“Don’t bet on that,” Marc mumbled, leaning against the cabin wall beside me, only a few inches away this time. “His first act as council chair will be finding a way to get rid of me.”

“That won’t be easy.” Jace sat on the top step, facing us. “This is a pretty damn hostile takeover, and he’s gonna have Faythe’s dad, her uncle, Bert Di Carlo, and Aaron Taylor fighting him every step of the way. Which means that for even a simple majority—that vital six out of ten votes—he’s gonna need Blackwell.”

Marc kicked a pinecone across the dead grass. “Paul Blackwell isn’t going to lift a finger to keep me here, even knowing what Malone tried to do to us.”

“Yes, he will,” I insisted, grasping for the silver lining surely edging the storm cloud that had just rolled over us. “Blackwell may not be openminded or progressive, but if Malone forgets to cross one single T, the old man will vote against him. In fact, I bet Blackwell will be looking for legitimate reasons to go anti-Malone.”

Marc shrugged. “So Malone will do what he always does—hide his personal agenda within some technically valid, if morally repugnant, new proposition. Either way, he’s going to make our lives hell.”

“I know.” There was no way around that. And I’d be next on his list of lives to ruin. Experience had already shown us that Malone was willing to do anything to marry off as many of his sons as possible into Prides where they could later become Alphas, thus putting a considerable piece of the territorial pie under his own paw. He’d already mentally paired me with Alex, his oldest son, now that Brett was dead. And I had no doubt that he’d use our trespass onto his territory to get rid of Marc and try to blackmail me into a position that would better benefit him.

Jace would be harder to dispose of. He was neither a stray nor a shrew, and he wasn’t technically guilty of trespassing, because he’d been invited by his mother, to mourn his brother’s death with the rest of the family.

But we all knew Malone would kill Jace if the opportunity presented itself. After killing his own firstborn son, taking out the stepson he’d never liked in the first place wouldn’t even faze him. Especially if it could be written off as self-defense, or somehow otherwise justifiable.

Jace sighed, and his warm puff of breath was visible in the glow from the porch light. “There has to be a way around this. We’re screwed so long as Cal’s in charge.”

“So let’s get him fired,” I whispered, to guard against eavesdroppers. I pushed myself away from the wall, clinging to the only bit of hope I could see on the horizon, far-fetched though it was. “Let’s go back to the Flight and snag a witness. Now, before Malone has a chance to come up with some reason to outlaw thunderbird testimony. We already know Blackwell’s not going to support him on that one.”

“But do we really want to squander our best asset on testimony?” Marc asked, his voice as soft as mine.

The thunderbirds owed me a favor for saving the life of one of their young when Lance Pierce took her hostage in a last-ditch effort to save himself. And they were eager to remove themselves from my debt. But we’d been saving that favor, planning to ask for their services as air support in our inevitable, imminent war against Malone. The thunderbirds were ferocious adversaries, and we had yet to come up with a way to defend against attacks from on high, short of shooting them out of the sky. But if we called in my favor for testimony instead, we’d lose our only real advantage against the Appalachian Pride and its allies.

“I don’t know…” Jace began. “If the testimony works and Cal gets tossed out, we won’t need to fight, right?”

“We will if he decides to take his position back by force,” Marc said. “We already know he’s been stockpiling both enforcers and allies, so we have to be prepared to defend against the backlash.”

I thought for a moment, pulling a tissue from my pocket to wipe my dripping nose. “So, if we’re going to fight anyway, asking one of the thunderbirds to testify is pointless. Especially if it means giving them up as allies in battle.”

“Exactly.” Marc nodded firmly, still speaking in a whisper. “The way I see it, we gave peace a chance, and peace screwed us over. It’s time to get serious. Time to avenge Ethan—” Malone had sent the contingent that killed Ethan and tried to take Kaci “—and put an end to Malone’s tyranny permanently.”

“And for that we need to officially enlist our special forces.” I nodded, pleased with the direction our discussion had taken. “We can leave tonight and be there first thing in the morning.”

“Where you going?” Colin Dean stepped around the corner of the cabin, and I froze. My enthusiasm for the road trip/assignment flared into a blaze of anger in my chest that eerily mimicked vicious heartburn. “Romantic getaway to ease the sting of total failure? Just the three of you, or are you hoping to add a fourth? Rumor has it you’re pretty hard to keep satisfied. Right, Marc?”

Marc snarled and lunged for Dean. I grabbed him from behind as Jace stepped in front of Dean to protect him from Marc, and Marc from assault charges.

“Marc, stop!” I shouted, digging my heels into the frozen ground to hold him back. “He’s not worth it!”

Dean only laughed, inches from Jace’s chest, because he refused to back down, either to avoid admitting he was in any danger, or because he wanted to fight Marc—so long as Marc took the first swing.