Rule and Ruin

twelve; the real enemy

chapter twelve.

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REN CAME BACK in and slammed a glass of water in front of her. Half of it spilled out onto the table.

"Now that we're all up to date," he said sourly, "What's the plan?"

Nix tore his gaze from Selene and opened the file on the table. It was the one he had taken from the safe that day he attacked her. "Here's what we got. A floorplan, a guest list, and a date and time."

Selene looked the file once over.

"Should we really be talking about this when there are fragile people in the room?" Ren snarked. Selene clenched her fists but kept her eyes trained on the file.

"Ren, play nice," Nix scolded his friend. "We need all the help we can get."

"Some help she turned out to be," Ren scoffed.

"We don't have a lot of time," Nix said. "According to this, it's happening on August 13th. That leaves us 15 days fo figure out where it is and how we're getting in. If we split - "

"I know where it is," Selene said suddenly. Her eyes continued to roam the detailed floor plan, zoning in on the familiar words that jumped out at her. She didn't want to believe it, but there they were.

The boys looked at her with expected urgency.

"He held my birthday party there," she said, almost to herself. Leaning back in her chair, she repeated, "He held my fucking birthday party there."

Her tone was laced with disgust - whether for Dino or for herself, she wasn't sure. She remembered how she had roamed those beautiful halls, completely oblivious to the architectural hell it actually was.

She had celebrated her birthday there.

Nix stared at her for a while before closing the file, "Well there you go. Saved us a lot of trouble."

Selene looked at nothingness in the air.

Nix regarded her carefully, as if aware of the turmoil in her mind.

"Well, where is it?" Ren snapped.

His impatient tone snapped Selene back to reality.

She narrowed her eyes. "If it's a child sex trafficking ring, why the fuck are you trying to get in?" she looked at him accusingly. He didn't seem like that type of guy, but she'd recently learned she didn't know people as well as she thought.

"Not for the reasons you're thinking," Nix rolled his eyes but did not elaborate.

"I'm just supposed to believe that you have good intentions?" she said incredulously.

"Nobody said they were good," he shrugged, "but they're not bad. Selfish at best."

Selene hated the stupid games in his words.

"If I don't know what you want," she said, "why should I help you?"

Ren mumbled something under his breath.

Nix just continued looking at her. There was a laziness in his gaze, as if he knew he had all the power and she had absolutely none.

"Because what I want is what you want," he said. "And I probably want it more."

I want to see Dino destroyed.

Selene frowned at his non answer. She was annoyed she still didn't know anything about him.

"Anyways," Nix redirected. "We're going to need you to tell us everything you know about the place and Dino's security system."

She forgot about this part. She forgot being a traitor meant doing traitorous things. It meant spilling secrets. Giving up information. Playing into the enemy's game.

At this point, she couldn't even tell who the real enemy was.

It might as well have been herself.