Savage Queen (The Dark Elite #3) - Eva Ashwood Page 0,30

a traitor and that he had a hand in Damian’s death. But when Hale delves into who Leland was working for, naming my mother as the leader of the Rook Syndicate, I can feel the entire atmosphere of the room shift.

Gazes dart in my direction, and I see Frank LeBlanc and Stanley Wheeler murmuring quietly among themselves at the back of the room.

Hale raises a hand, once again making the room fall silent. He glances from face to face, his expression steely.

“Grace is not her mother. The sins of Camilla Weston do not rest on her shoulders. Nor do the sins of Samuel Weston, for that matter.” He gestures to me. “I trust the woman sitting beside me, and I will not have that questioned. Samuel, like my own father, is dead. The only Weston we need to be concerned about now is Camilla. She is the enemy, the one responsible for trying to destroy our family. Do you all understand?”

There are nods and murmurs of assent. Frank and Stanley don’t look happy, but they both nod as well. I take some solace in the fact that their dislike and distrust of me probably means they truly aren’t working with my mother.

“Camilla has requested a meeting with Grace,” Hale continues. “And we’ve decided to agree. I don’t like it, but it will give us a chance to feel her out, to find out what she’s after and how she plans to get it. I’ll want several teams involved in that, and once a location is agreed on, we’ll work out the details. Grace’s safety during the face-to-face is our utmost priority.”

He continues speaking, asking questions of his men and plotting out a course of action. As they offer up their opinions and suggestions, I watch Hale listen intently to each one, weighing it carefully before making a decision.

He’s a good leader, I realize. Better than I think he even knows. I’m certain he wishes it was still his father in that chair, his father whose responsibility it was to bring his organization out of this dark time.

But whether he sees it or not, they’re lucky to have a man like Hale at the helm. His father would be proud of the leader his son has become, even in such a short time.

I just hope it’s enough to get us all out of this mess alive.

11

Grace

The next two days are a whirlwind.

By agreeing to meet with Camilla, I’ve agreed to completely and utterly submerge myself into the world of the mafia, and if there was no turning back before, there’s certainly no backing out now.

There are endless meetings.

Security briefings.

Plans made for every possible contingency.

Zaid and Lucas have already mapped out the warehouse that Camilla requested to meet in, an abandoned shipping facility on a deserted side of town, and just yesterday I spent hours with the guys and a team of men, going over positions. We’ve mapped out exactly where everyone will be positioned and where the backup crews are going to be. Vans full of mafia men in critical locations go as far out as ten miles away from the warehouse, prepared for anything.

Hale isn’t messing around.

The meeting is set for seven p.m., so we head out at six thirty. An outside observer would guess, based on the sheer number of heavily armed men gathered around me as we walk toward the fleet of vehicles in the underground parking garage, that I’m someone of great importance. Looking at the guards that flank me on every side, they might imagine I was their mafia queen, their very own Camilla.

Fuck. I hate that I am my mother’s daughter.

But I remind myself that this is what tonight is about. I’m not only going to this meeting for the sake of the Novak Syndicate, but also going for myself—to see exactly what I came from, and who this woman has turned out to be.

Who I could turn out to be.

The drive is quiet, everyone laser-focused and tense. Finally, the van pulls up to the warehouse, and as it rolls to a stop, my heart rate jumps.

This place is nothing short of creepy. Camilla—I can’t bring myself to think of her as Mom—chose her location well. The Chicago fog rolls in, thick and tinted yellow by the few streetlights, and if it weren’t for the full moon, I’m not sure I’d even be able to see the warehouse.

My nerves are strangely steady. The last couple days have been so packed that I haven’t had time