Page 5 of Dark Gambit: The Play

"Before the call, she seemed hopeful, but when Kalugal failed to override the compulsion, her mood took a nosedive."

"That's a good sign, right? She wants to cooperate with us."

"I think so. But she might also be a good actress."

"What do you mean? Was she pretending that it wasn't working?"

"She couldn't do that. Kalugal used compulsion when he asked her the compeller's name, and she still couldn't answer him. However, she could have been pretending to be frustrated by his failure to release her mind."

"Yeah. That's possible." Eleanor didn't sound like she shared his opinion, which made him hopeful. The woman was a big-time skeptic, and her default position was mistrust. If she didn't think that Sofia was acting, then maybe she wasn't.

"Thanks for getting the medication."

"You're welcome." Eleanor ended the call.

As he headed back to the bedroom, Marcel was glad Eleanor hadn't put Sofia in the one they'd used the night before. It would have been too painful to be back there with her and look at the bed they'd shared.

It was just his rotten luck that the best night of his life had been followed by such a miserable day, but despite the lingering bitter sense of betrayal that filled his gut with acid, it still couldn't compete with the worst day of his life.

Not by a long shot.

In comparison to what he'd been through, it was just an unpleasant bump in the road.

So why did it hurt so damn bad?

Perhaps the saying that time healed all wounds was true, and that's why what should have felt no worse than a paper cut felt like he was once again being torn apart.

He was about to open the door when his phone rang, and as he pulled it out of his pocket, he expected it to be Eleanor, but it was Kian.

"Hello, boss."

"I spoke to Kalugal," Kian said. "He told me that it didn't work."

"It didn't. What do we do now?"

"I have Turner here with me, and we have a plan ready to deploy."

Frowning, Marcel turned around and walked back to the living room. "What's the plan?" He sat down on the couch.

"I'm sending Julian over with an MRI machine and a team of Guardians. After they collect the MRI from the old clinic, they will head straight to the airstrip. They should land in Eugene Airport in three and a half hours. From there it will take them another hour and a half to get to Safe Haven. Julian is going to run Sofia through the machine to make sure that she doesn't have location trackers implanted in her body. If she does, he will remove them. Once she's clean, the Guardians will take her to a safe location to meet Toven. Hopefully, he will be able to unlock her mind."

Marcel tensed. Kian was going all out on the case, and he was deploying the big guns, which meant that Turner foresaw even more troubling outcomes.

"If Toven can't do that, we are in deep trouble, aren't we?"

"We are taking precautions to minimize the risk. I'm just glad that the compeller chose Emmett as his target and not you or Leon, and that Eleanor stopped him in time. The Fates were looking out for us."

The Fates, or Sofia?

It would have been much easier for her to convince the guy she'd just seduced and who she must have realized was falling for her to call the compeller than to have Emmett do that. She knew that Marcel was working on a secret project, and if she’d asked him to call her father, he would have done it for her without giving it a second thought.

Had she been protecting him by diverting the compeller's attention to Emmett? Or had it been the compeller's choice to speak with the head of Safe Haven?

Hopefully, Toven would be able to get all those answers from her.

"Can I go with Sofia to see Toven?" Marcel asked.

"Of course. Make sure that she rests and is ready when Julian arrives with the machine. I don't want to waste any time."