Alessandro pulled up the moment I stepped outside. I got into the car, and he drove without a word. We turned right and sped down the lone road. I should have been able to just ride next to him, but the ritual had become too ingrained. By the time the side road swung into view, I was breathing shallow and fast.
“Make a right,” I asked, choking on the words.
He did. We rolled down the deserted country lane for another five hundred feet, behind the curve hidden from the main road by some trees. A small parking lot sat in the middle of the grove, barely wide enough to turn around. I had found it the second time I’d come to see her, after I panicked in the parking lot and drove, half-blind and crying, desperate for a place to hide.
“Pull over, please.”
He pulled into the parking lot. The car stopped. Blood pounded in my ears. My breath came too fast, my chest hurt, my throat constricted, squeezed in an invisible noose. I undid my seat belt with shaking fingers and slumped over. My arms trembled.
Alessandro’s arms closed around me.
I drew a long shuddering breath. It sounded like a sob. I just couldn’t get enough air in my lungs and I felt like I was dying.
He rubbed my back, the heat of his hand shocking even through the fabric of my blouse. I was so cold, and he was warm.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured in my ear. “It will pass. I’ve got you. You’re safe. She can’t see us.”
I concentrated on breathing. There was no point in fighting it. I had to let it wash over me and let it pass. Just wait it out. It was scary, and it felt like dying, but it wouldn’t cause any lasting damage. I’d felt this before, and I was okay after. This would pass and I would be okay again.
He held me. He didn’t know it, but in that moment, I would have done anything to just keep holding on to him.
Gradually my breathing slowed. I straightened my back and leaned on the seat. Alessandro stood next to me, his arms still wrapped protectively around my shoulders. He must have gotten out of the truck, come around, and opened my door, and I hadn’t noticed any of it.
And now he had seen my moment of weakness. Ugh.
“I’m okay,” I told him. “Thank you.”
He brushed a strand of hair out of my face. His voice was quiet and warm. “Does this happen often?”
“No. Only after I see my grandmother. Talking to Victoria is like running along a razor-sharp blade. Sometimes I slip and she cuts me. Usually it isn’t this bad. The last time I just pulled over here and sat quietly for a couple of minutes.”
“What happened today to make it bad?”
“She wants me to twist Albert Ravenscroft’s arm to find out if his family is involved in the attacks on my family. I balked and she threatened to hurt Nevada’s baby.”
Alessandro’s amber eyes turned dark. “She would injure her own great-grandchild?”
“According to her, he would be House Rogan’s grandchild. He’s nothing to her. Nevada is nothing to her. They have the same talent, but Nevada chose Connor. Victoria will never forgive her.”
He leaned closer, his gaze searching my face. “Why are you her favorite? Does she have something on you? Did you promise her something?”
“Yes, I did.”
“What did you promise?”
“I don’t want to tell you.”
“Did it have something to do with me?”
He was too perceptive for his own good.
“What happened to you after you left?” Sometimes the best defense was a good offense.
Alessandro crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the open door. The sunlight filtered through the trees around us, painting glowing stripes on the pavement and the car. One stripe caught him and for a moment, before he shifted out of its way, he looked golden.
“I went to find my father’s killer. I was very full of myself then.”
“Was?”
“More than I am now.”
“How is that possible?”
He sighed, impossibly handsome. “I’m a miracle of nature.”
I raised my arms. “The defense rests its case, Your Honor.” My voice shook slightly. The last aftershocks of panic dying down.
He tilted his head. “Do you want me to take you home?”
“That’s the first question you’ve ducked since you came back.”
“You won’t tell me about the deal you made.”
Touché. I stepped out of the truck. He was in my way, and I had to brush by him. He raised his arm, blocking me. Our bodies connected. An electric spark of excitement dashed through me. I made a point of looking at his arm. He refused to move it. We stood way too close, the space between us so tense with expectation, if we closed the gap, we would explode.
“Where are you going?” His voice was low, intimate.
“Wherever I want.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Why do you want to know?”
This had to be the dumbest conversation ever. All of my brainpower was going into standing still and not raising my head to kiss him. He was barely touching me, but there was something hot and possessive in the way his fingers rested on my shoulder. I felt trapped, but there was no fear, only anticipation and lust, so much lust it was making my brain stutter.
He leaned half an inch closer, his eyes full of the orange fire that was his magic. This was the man who had stalked me through that MII hallway.
“Tell me where you want to go, and I’ll take you there.”
This was a dangerous conversation. “I don’t need you to take me anywhere. I can drive myself.”
He smiled, a slow predatory curving of lips. “But I’m such a good driver. Are you sure you don’t want me to give you a ride?”
“Are we still talking about the car?”
“You tell me.”
I tilted my head up and smiled at him. My wings unfurled from my back, translucent and radiant, like glowing gossamer. Alessandro looked at me with a desperate, quiet hunger.
“I’m going to see Albert Ravenscroft.”
“That’s what I thought. I will come with you.”
“No. I have to do this alone.”
“Don’t be difficult, Catalina.”
“If the Abyss attacks me, I will take away his matrix node. I’ve done it once already.”
“I checked on Albert. He, his father, his mother, and his younger brother are all Prime psionics. I’m not letting you walk into that house without backup.”
“I can handle the Ravenscrofts.”
He pretended to think it over. “No.”
“You are not in charge of me. According to the contract you signed with Linus, I can order you to leave.”
He leaned forward and smiled a sharp, predatory grin. “Fuck the contract.”
Wow. It’s like that, huh?
“I’ll make a deal with you,” I told him. “If I move you out of my way, you’ll surrender the driver’s seat and I will drop you off when we get back to town. If I can’t, I’ll let you come with me.”
“Mmm . . .” He pondered it, his gaze on my eyes, my lips, my wings . . . “Sounds like a good deal.”
“Can I trust you, Alessandro?”
“Yes.”
“You won’t go back on your word?”
“I won’t.”
Got you. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
I put my right hand on his left wrist and ran my fingers up his arm to his shoulder, feeling the steel-hard muscle.
“Good start?” I asked.
His voice was rougher. “Excellent start.”
I stepped back, sliding my hand back to his wrist. He followed. A step, another. Enough room.
I grabbed his wrist, raised it, turned into him so my back was pressed against his side and chest, locked my other hand on his shoulder, and straightened my legs, throwing all of my weight into it. He was several inches taller than me, which gave me the perfect leverage. My arm became a lever, my back became a pivot point, and Alessandro flew over my
head and landed on his back with a thud.
Stunned eyes stared at me. I crouched, kissed my fingertips, pressed them to his lips, and walked to the driver’s side.
He grinned and jumped to his feet without using his hands. “Good throw.”
Oh no. I popped the jaguar on the nose and now he was excited.
“Who taught you that move?”
“You don’t need to know. You just need to know that it works, and I have more. You lost. Get into your seat and be quiet. I’m driving.”
He shook his head. “It’s fine. I can find my way from here. I will see you tonight.”
“Suit yourself.”
He shut the door, and I drove off. He would be okay.
Albert Ravenscroft wouldn’t be.
Piney Point Village was my least favorite neighborhood. One of six independent villages in the Memorial Villages luxury bedroom community, it was officially the most expensive little town in Texas. The Wall Street Journal once called it the “(Multi) Millionaire’s Haven.” It was a place of old trees and old money, where ten-million-dollar estates perched among meticulous landscaping guarded by endless HOA restrictions.
I missed Alessandro.
The street ended in a cul-de-sac in front of a stone mansion, lit up by orange light. A couple of years ago, the house was a part of the Piney Point architectural tour and the pamphlet had described it as a chateau. The best French chateaux were solid stone structures under high-pitched roofs, carefully balanced to be graceful and stately. The monstrosity in front of me was anything but.
From where I sat, parked, I could see at least eight different roof lines, six chimneys, three different arches, a balcony with an eave that matched nothing, a single turret randomly mashed into a wall, a smaller servant’s entrance on one side under a cosmetic dormer, and a gated porte cochere, arched and decorated with quoins that weren’t anywhere else on the building. It was as if some drunken architects jammed chunks of different buildings into a bag, shook it, and let this ten-thousand-square-foot mutant fall out.
On second thought, it was good that Alessandro wasn’t with me. He grew up in Villa Sagredo, which started out as an ancient watchtower and became the center of a breathtaking mansion in the mid-Renaissance. Beautiful architecture was in his blood. This mess of a house would give him a seizure.
I stared at the mansion. The first time Albert approached me was at the Blue Bonnet charity event. I was there because Nevada had a conflict in her schedule and sent me in her place. Nobody knew who I was, and I was perfectly happy sitting at a nice table in the corner waiting for the opportunity to drop Nevada’s check into the basket at the end of the speeches. I sipped my mimosa, looked up, and there he was. He’d smiled at me and said, “Can I sit here? If I fall asleep, my family will never forgive me, and you are the only interesting person in the room.”
I didn’t want to hurt Albert.
But I had to know. We, as a House, had to know.
I got out of the truck, my tablet in my hands, and walked to the entrance. The wrought-iron gate securing access to the front door stood open and I rang the bell. A Hispanic woman answered and smiled at me.
“Good evening.”
“Good evening. May I have your name?”
“Catalina Baylor,” I told her.
“Cat?” Albert came around an ornate staircase. His face lit up. “You’re here.”
Ugh. Albert had determined at some point that I required a nickname, made one up, and persisted in using it. I hated it, but we had bigger things to fight about.
“Can we talk?” I asked.
“Of course.”
I followed him to the sitting area opposite the door, where plush beige chairs ringed a mahogany coffee table. A grand piano waited in the round niche on the left, raised on a dais. Albert’s mother was an accomplished musician.
Albert smiled at me. “What can I do for you?”
“Leon spoke to you about a girl he knows, Audrey.”
“The little stalker. I remember.”
“Did you tell anyone about it?”
The smile slid off his face. That clearly wasn’t the topic he was expecting.
“You told someone. Who did you tell? It’s very important to me.”
He tapped his knuckles against his mouth, thinking. “I don’t think I told anyone. Wait, I might have mentioned it to Dad. Yes, I think I did. Why?”
The bottom fell out of my stomach. That’s what I was afraid of. “Is your father home?”
Albert rolled his eyes. “It’s seven o’clock. Where else would he be? Come on, he’s in the study. Are you going to tell me what this is about?”
“Eventually.”
We wandered through the mansion to the study where the travertine floor gave way to dark wood paneling and floor-to-ceiling shelves. Christian Ravenscroft sat behind his desk, sipping coffee from a mug. He still wore a dark suit and a burgundy tie, as if he had just come home from the office. His hair receded, pure white like his eyebrows. His once-handsome face had grown heavier with age, its sharp lines turning square and blocky. He gave me a smile but didn’t rise. House Ravenscroft approved of Albert’s marriage ambitions, but to them I was “a nice girl,” polite, quiet, unlikely to embarrass them and therefore a good future spouse, but not quite on their level.
“Cat wants to talk to you, Dad.” Albert invited me to go ahead with a sweep of his hand.
“I’ll do my best,” Christian said. I was being humored.
“Maybe it would be better to speak in private,” I said.
“I have no secrets from my son.”
I surrendered to my fate. No matter how hard I tried, Albert wouldn’t be spared.
“Who did you tell about the connection between my cousin and Audrey Duarte?”
Silence fell on the study.
Christian frowned. He didn’t like the question or how I asked it. “Why would I know who your cousin is or care who he associates with? And if I did, who would I tell?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? I took the tablet and set it on his desk, so he and Albert could both see it.
“Please try to remember.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He’d told someone. His voice held too much outrage. He was trying to use his age and position to intimidate me.
“Strathearn Pipeline,” I said. Last warning.
Christian showed no reaction. “As odd as this has been, I still have business to take care of tonight. If there’s nothing else . . .” He let it hang.
I tapped the tablet. On it a large crowd of people gathered on the shore of a picturesque lake, holding signs. The sun was setting and the green hills around the lake all but glowed.
“What’s the Strathearn Pipeline?” Albert asked.
“Strathearn is a small town in Maine. Its main source of income is tourism from the Strathearn lake. A year and a half ago the Synesis Corporation decided to build a Teflon factory in the area. They promised a lot of jobs, but the locals didn’t want factory jobs, they wanted clean water that was free of perfluorooctanoic acid, which the factory would dump into the lake. They lobbied their congressional representatives, and when that didn’t work, they started protesting.”
On the screen the protestors shook their signs. An older black woman lectured the cameras as journalists held their mics out to her. A young girl, about eight or nine, with curly red hair and pale skin, stood awkwardly next to her, not knowing what to do with herself.
“These weren’t anarchists,” I said. “Look, there are families there. Young people, old people, couples with children. They were locals who’d lived there for generations.”
Christian sighed, clearly put upon.
“The protests gained national attention. Synesis didn’t like the bad publicity, so they decided to do something about it.”
On the screen, someone screamed. Placards flew and people ran, colliding. The journalists dropped their mics and charged toward the lake. One of them ran into
the older black woman, knocking her out of the way, his face a mask of primal terror. She fell. The redheaded girl tried to pick her up, but the crowd surged around them, and she fell too. People trampled them, running back and forth, stomping, wailing, hitting each other.
Albert stared at it. “A psionic attack. A really strong one, fear-based, omnidirectional, layered. A targeted attack would have driven them all in the same direction.”
“That’s what the National Assembly thought too. This went on for twelve minutes. Seven people died, three drowned, four were trampled. One man was paralyzed, and dozens suffered injuries. Synesis attempted to spin the whole thing as radical groups infiltrating the protests.”
“No,” Albert said. “It’s not multiple psionics, or the flow of the crowd would have varied in intensity. This is a single psionic, likely a Prime, delivering controlled bursts of magic along the perimeter. As soon as they run one way, the psionic pushed them in the opposite direction. They couldn’t escape. Nowhere was safe.”
“There is an investigation,” I continued. “The internal records of the company were subpoenaed. They show that a decision was made to hire an outside psionic for an exorbitant sum. Unfortunately, the only woman who knew the identity of the psionic jumped from the roof of a parking garage three months ago.”
A smile flickered on Christian’s face, half a second long, but I saw it. I spooled my magic, reinforcing my mental defenses. I had been reinforcing them since I drove away from Alessandro.
Albert was looking at his father.
“Samantha Corners is dead,” I said. “But she had insurance.”
I tapped the tablet. A country road came into focus with a black Escalade parked in the middle of it, filmed from the side, most likely by a hidden camera in someone’s pocket or handbag. Christian Ravenscroft crouched on a black square platform about ten feet wide, placed on a flat spot in the field, next to the SUV. He was drawing a complex arcane circle with a piece of chalk. Two hundred yards down, protesters chanted on the grass.
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