“Were you able to hack into his texts or find out who he was messaging?” I assumed he’d been in contact with Romeo himself, but maybe there was another spy. “Can you make sure no one else is doing the same thing?”

She lifted her eyes toward me and gave me a wide-eyed look. “You don’t actually believe there’s another mole, do you?”

“No, but...” I sighed. “I’d feel better if we checked.”

“Yeah, of course.” She focused back on her screen.

“So? Anything?”

“Oh, right. Yeah. Brent was contacting an anonymous number, but the texts had simple encryption. Well, simple for me.” She flashed me a quick smile. “Anyway, he was planning to...” She blinked at the screen.

“He was planning what?” I wrung my fingers, waiting for her to say something.

“To lead instead of you,” she said quietly.

“How?”

“That syringe you found... It must have been for this. He planned for you to get injured in the attack on the Desaltis, and he wanted to convince you to agree to that plan. Once you were there, he intended to stab you with that syringe, which would incapacitate you, but you wouldn’t die. It would paralyze you. He’d say to everyone that you were wounded during the fight.”

I stared at her for a full minute while I processed what she’d just said. “So he wanted me to be bedridden, and he, as my second, intended to lead and say he was only following my orders?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Apparently, he’d convince everyone that it wouldn’t be safe for anyone else to be near you, and it’s questionable if you would even be able to speak if he kept administering drugs to you. But he promised Romeo that he’d make sure no one found out about their deal.”

“What the hell was their deal?” If that plan had actually worked... I didn’t even want to imagine it. A part of me wanted to bring Brent back from the dead and shoot him again.

“I don’t know. It looks like they wanted to divide the city between them. Brent was an idiot if he truly believed Romeo’s word. Romeo would never share anything. It would’ve just been easier for him to wipe you out and all of us with you if Brent was in charge.” Meg’s face was pale. “That’s...”

“When did all this start?”

“Let me see.” She was quiet for a few minutes. “It looks like it was recently. Right after you went to the Ezzatis’ house and found that guy. At least this phone was set up a little after that.”

“But why would Brent do that? Was he interested in the map? Did someone approach him and tell him it was valuable?”

“It looks like it was all because of your husband.”