DIVISION 52 - BOOK II

CHAPTER LXII

She leant back in the booth with her arms over the back and watched the dancers beyond the table with far too much nonchalance.

"I can't have you walking around without my ring. That would just be rude at this point..."

I was in the process of drying off all alcohol with my cloak while the Imperial looked positively unbothered by the bomb she had just detonated on the table. Once it was safely cleaned and hidden in my cloak I set my hands on the table and stared her down. Why did it feel like we had switched places so starkly. She was the royal of innocence and nerves and she was slouched in that seat like–like–damn it all.

"Exactly how many people want that maid dead now because of this?"

"Oh, I got Matty security clearance two days ago. She brought several other defectors with her..."

I almost choked. Again.

"Anything else?" I grit out, eyes burning on that slow smirk that took those full lips.

This time she turned the full power of the look she gave me when she wanted something–and placed her jaw on her palm appraising me closely. I let a slow breath go through my nose and tightened a fist on the table. She was fighting a smile and losing.

"They may as well become Division maids–"

"Makayla..."  I groaned, slumping back into my seat.

We may as well let local bakers in at this rate. Compromised security? No never...

"What? The place could do with Sector 1 cleanliness..." She drawled, playing with the gold on her finger again.

"They are Sector 1 defectors they could be spies." I stated flatly.

"They're maids and Matty was a spy for Proximo." She reminded me calmly. It cut off my next argument and I raised an eyebrow. "How did you... Ah. Velron of course." I concluded, thinking back to the nightmare Proximo had dropped us in so unceremoniously.

He was holding up well enough with a screen and intelligence reports that had been marginally helpful but he was useless to me other than that.

Makayla perked up coming to the same conclusions, "You let Velron stay. He's still in training–"

"He works with the techs yes–we don't have room for spares. Let alone maids." I scrunched my nose up at the idea alone. Service staff were a Sector 1 affair. It gave the wrong message. I walked into a room with a team of the most lethal men and women in the city, armed to the teeth–or I didn't bother at all.

"Alex, you're planning to dismantle both empires anyway. What difference does it make if she sits behind our walls until we bring them down?"

I was again lost for a quick counter. My glare continued.

Then Proximo's voice entered our comms breaking the stare down between us. I pressed my hand to my ear to hear over the bass in the room.

"She's taken it."

My eyes snapped over to the doorway that held my second and his sister beyond. Meaning he had given her the Virtu. The perfectly designed Virtu. Because the one thing that had been kept out of his sister's knowledge was that Artella was the artist behind his own ink filled back. That Virtu Proximo had yet to play... But he was no fool and this was the only way to predict her true allegiance.

The only reason she was here at all and not on a fusion craft was because of Makayla.

Whom now met my gaze calmly over her own drink. She valued Dazz's skill more than I did for her betrayals... Yet I had to give it to Xavier. She knew when to choose her allies and how to put the past aside to achieve the future. It is exactly what made her father so successful and it was the same playbook the Empress was using now. That is why we would put his sister so deep within simulations she would never know true reality until we wanted her to.