the Ghost needs to kill you,” she said. “What’s the point of that? It could just be a random mugging. That would work too.”
He didn’t want to go over it again. “I almost got caught, and I know my father suspects me. Now that Rylick is dead, he’s not let me out of his sight. It’s limiting the Ghost’s activities to the point that I haven’t been on a run in weeks. Plus, there’s no other way to get out of our marriage.”
“The marriage thing,” Clarissa made a frustrated sound and an equally frustrated face, “we could make it work, you know. We’re an amazing team.”
“We are,” he agreed. “But I’d have to give up everything else, including the Ghost. What would I have to live for?”
She pressed her lips together and shrugged.
“If I’m dead, they won’t suspect me. It’s the perfect plan.”
“Your life wouldn’t be over if you married me. We could figure something out.”
He felt bad at the hurt in her voice. Of course it wasn’t her. He wasn’t in love with her, but he certainly loved her. He could trust her with his life, and the last thing Dade wanted was to insult her. He tried to steer the conversation back to what concerned him the most. He knew that eventually she’d realize that this plan wasn’t a slight to her and she would forgive him. “People need the Ghost. It’s not just about the drugs or saving one person at a time. It’s a movement. It’s bigger than me.”
“If the Ghost is so important, let someone else do it,” she said. “Come back to the Sky Towers, we’ll get married, and we’ll work from the inside. It’s as good a plan as any, and it makes more sense.”
“It’s already happening. I can’t stop it.” While Dade didn’t like the idea of exposing the Ghost to public scrutiny, it made the identity real. To get things done, he knew the Ghost had to be more than a myth. He had to be seen as a champion of the people.
They fell into a tense silence. Dade fidgeted, his gaze drifting over the crowded streets as he checked face after face.
“Don’t act like you’re waiting for him,” Clarissa warned.
He looked back at Clarissa in time to see her roll her eyes. “I’m not.”