Rise of Kings and Queens

Chapter 40

LUKA URBAN'S EX, JULIA CABRERA IS A CON ARTIST WORKING FOR DEPENDENCY

By L.M.Taurus

4/3/0029 UWC

2 hours after headline

Luka, Arlo, Fyn and Yelena arrived at the port of Haiti to be greeted by Esme. It was late and dark.

Fyn ran to Esme and gave her a big hug, lifting her from the ground. "Hey cuz, long time no see."

Esme tapped him on the chest. "Good to see you too, golden boy." Fyn gave her an annoyed look. Esme went to Yelena and gave her a hug. "Welcome to the shit show."

"This is the first time in years that our squad are all in the same country," said Yelena.

"Are we sure Celeste is in Haiti as well?" asked Esme.

"I thought you would know."

"I lost touch with her at the same time as Fyn."

"So you haven't seen her out here?"

"No. Why did you think she was?"

"Because Julia was seen out here," said Luka, handing Esme today's paper.

Esme read the headline and saw the picture of Julia with the Agent of Dependency. "I'm sorry, Luka," she said.

"Me too," said Luka as he walked past them.

"He's taking this really badly," said Arlo as he followed Luka.

****

Everyone was gathered around a conference room and Luka was the last one to arrive. The room went quiet when he entered. He walked over to the table and sat down between Arlo and Yelena.

"Good morning, Luka," said Kara. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm fine." Luka looked around the room and noticed some of his squadmates were giving him sad looks. "Let's not do this. Don't pity me. Yeah, it sucks my business is out there for everyone to read and yeah that's annoying but I'm fine. I'm going to be fine. So enough with the pitying looks. All you're doing is pissing me off."

"That paper was way too harsh," said Leonie. "They shouldn't have blamed you for what she did."

"No," said Luka. "The article was right. I'm a world military leader. I should have realized she was a con artist. I'm sorry for letting you all down."

"Don't do that," said Esme. "That wasn't your fault. She played you. It's her fault. You didn't do anything wrong."

"Let's just move on. Why are we here?"

"We're here to talk about all the enemies we have here in Haiti," said Esme.

"And there's a lot of them," said Kara.

Yelena stood up and went to stand next to Esme. "Do you have anything I can write in?" asked Yelena.

Esme pulled out a large chalkboard. "Will this work?"

"Perfect," said Yelena as she grabbed a marker. "We have multiple enemies in Haiti. How many groups?"

"There's Dependency," said Luan. "Brodie Noble is the Agent of Dependency."

"Really?" said Arlo. "I thought you said he wasn't part of Dependency. Now you're telling me he's their leader."

"Yeah, I got played too."

Yelena wrote Dependency down and Brodie Noble equals Agent of Dependency.

"Actually, we got intel that a woman is their leader," said Fyn. "I believe her name was Liilian Danti."