Spending so much time in corporate headquarters for the Amazon faction has only driven home how much I prefer the Paine brothers’ way of doing things. The top tier Amazons are all CEOs and COOs and CFOs. They have hierarchies within hierarchies, and the constant dancing around each other exhausts even me, who’s outside it. As heir, Monroe is as close to the top as she can be without holding the throne, but that doesn’t stop others from challenging her in ways I barely understand. It’s a giant fucking headache. In the Raider faction, people seem to say what they mean and follow through on it, for better or worse. There are a lot less thinly veiled insults and undermining a person at every turn.

The Amazons like to pretend they’re so much better than everyone else in Sabine Valley. Superior in every way.

They’re all a bunch of fucking hypocrites.

“Monroe, can you take this report down in person? I don’t trust Rachel to understand our shorthand without having to double-check with me, so talking through it with her will cut down on my headache later.”

“Of course, Mother.” Monroe doesn’t hesitate to gather up the paperwork and start for the door. She might be the baddest bitch when it comes to dealing with everyone else, but when her mother issues commands, she doesn’t push back.

As soon as the door closes, Aisling steps between me and the door. “Shiloh, was it?”

I fight not to tense, to strike out, to scream in this woman’s face. “Please move out of the way. I’m her security—I’m going with her.”

She waves that away. “Monroe will be back in a moment.” Aisling might look like a fragile blond woman, but she’s got a steel backbone and a heartless streak. She eyes me. “You know, I’ve been doing some digging on the people who accompanied the Paine boys back to Sabine Valley.”

Alarm bells toll through my head, getting louder with each second that passes. She can’t know. She can’t. “And?”

“Every other person has an origin story.” She laughs a little. “Abel really went out and decided to build himself an island of misfit toys, didn’t he? I suppose one must work with what one has.”

It takes everything I have to maintain my relaxed pose. Aisling is across the room from me. While she might have a gun stashed in that smart pantsuit of hers, I highly doubt I’m in physical danger at the moment. She’s too smart to play things that way.

But if she recognizes me…