“When I was ten years old, a stranger murdered my father in front of me.”
What?
“I thought my father was the strongest man in the world. I’d watched him fight bigger men, scarier men, and he won every time. Important people came to the house and gave my father respect. He was invincible.”
His face was completely flat, his voice devoid of any emotion, but his eyes boiled with magic. It splayed out of him, filling the vehicle, a violent, dangerous current.
“I watched him die. The stranger had stabbed him. My father sagged on the ground by the killer’s feet. He was trying to breathe, and bloody foam bubbled up from his mouth. I remember the fear in his eyes. I think he must have wondered if my mother and I would survive. My invincible father was dying, he was afraid, and I couldn’t do anything.”
There was an awful, raw sincerity in his voice, and it cut me like a knife.
“There were hundreds of people around us, and none of them tried to help. They just watched. Like me.”
“Where did it happen?” I asked softly.
“At a wedding. My father was the best man.”
My research into the family said his father had died, but no amount of online prying told me how. Now I knew. How horrifying it must’ve been for a young boy to stand there and watch his father bleed to death surrounded by people, none of whom moved to help. How did they manage to hide it?
“After the stranger killed my father, he walked by me, patted my shoulder, and said, ‘Sorry, kid. It’s business.’”
Oh my God.
“My grandfather explained it to me later. The groom was the intended target. My father had jumped in to save his best friend and died for it. And my grandfather spent years expounding on what an idiot my father was for putting his childhood friend’s safety before the needs of his family. A man provides for his family first; nothing else matters.”
He turned to look at me. All of the rage against the killer and against his grandfather flooded his eyes. That’s what people must have imagined Lucifer looked like—beautiful, frightening, and full of fury. His magic twisted and convulsed through the car, sparking with deep amber.
“Every person I ever eliminated was a murderer or worked for one. I’ve spent the last ten years trying to find the man who killed my father.” His voice was a ragged growl. “I found him. Now he wants to kill you.”
Arkan had murdered Alessandro’s father.
It explained so much. When he spoke of assassins, he barely managed to keep his hate under control, and I had never understood why. The database of professional killers who I thought were his rivals? They were his targets. That’s why Runa’s mother, an assassin, had hired him when she knew her life was in danger. It must’ve been known in their circles that the Artisan was an assassin who killed other killers. He was their boogeyman.
The silence lay heavy between us.
“Is that why you left six months ago?” I asked him. “To track Arkan down?”
The rage in his eyes subsided. He seemed almost relaxed now. He’d ripped his biggest secret out and offered it to me. The effort must’ve drained him to nothing.
“Yes.”
They fought and Alessandro lost. I sensed it the same way I sensed that his failure had seared him, tempering him like fire tempered a sword. He’d survived, but whatever he’d been through had burned off the veneer of playboy and Instagram idol. The Artisan was in the driver’s seat now.
“I didn’t get him,” he said. “I fucked that up too.”
Oh Alessandro. There was so much pain in those two sentences.
“I won’t let him hurt you.” His voice, so suffused with rage a moment ago, was ice cold now, measured and calm, and the determination in his eyes scared me more than his anger. “I’ll kill anyone who tries to end your life. I’ll answer any question you ask. I’ll pay any price to keep you alive. Let me protect you.”
His magic coiled around me, a current of warm sparks.
“Say yes, Catalina.”
“My permission isn’t necessary. Linus ordered me to work with you.”
“I don’t care what Linus said. I know you. If you don’t want to work with me, you’ll find a way to . . . not. I will protect you anyway, but if you’re always trying to lose me, it will make things harder. We’re so much stronger when we work together.”
If only it was that easy. Six months ago, just a glimpse of his grief and pain, and I would have fallen over myself to throw my arms around his neck and kiss him until the hurt inside him melted away. But I had learned that life was a vicious bitch and people were complicated. They lied to themselves.
“Do you want to protect me because of me or because it would throw a wrench into Arkan’s plans?”
He opened his mouth.
“Please, don’t answer,” I told him. “I have work to do now.”
I got out of the car. He followed. I walked up the brick steps, keyed the code into the lock, and opened the front door. The house stretched before us, cavernous and dark.
Alessandro stepped around me, moving in that stalking smooth way, raised his hand to the wall, and the lights came on. The house was white: white walls, white ceiling, white piano in the foyer on the ashy pine floor. It had a classic Texas layout, particular to “executive-style” homes—a grand foyer with vaulted ceilings that opened into the formal living room. A wall of windows directly opposite the front door offered the view of an infinity pool and a cabana bar illuminated by solar lights. On the right lay a formal dining room. On the left an office waited.
I turned left. The office was furnished in the traditional English-study style. Ornate mahogany shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling, wood paneling on the walls between two oversize windows, a large baroque desk, and a fireplace with a mantel of carved mahogany. An oil portrait of Lander Morton and a plump blond woman, both in their fifties, hung above the mantel. The only modern touches were electronic. A thoroughly modern computer with a huge screen, a printer, and several digital frames displaying pictures of the kids. A teenage boy, around fourteen or so, already echoing Felix in the build but not in his face, and two younger girls with long dark hair. Kids riding horses. Kids tubing on the river. Kids fishing in the ocean from a boat.
I walked around the desk and sat in the chair. Two picture frames flanked the monitor. On the right, the kids again, looking crestfallen and wearing brand-new school uniforms. On the left, a woman in her early thirties, slim, dark haired, with olive skin and big brown eyes. Felix’s wife and the children’s mother. According to Augustine’s dossier, she’d died three years ago. Rich or poor, mage or a dud, cancer didn’t discriminate.
I hated this part. Walking into someone else’s life, cut so abruptly short. The signs of things left undone everywhere. Notes scribbled on a pad of paper. A cup of half-finished coffee that nobody remembered to take to wash in the torrent of shock and grief. We were trespassing. Intruding on someone’s private existence without their permission.
I pushed the power button on the tower and the computer came to life with a soft whir. I pulled a USB stick I had taken from Rhino before I got into the car with Pete out of my pocket, plugged it in, and accessed the new drive. An icon of a heraldic shield with a styled B and S on it popped up. I clicked it and watched the program install.
Alessandro drifted through the office, looking at the pictures, studying the book spines on the shelves, and eventually came to stand beside me.
The installer finished. I pressed Windows and R. A Run window popped up and I typed “recent” into it. A new window opened, presenting me with a list of recently accessed files.
“What are you looking for?” he asked.
“Anything that has to do with the Pit. Felix was trying to keep what he found secret, so he likely saved it under some mundane name.”
I found the image from the file on the fourth try, saved as Sofia’s Dance Recital. There were two others, one from a different angle, and a close-up, zooming in on the churning ring wit
h the glowing bulb in it, all saved under innocuous names. I copied all three to the USB, right clicked them one by one, selecting Add to Scrubber, and combed the computer for anything else related to the Pit. There were three folders and a few dozen documents. I copied them to the USB, added them to the Scrubber as well, clicked the shield icon on the desktop, and watched the list populate in the window.
“What is this?” Alessandro asked.
“Bern’s Scrubber. It deletes the files and overwrites the disk space with random data over and over, making the files unrecoverable.”
He drifted to the other side of the desk and leaned against the bookshelves.
“Why are you doing this?”
“When your father died, did you search the Internet for the man who killed him?”
“I did.” His expression turned grimmer.
I nodded at the picture of the three teenagers. “If my father was murdered, I would get on his computer and I would try to find out everything I could. What he was doing, where, why, with whom. The theft of the Osiris serum is a huge failure for the US Assembly. They will do anything to erase the evidence of that failure.”
“Including killing children?” he asked.
“I would like to think not, but I don’t trust them enough to take that chance.”
The Scrubber chewed through the files one by one. The silence was almost unbearable. He tore himself open for me and I couldn’t just ignore it. I had to clear the air.
“Why do you care what happens to me, Alessandro?”
“Do you remember what you told me when I came to see you after the trials?” he asked.
No, I didn’t. I had rambled, because I thought my magic had affected him and I’d panicked.
“You said, ‘I want you to have a happy life. I want you to get to do all the things you want to do.’ And then you went on about how your powers had scrambled my brain and you were so sorry, but ‘it will wear off, I promise.’”
“All that?”
“Those were the highlights.”
His magic coiled around him, a focused dense current flashing with orange like a lethal serpent whose scales shimmered, catching some hidden light. Suddenly the office seemed too small and the distance between us nonexistent.
“I want you to have a happy life, Catalina. I want you to get to do all the things you want to do. It’s not everything I want but it will have to be enough.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re the person I care about the most.”
He had no idea how much that meant to me. Maybe . . .
No. He left before, he would leave again. It had been so hard when he left. If I let myself care about him now, the next time he walked away would shatter me. I couldn’t afford to be that hurt. I had to be sharp and capable. My family counted on me. Linus counted on me. I had to guard the people I loved from Victoria. I could never allow a repeat of what happened eighteen months ago.
And even if he meant every word he said, I wasn’t free. Victoria Tremaine made sure of that. There would be no future for me and Alessandro.
I had to pull myself together.
The Scrubber finished. I ordered it to uninstall itself and looked at him.
“What do you think your ‘uncle’ Lander wants?” My voice was even. Grandma Victoria’s lessons paying off.
“Punishment.”
I nodded. “Lander wants to punish, Linus wants the serum, the National Assembly wants to keep it all quiet, Augustine wants his fee, and the Pit Primes want their project reopened.” I reached out and brushed the frame with the three children. “I want to help them.”
“Noble. And foolish.”
“Says the man who ran into the building full of assassins to save a teenage kid. Ragnar Etterson still talks about how awesome you are. You have to be careful. If you show up unannounced when he is over at the house, he might faint.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I’m not naive, Alessandro. Since you left, I’ve seen and done things I never thought myself capable of. I know what my role is now. When I take on a case, I do my best to make sure that people devastated by whatever fucked-up mess I’m walking into can salvage some small part of their lives. I’m the mitigating factor.”
“The buffer.” His voice sounded bitter.
“Yes. What I do makes the world a little safer for my family. It makes a difference, and while it may not seem like much, to the people affected by it, my help is everything. These are the cards I was dealt, and I choose to play the game this way. I don’t need a rescue or your protection.”
I took the USB, shut down the computer, and walked to the door. Behind me, Alessandro turned off the lights. We left the house as we found it, dark and devoid of warmth.
We didn’t speak on the way out of the subdivision.
I should’ve never started this conversation. When I got into the car, I was okay. My emotions had taken a beating, but I was functional. Now . . .
“Ask me something else,” he said. “Ask me any question. I’ll answer.”
He must have realized that information about himself was the only currency he had, and he was desperately trying to spend it. For some unknown reason, I was that important to him.
He was waiting for my answer.
Stab him, Victoria’s voice said in my head. Stab him now, right into his soul, while he’s vulnerable, and slam this door shut forever. Do it before he hurts you again.
Victoria Tremaine’s granddaughter would’ve done it. Should have done it. But I was Catalina Baylor.
I couldn’t hurt him. I felt like crying from the sheer strain of it.
The truck in front of us slammed on the brakes. Alessandro braked hard, throwing an arm in front of me.
I would treat this as a professional partnership. Linus ordered me to work with Alessandro, after all. I would do what I had to do, and I would never let Alessandro or anyone else know what it cost me.
“Marat’s expecting me tomorrow at ten. Would you like to join me?”
“Yes,” he said.
“My family hates you. If they try to provoke you, don’t injure them.”
“I won’t,” he said.
“They don’t know I am a Deputy. They do know that I work for Linus, and that my assignments are government-related and confidential. They know I can’t refuse the jobs he gives me. They accept it, they help me, and they don’t ask questions. Please don’t put them in danger by saying too much.”
It didn’t hurt that being a Deputy Warden paid exceptionally well. Linus had failed to mention that part when he deputized me. When the first wire had landed in our account, I’d almost had a heart attack.
“I promise,” he said.
“Give me your number.”
He rattled it off and I added it to my contact list.
He turned the corner. Our guardhouse swung into view, lit up by floodlights. Alessandro brought the Spider to a smooth stop. He parked and moved to get out of the car.
“No need. I can open my own door.”
“Tomorrow,” he said.
“Yes. See you tomorrow.”
I got out of the car and headed to the guardhouse. I felt like I was bruised from the inside out.
Things would be so easy if it wasn’t for feelings.
Chapter 5
I walked to the window of the security booth and pressed my hand against the glass in the designated circle where small round holes had been drilled in the bulletproof glass. The tinted windows hid the two guards inside, and I felt slightly vulnerable.
“Password?” a clipped male voice demanded through the speaker.
“Manhunters from Venus.” Leon was in charge of the daily passphrases and he’d been working his way through the masters of sword and planet science fiction.
“Welcome home, Ms. Baylor.”
“Thank you, Samir.”
Metal clanged and a section of the barrier slid down. I walked through the gap and up the street, to the three-story brick building that s
erved as our temporary base.
When my father was dying of cancer, Mom sold our house to pay for his medical bills. Grandma Frida did the same, and we moved into a warehouse together, which we had split into an office, living space, and a motor pool for Grandma Frida’s armored car and mobile artillery business.
The warehouse was no more. Six months ago, an assassin attacked us and I caught him in an arcane circle. The spell failed to contain our combined magic, and the overflow exploded our home. If I craned my neck, I could see the empty lot where it had stood, and the guilt bit at me every time.
We had to stay somewhere, so Connor, who had bought up roughly two miles of real estate around the warehouse to keep Nevada and us safe when they were investigating the Sturm-Charles conspiracy, sold us one of the larger buildings and the three structures around it for the princely sum of one dollar. We tried to reason with him, but he refused to name a reasonable price, and we needed a place to stay, so I said thank you and took it. It allowed us to concentrate on hiring a new security force and banking money for a new house.
It also established a strong public link between our Houses. When I had become the official Head of the House after turning twenty-one, I’d fought tooth and nail to keep our two Houses separate in public view. I didn’t want us to be seen as a vassal House to House Rogan. Now my priorities had changed. Once Victoria Tremaine took an interest in your life, nothing was the same.
Leon’s Shelby was in his parking space. The other three family cars occupied their spots as well, and a big silver Range Rover took up the visitor’s spot. June, a compact white woman, leaned against the wall by the door. My older sister was in residence.
June nodded at me. She was short, with broad shoulders and muscular arms that showed definition even when she relaxed. Her caramel hair was pulled back from her face into a short braid. She was Nevada’s personal aegis, a shield mage. If someone shot at my sister, June’s magic would block the projectiles. Asking her to come inside was pointless. She would guard the door no matter what anybody said. I nodded back at her, punched the code into the lock, and stepped inside.
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