I burst out laughing. Maybe it was just the alcohol, but James’ presence here seemed to bring me comfort. I’d used to drink here alone, and now I had a drinking partner. A partner, huh. That sounded so weird that I decided not to think about it.

What I really wanted was to run my fingers through his hair and pull his lips to mine, especially when he was looking at me as if he desired the same thing, but we were both tipsy and this wasn’t the right time, so I clamped down on my thoughts and locked them away.

Chapter 19

IN THE END, IT HAD taken me more than six weeks to plan the attack on the Desaltis, since they’d upped their protection, which, of course, was a problem if we wanted to defeat them. But they couldn’t keep their men everywhere and always be ready for us, so as soon as Meg got her hands on the information about their next shipment, I’d decided it was time to retaliate.

I hadn’t received any kind of response from the Desaltis for the gift that I’d sent them, but I’d heard from a spy who was in the Desaltis’ territory that Romeo had been furious. Today, though, we were going to hit them and do it hard. They hadn’t tried to attack any of our other shipments or stash houses, but I assumed that was because they didn’t know for sure where we’d stored the drug we’d taken from Desmond’s secret house, and they didn’t want to lose any more men until they had more information. Since Brent had intended to rule, I assumed he hadn’t told them where we’d stored the drug.

Petra had been doing some tests and she’d figured out what the drug was made of, but the names of the chemical components she’d mentioned hadn’t even sounded familiar to me. She’d decided to call it Quick Pop because, apparently, its effects began rapidly and wore off quickly, but I intended to change that name if we ever decided to distribute it. There was still the question of testing it on a few human subjects, so I was hoping we’d get a few of those today when we visited the Desaltis. If the drug was deemed relatively safe, I’d have to find someone who could produce more of it.

“We’re almost there,” the man in the passenger seat said as I glanced through the window at the blurry streets and people as we whizzed past them. If we wanted to catch the Desaltis by surprise, we had to get to their stash house really fast. I turned toward James, who was sitting next to me. I’d debated about taking him along with me, but he’d told me not to worry about it because he wanted to come anyway.