Of course they were. Darling couldn’t blame them. He’d be worried, too, if he didn’t know the truth. “Do we know anything about this Hector who’s leading the Resistance?” he asked Zarya.

“We didn’t have a Hector.”

Ryn sighed in disgust. “You do now.”

Zarya sputtered. “Where did he come from?”

“I have Syn working on that.” Unfortunately, Darling had had to pull Syn off that research to repair his face.

Could the timing for all this suck more?

Probably.

But honestly, all he wanted to do was spend one sedate night with Zarya and forget about politics. Instead, he was forced to deal with unnecessary drama. And for what?

One man’s grab for power? Or some misguided humanitarian who believed the idiocy he spewed?

At the end of the day, the answer didn’t matter. He had to squelch this before it got any bigger. As Nyk would say, Coura dona eck nonyun. “A headless snake doesn’t strike.”

Darling let out a tired breath. “I’ll move the meeting to tonight and try to nip this shit before it worsens. If I take Zarya with me, they can all see for themselves that she’s unharmed and not being held against her will.”

“All right, but I’m calling in some backup. Just in case.”

Zarya appreciated Ryn’s offer, but…“You know, the Tavali are going to stand out a bit at the CDS.”

“Not Tavali.” Ryn tucked his mobile in his pocket. “Sentella. No one will question if Nyk and Caillen are there.”

She liked that thought, and he was right. While they weren’t Caronese, they were aristos. It wasn’t unusual for foreign dignitaries to attend such meetings.

And there was another one who’d be even better than having them there. One who would know immediately if an attack on Darling was imminent. “What about Nero?”

A panicked look flashed across Ryn’s face before he caught himself. “You know about Nero?”

Afraid she might have given away Nero’s secret, she backpedaled. “Do you?”

Darling let out a short, bitter laugh. “If you’re asking about the family connection, Z, we know. It’s also why he can’t go near any aristo. If anyone recognizes him and who he really is, he’s screwed.”

“No,” Ryn corrected, “we’re talking beyond screwed to the infinite level. He’ll be hunted even worse than he already is.”

Zarya was trying to follow their conversation, but she was missing something. “Okay, now I think I’m lost. He’s your cousin. I don’t see why that would endanger him.” It seemed to her that being related to a family as powerful as the Cruels would be a major asset to anyone who wasn’t a Resistance member.

Ryn gave her a droll stare. “It’s not being our cousin that endangers him. He’s the last surviving member of the Trisani ruling family. Sole heir. In theory, he could petition the League to have his family lands and money returned to him from the humans—and I use that term loosely—who stole it from them after they enslaved everyone he was related to, and locked him in prison.”