corner table in the room. The aide slammed his fist down on the hard surface, making her jump and yelp with fear.
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
She glanced around and realized they’d planned this out very carefully. She was seated in a corner of the room, behind a cabinet, which meant she was out of sight from the two-way window. Hiren and Sevith couldn’t see her or feel her. And since she was with an aide of such a high-ranking human and in the very next room for only a few minutes, she was certain her men thought she was fine.
Which meant she was totally on her own.
“Listen up, you low-class bitch,” the heavy-set man snarled. “You have been given a golden opportunity here to serve your people. Your country. Your own kind.”
“Did you just call me a bitch?” Jenna clenched her jaw and scowled up at him, her fear receding and replaced with anger. She leaned back and crossed her arms. “Who the hell are you?”
He slammed his fist down again, though this time Jenna barely flinched. Fucker. He was not going to scare her. She knew he couldn’t actually physically hurt her. If he did, Sevith and Hiren would kill him, and he knew that.
“Those two Drokten you’re fucking represent a massive threat to the safety and continuation of our species,” he sneered. “They are a pockmark, a scourge on our precious planet. They have a wealth of information the state could use against the Drokten occupation. You know why you’ve been brought here unless you’re a complete imbecile.”
“I literally have no idea.”
“You’re going to get us the information we need to rid us of the Drokten.”
Holy crap. This was the craziest plan she’d ever heard. “You want me to spy on them?” Spy on the two males who wanted to marry her, the males she cared so much for. Spy on the heroes who’d saved their world?
“Precisely,” the aide snapped. “We want you to give us any intel you can on how to take them down.”
“And I would do this… why?” Jenna scoffed and shook her head. Because never, in a million years would she…
Then the man whipped a photograph out of his pocket and slapped it onto the table.
Jenna choked.
Tears immediately burned the back of her throat. Bea and Noah. The photo was taken without their noticing, probably from a relative distance. However, there were no blue Drokten guards in the frame, revealing that there were plenty of opportunities for her innocent siblings to fall into the wrong hands.
She glared at the asshole in the room. “You’re blackmailing me?”
“I’m threatening you.”
“Leave my brother and sister out of this. It has nothing to do with them,” she warned.
“On the contrary, it has everything to do with them because it has to do with you and your bizarre, unholy bond with those two Drokten leaders. You’re in a prime position to get the kind of information we need to topple their oppression over our people,” the aide ranted.
“Oppression?” Jenna repeated incredulously, scoffing for good measure. “What are you talking about? The Drokten saved us from the Zignills invasion. We should be thankful.”
The man groaned in frustration. “We’ve traded one alien occupation for another. Either way, we are captives on our own planet and that is unacceptable. The human race is the singular species in the cosmos. We are meant to rule. Our planet was crafted solely for the use of human beings. And you will be the one to give us the information we need to rid ourselves of these disgusting aliens.”
“But I—I don’t want to hurt them, and I don’t want anyone else to be hurt.”
“That’s too bad. You must make a decision. The Drokten bastards, or your own family. Take your pick, girl. But if you make the wrong decision, we will declare you an unfit guardian and you’ll never see your brother and sister again. We’re ready to take them from school right this moment and into foster care.”
Jenna’s heart raced as she tried to make sense of the whole thing. How could this have happened? All she wanted was to build a better life for her broken family and now she faced the very real, very believable threat of having Noah and Beatrice taken from her. She had already lost her parents. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing her siblings, too. Even if it meant treachery, betrayal, danger… They were hers to guard and defend, no matter the cost.
“We could never live in