She shot Trey a smile, but even that seemed to lack true joy. I wondered how much of their relationship was real and how much was simply fuelled by spite. "Unlike you, he's not afraid to be himself with me. He doesn't treat me like a child who can't handle the truth. He told me who he was, who you were, the way you all treated him, and soon it became clear that our goals overlapped. I realised what we had to do."
I glanced at Sophia, hoping the sight of her would steady me a little. She looked almost as surprised as I felt.
"Well, it looks like you succeeded," I said heavily. "You've got me. Whatever it is you want, Sophia has nothing to do with it. You can let her go now. This is between you two, me, and the group."
Sophia let out a high pitched squeal and shook her head rapidly. I loved that she wasn't willing to leave me behind, but I wasn't going to let her throw her life away for my sake. I'd cost her so much already.
"Well, isn't that touching," Liv replied, her voice dripping with scorn. "Trey told me you two had fallen hard for each other." For the first time, she turned her attention to Sophia. Walking closer, she dipped a hand under her chin, stroking it with one finger. Sophia tried to pull away, but Liv's grip closed around her face, angling her head upwards. Every fibre of my being wanted to stride over there and tear those hands away but, somehow, I restrained myself. We were still poised on a knife's edge. All I could do was watch as Liv appraised Sophia, envy and hatred blazing in her eyes. "To be honest, I'm not sure I see what all the fuss is about."
She turned back to me. "You want us to let her go? Well, that's entirely up to you. Let's see exactly how much you love her." She nodded to Trey.
"It's simple really," he said, gesturing to the Alpha computer terminal at the end of the room. "You log me into the system, we release her."
"I don't understand," I replied. "You want council access to the network?"
He grinned. "Remember what I said about thinking big? No, council access won't be enough I'm afraid. I want the main international database. My employers want access to everything."
"Your employers?"
He spread his hands. "The Syndicate. You don't think we hired all those men ourselves, do you? No, we've had a little support. Once I told them what we could bring to the table, it wasn't difficult to convince them to give me a position in their organisation. A senior position."
So The Syndicate was involved. I shook my head. The level of betrayal was beyond anything I could have imagined. Trey was quite happy to destroy the entire group, all two thousand years of history, to feed his desperate ego. And Liv, my God. I knew I'd hurt her, but I never dreamed she'd be capable of something like this. Then again, one look at her and it was clear that the woman I'd fallen in love with was nowhere in sight. All that was left was a bitter parody.
I needed to focus. Something he'd said didn't make sense. "Only the current Archon can give you that kind of access. You know that."
He gave a little laugh. "This isn't the time to play games, Sebastian. What do you think we've been doing for the last two years? We've been working out who runs the show. We couldn't see the actual orders of course, but you might be aware that Liv is a little handy with a PC. She actually managed to get a few bits of software piggybacking on your system, while you two were still together, so between that and my basic Alpha access, we've been able to build a pretty accurate picture of the way information in the group flows."
I felt a glimmer of hope, the tiniest hint of light at the end of the tunnel. "And you think it comes from me?"
Trey nodded. "Until a few weeks ago, we had it narrowed down to three. You, Simon, or Charlie. At that point we decided it was more effective to just ask. After giving the others a little more... incentive to tell the truth, they still denied it. Which just leaves you. I have to admit, I was pretty pissed off when you managed to find Sophia the first time. That set us back several weeks. Not to mention Ewan's little stunt." He gestured to the room around us and smiled. "But I guess it all worked out in the end, and that's what counts."
I let my shoulders sag a little, trying to play along. "And what do you get out of all of this?" I asked Liv.
"Oh, my aspirations aren't nearly as grand," she replied. "Revenge will do me just fine. I'm so glad it turned out to be you. We had our suspicions, even from the start, but we couldn't rely just on those. Now we get to take care of everything all at once. It's so much neater this way."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then we kill both of you, drag you over, and swipe your thumb on the scanner anyway." Her voice was ice cold.
"So why not simply do that to start with?" I asked. "Save yourself all this hassle?"
Liv's expression twisted even further. "I'd rather you were alive to watch it happen."
She'd obviously intended to sound like she was talking about the downfall of Alpha, but the way her eyes narrowed fractionally and darted to Sophia as she spoke said it was more than that. I suspected that the moment I gave them what they wanted, Liv was going to have Trey shoot her in front of me and let me watch her die. My group and my girl in one single move. The ultimate payback for the pain I'd caused her.
Judging by the expression on Sophia's face, she realised the truth as well. Whatever flimsy mask of self-control she'd been maintaining so far had crumpled. She looked absolutely terrified. My mind was madly scrabbling for a way to let her know that we weren't totally out of the game. We were only going to have a tiny window of opportunity and I needed her to be ready, but anything I said would tip our hand. And then it came to me.
"You promise you'll let her go?" I asked.
Liv smirked. "Cross my heart."
My death, on the other hand, was apparently a given, but I'd anticipated that the moment I walked through the door.
I nodded slowly and began moving over to the computer terminal. Trey followed, gun trained on my chest. "Don't try anything clever. I'm going to bring up the root Alpha portal, and you're going to swipe your thumb for access, then back away. Understand?"
"Yep."
He opened the program. "All yours."
I reached out, and then paused with my thumb over the pad. "You know this is really sweet," I said, gesturing between the two of them. "A real Cinderella story."
A look of confusion crossed both their faces, but I wasn't really paying attention to them. I was staring at Sophia. For a second, she looked perplexed too, but then her eyes lit up as she recognised the safe word she'd picked the first time we were together. Bingo. I tried to draw a line between her and the floor with my eyes, and she gave a tiny nod. It would have to be enough.