Page 48 of Dark Gambit: The Play

Sofia turned her face to him and swallowed. "Before everything went wrong, I could see myself spending the rest of my life with you. I was falling for you. But even though I had no choice in any of this, I don't think you can forgive me, and I don't want to give my heart to someone who can close his off so easily."

The pain in her eyes was unbearable, and the need to forgive her and take her into his arms was overwhelming, but he'd been in a similar scenario before, and the price he'd paid for his weakness was so monumental that it still haunted him. He could not allow himself to be vulnerable again.

"Our infatuation with each other is irrelevant at the moment. We are dealing with a crisis, and only when the crisis is resolved, can we revisit our feelings. For now, this has to stay on ice."

"Ice indeed," Sofia murmured. "What do you consider as crisis resolution? Capturing Igor and executing him?"

"He didn't commit any crimes against my people. It's up to the members of his community who he has wronged to decide how he should be punished."

"They are under his compulsion. They can't do a thing against him. If they could, Jade would have killed him a long time ago."

"Maybe that's the solution," Eleanor said. "We smuggle earpieces to Jade, and she takes care of Igor for us."

Marcel shook his head. "That's not going to help with the previous layers of compulsion she carries. We need to smuggle her out, have Tom free her mind, and send her back with earpieces."

Sofia nodded. "That could work. How are you going to smuggle her out, though?"

"We can capture her during one of her hunting runs. Does she ever go alone?"

"I don't think any of them ever go alone. Hunting is a social activity for them, and they usually go out in groups. But I'm not a good source of information on anything related to the purebloods or the hybrids. I've been gone most of the past seven years, and when I'm back, I spend my time with my family in the human quarters. You need a Kra-ell, preferably a male. Maybe you can capture one, question him, compel him to not say anything, and release him right away, so no one would notice that he'd been missing."

Those were all good ideas, but they were all fraught with difficulties and pitfalls that could have disastrous results. Turner was working on a plan, though, and Marcel trusted the guy to work the kinks out.

35

KIAN

"That went well," Turner said after listening to the recording.

Being immune to compulsion and familiar with the Russian language, he was the best equipped to listen to the unfiltered version and ascertain that it had indeed gone as well as it seemed.

"Igor seemed doubtful at first, but when he thought that he compelled Sofia to tell the truth, his tone changed."

"What's your take on him?" Kian asked.

"That wasn't enough to form an opinion. He sounded calm and confident. He wasn't rude or obnoxious, and he didn't sound worried. He's pretty much emotionless, which makes him more dangerous, not less."

Kian chuckled. "It takes one to know one. But you are not entirely unemotional, just a little stunted."

Turner smiled indulgently. "I pride myself on my logical mind. The heart usually interferes with rational thought."

"Indeed, but I wouldn't trade places with you. My intuition is no less important to me than my analytical ability." In fact, he trusted his intuition more than he trusted his mind.

"Intuition is nothing more than your subconscious mind using all the information it has stored and making calculations behind the veil. There is nothing mystical about it."

"Says the man who invoked the Fates in this office the day before."

Turner shrugged. "We need to decide on our next step. As I see it, we have several options now that Sofia has bought us time with her great performance. We can up the ante and send the cat on a trip, see if anyone follows, and if they do, capture them. But that would cost us the element of surprise, and the time we gained will be wasted." Turner crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm just thinking out loud. If Sofia indeed has a tail and we capture it, the game will be up, and it will move into Igor's court. He will realize that something more than what Sofia told him is going on, and his next step will be to get Jade to admit what she's been doing. Sofia did well by not mentioning that Emmett was a compeller, and Igor didn't ask about him, so I assume that he didn't compel the truth out of Jade yet. I assume that he's not confronting her about it because he wants her to keep communicating with Safe Haven so he can find out who and what is involved."

"That has been his goal from the start," Kian said. "He knows something is up, but he doesn't know what, so he sends Sofia with a double purpose. If she finds out something, that's great, and if she doesn't and gets caught, he can follow the tracker inside of her and find out where she was taken. Right now, we have the advantage of him believing in a plausible story that leaves Jade out. As far as he's concerned, she might be interested in finding more about paranormal talents to see if she can enhance hers in some way and get free from his compulsion, or she's looking for information about other talents that might assist her in some way."

Turner nodded. "Another thing he might do if we capture the tail is retaliate against Sofia's family, or he might flee. He might also assume that we fed Sofia lies, and that she told him the truth as she knew it. If that’s the case, he will send more people to investigate what’s going on here."

"Isn't the same true for capturing one of his males during the hunts they go on?" Kian asked. "That will also serve as an alert and trigger the same chain of responses from him."

"I'll contact my guy in Russia and ask him to get one of those tiny bug drones. From what we've learned from Sofia, the Kra-ell are using old-school methods to hide, and they probably don't have sophisticated equipment to detect a small drone."

"Their eyesight and hearing are just as good as ours. They might be able to detect it without any equipment."