Chapter 53

I jumped up from the spot on the floor, recoiling away from Ethan and trying to dust myself off. Olivia and Mars entered the living room, panicked and angry. I hoped she didn’t question why Ethan and I were together in the living room wearing the same clothes we wore the day before.

She didn’t even seem to notice, though. Too occupied with her yelling and emotions. Which, I thought to myself bitterly, it was far too early to be making such a fuss.

“He’s been spying on you, on all of us!” Olivia cried out, gesturing to Ethan, I, and herself.

Mars lifted his hand to interject quickly, “Not me, he still thinks I’m loyal to him.”

Ethan shoots him a less-than-amused look, and I see a glimpse of that mischievous smirk that he had back when I first met him. As it turns out, and I didn’t know this before, but Mars was actually the second in command at Andrew’s company.

After I learned that, it made way more sense as to why he knew so much about Andrew and his business situation.

“How do you know?” I asked, rubbing my eyes and wishing I had time to at least brush my teeth before this meeting.

“He’s using someone we wouldn’t expect,” Olivia looked between us conspiratorially. When her eyes lingered on me for a moment, I thought she was going to accuse me of being the spy.

Ethan looked between her and I, stepped between us and asked who Olivia thought the spy was.

“Sarah.” She shook her head. “Andrew thought we wouldn’t notice if she was in the same places that we were all the time. Since she’s so close to you” - She gestured between Ethan and I - “he knew she was the best choice.”

I grimaced. Sarah did tend to frequent Ethan’s work and the same parties that we attended. She claimed it was for work, I never thought to question it, and it did start to make sense how she always knew where to find me out of nowhere. Like the time she cornered me in the pastry shop.

“She’s a conniving little-” Mars grit his teeth. Apparently, he liked Sarah about as much as I did. Ethan cut him off, though, before he could finish whatever wicked thing he was going to call her.

“We need to figure out a plan moving forward.” Ethan rubbed the sleep from his eyes, “Give Ava and I a moment to wake up and change. Then we’ll discuss it.”

Olivia’s eyes widened and that’s when she noticed what I was wearing. The same clothes I said goodbye to her in the day before, Ethan as well. She narrowed her eyes at me, and I ducked away and up the stairs. Guilt buried itself in the crevices of my abdomen.

“Alright,” Ethan clapped as he returned to the living room. I followed him, freshly changed and my teeth brushed. “Let’s get a game plan.”

Olivia and Mars were sitting together on the couch, and they shifted away from each other as Ethan and I got closer. I thought it was strange, but didn’t consider it anymore past that.

“I say we corner Sarah and either pay her off or threaten her to stop working for Andrew,” Mars suggested, ever the impulsive one. Ethan gave him a sharp look and shook his head.

“That would never work, she’d take the money and still tell him, or tell him and then he’d know we knew.” Ethan rubbed his jaw slowly, thinking.

“We could just start making sure we are in private before you talk about business or anything else.” I suggested, “Like how we are now.”

Ethan gave me a small smile, “That would be ideal, but I can’t start working from home. There are surely spies working for Sarah in my office as well.”

There was a long moment of silence as everyone tried to puzzle out the problem in their minds. I had no thoughts, no ways to help. It was a major blow to my ego. This was all so far out of my skill set.

I learned how to be a Luna, not a schemer or a spy. I didn’t know how to navigate traitors and two-faced wolves like Sarah. Ethan, Mars, and Olivia were born into this world. I was just visiting for a little while.

“Oh!” Olivia jumped up from the couch and rounded on her heel to address us. “I’ve got it!”

We all looked at her expectantly.

“What if we start lying in front of Sarah. Start feeding her the wrong information, tell her things that will get Andrew off our trail.” Olivia’s eyes were wide with glee as she spoke.

Ethan and Mars looked at her, similarly delighted.

“That’s a great idea!” Ethan smiled and jumped up as well. “And I know exactly the first person who will tell her our little lies.”

I watched as three heads turned to look in my direction.

“You mean me?” I asked, my index finger pointed at my own chest. “Sarah isn’t going to talk to me. She hates me.”

“Exactly,” Ethan said, a sympathetic smile on his face. “She hates you and has a reason to talk to you.”

I queried my brow, “What do you mean?”

“Well, I know you and Sarah have talked privately before.” Ethan said. “And, she had something to do with Dora’s video, right? You confront her about that and ‘accidentally’ tell her some lies about me and Blue Moon Group. That way he’s chasing his tail instead of us.”

I didn’t know Ethan knew I’d talked to Sarah privately before. Did he know about the conversation between him and Mars that she told me about? If he did, why wouldn’t he talk to me about it - or was he waiting for me to bring it up?

My mind whirled with unanswered questions, but everyone looked at me expectantly, wanting me to agree. Of course, I had to. There was no way I could say no to them. It was a real problem.

“Alright,” I relented with a deep sigh. The thought of being in a room with Sarah, and Sarah alone, made my stomach constrict with anxiety. She was intimidating, mean. The idea terrified me.

“We’ll need to discuss what you’re going to say. Figure out a script or something,” Mars piped up for the first time in a while. He looked considerably calmer than he had when he broke into the house earlier, but his eyes were dark with that underlying anger he consistently had as of late.

“I can tell her that Blue Moon Group is looking into investing in sock puppets,” I joked. Ethan and Olivia let a puff of air escape from their noses, very amused. Mars just narrowed his eyes at me. He never did like me, and for some reason he was getting more and more obvious about it.

“A fake investment opportunity isn’t a bad idea,” Ethan shook his head with a chuckle, “Maybe something a little less outlandish, though.”

“Fine,” I grinned and playfully rolled my eyes.

“First,” Olivia approached me, placing a hand on my shoulder. “We need to get a meeting set up with Sarah.”

I nodded, and pulled out my phone. Olivia had her number, and Mars and Ethan were debating what the best text to send would be.

Eventually we figured it out.

To: Sarah [Text from Ava]

Hey Sarah, it’s Ava. Listen, I want to talk to you about that interview you did after Dora’s video went viral.

Meet me at the pastry shop beside Blue Moon Group?

Ava

To: Ava [Text from Sarah]

Sure.