Stolen Lies (Fates of the Bound Book 2)

by Wren Weston

  Lila’s stomach twisted. She hadn’t even popped open the oracle’s files. She barely knew the girls’ names. “Not yet.”

  “The oracles will cooperate with you. We’ll give you whatever you need, whatever you want. Just find our girls. Please. They’re running out of time.”

  Lila pulled her sheet tighter. “You should tell my father everything. I could help you better if I was working with him and Chief Shaw. They have resources that I don’t always have on my own. They have hundreds of—”

  “No. Rebecca would be at home right now if not for your father. We’ll not work with him or the government militia.”

  “That’s not helping the situation.”

  “As head of the Saxon oracles, I’ve made my decision, as has the La Verde contingent. You should understand that I won’t be able to keep my order from speaking out against him. Many of the oracles are furious, and it will only get worse when more of us wake.”

  “That’s a condition of my help, then. You tell the others I won’t lift a finger unless you point your collective wrath at someone else.”

  “You ask for what I cannot promise. We are legion, and my sisters are angry. Give them another target, the correct target, or I fear what they might say.”

  “You seriously expect me to help the same women who would tear down my father?”

  “No, I expect you to help three missing girls who want to sleep in their own beds tonight and who are innocent of the politics swirling around them. It will calm my sisters when the prime minister’s own daughter returns their little girls.”

  “You don’t ask much, do you?” Lila broke off the connection and fell back onto the bed, having no energy to get into the shower.

  Tristan intertwined his fingers in hers and brought their joined hands to his mouth, kissing hers and giving it a squeeze. “Despite what the oracle says, you don’t have to work this on your own.”

  “I know. I’m just not sure how you can help right now. It’s not like I can bring you along.” She wiggled her fingers, wishing she didn’t have to leave so soon. “I don’t even have their files, Tristan. Keep working Oskar’s case while I’m gone, will you? Look through the crime scene photos; maybe there’s something there I missed. I’ll work on the identity of Natalie’s friend on the flight to Sioux Falls.”

  He touched her cheek, waking her body with his warm mouth and languid tongue. “I’ll do whatever I can to help. But we already know who took them.”

  “That’s a massive leap, Tristan. Just because a few German mercs took Oskar in New Bristol, doesn’t mean they’re now behind every kidnapping in the entire country. This girl was taken several hundred kilometers away. The other two were taken before Oskar disappeared.”

  “What’s a few more kids if you’re already taking one?”

  “It’s idiocy,” Lila answered, tossing away the sheet wrapped around her body. “If you have the prince, you leave immediately or you risk getting caught. You don’t steal the Crown Jewels then loot a few convenience stores on the way home, flashing your ass to every militia patrol in the city for a bit of pocket change.”

  “Not unless you need to do laundry. Rubies don’t fit in those little slots.”

  Lila rolled her eyes. “I have to sneak you out of here before I leave. Just give me five minutes to grab a shower.”

  “I’d ask to join you, but my willpower isn’t that good. I’ll shower at the shop.”

  Lila slipped into her bathroom and closed the door, stepping onto the cool tiles. The heat and steam of her shower washed Tristan from her skin, and her frown deepened with every flick of soap. It wasn’t until she emerged from the water that she winced, remembering she’d left him alone with her electronics.

  Opening the door quietly, she peeked out.

  Tristan lay in her bed, still naked in the same position she’d left him, sprawled to the world. His chest slowly rose and fell.

  Wrapping her hair in a towel, she entered her bedroom, pausing at her dresser. She’d just slipped on a bra when Tristan woke.

  “Get dressed,” she said, digging out a fresh militia uniform, informal rather than formal.

  He peeked into her closet as they dressed.

  “Why are you so fascinated with my closet? Is there something we need to talk about?”

  “No. It’s just that this might be the only chance I get to see your room. I told you before, it’s always been so hard to imagine where you go off to when you’re not with me.”

  “So now you can imagine with your cock in your hand?”

  “Maybe. My fantasies will be so much more realistic now.”

  He kissed her lips, then slid a hand under her militia top and all the buttons. “I can daydream about bending you over the desk. Lying with you in your bed.” He brushed his fingers underneath her bra and pinched her nipple. “Finishing up in the shower after we’re done. Under the water. Against the wall.”

  He leaned forward to kiss her again, but she shoved him gently away. “Stop it.”

  “Never. This is only a pause until you come back to New Bristol. I’ll keep looking into the oracle’s files and try to find something new in the crime scene photos.”

  He waited while she shoved her Colt into her holster and carefully sheathed her boot knife. Then she opened her window, glancing at the clock to time her patrols, knowing they’d walked by only a moment before. It would be another ten minutes before they had a visual on her window again. “Hide behind those shrubs,” she said, pointing at a few bushes near the side of the house. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

  “We’re not going downstairs?”

  “Of course not. This house is rigged with cameras. The only way I could get you down without being seen is to turn on a jammer, and that would bring Captain McKinley’s people down on our heads in two seconds.”

  Tristan stared at the door to her room as though it held a pot of gold behind it. “One day I’m going to see the rest of the house.”

  “There’s no way to swing that and keep you safe. Just trust me, Tristan. I’ll be down soon.”

  Tristan ducked out of the window.

  Lila closed it behind him, resettled the drapes, grabbed her satchel, and padded downstairs, emerging into the humid twilight.

  Thank gods Sioux Falls would be cooler.

  A little flutter of shrubs caught her eye. She pulled Tristan from behind it, leading him through a maze of trees and cameras and blackcoats.

  “Wait here,” she said, leaving him behind a tree near the garage. “I have to get my car.”

  “I want to see inside.”

  “There are too many cameras. I’ll be back soon.”

  Lila opened the garage door, and the lights turned on automatically as they caught her approach. Three blackcoats startled several meters away and spun, hands going to their Colts. A German shepherd sniffed the air.

  “Look alive,” she called out before they drew.

  The group chuckled nervously. “Morning, chief,” they murmured sheepishly, putting away their Colts.

  “As you were.”

  She hurried to her roadster as the group pressed on, and pulled out her palm, waving it over the interior and exterior of the car, increasingly annoyed that she bothered with such formalities at all. She’d just driven to the High Council meeting, anyway. It wasn’t like anyone would have bugged her roadster between then and—

  Her palm vibrated suddenly. Cocking her head, she swiped the screen and studied the weak wiggle of a needle displayed over a field of grid lines. The thin needle on the screen hopped again as she waved it over the back bumper.

  Gritting her teeth, she crawled underneath the car, letting her palm guide her. Taking off her gloves, she poked and prodded, finally feeling a little lump behind the bumper, the size and shape of a ladybug. She pulled the device off her bumper carefully, studying it in the lig
ht of her palm. The silver lump might have been nothing but a poor weld, but no such shoddy work would have graced a car as fine as her Adessi. Her mother’s R&D department had decided to test their new hardware tonight of all nights, a night when she had little time to dawdle.

  She grunted and tossed the damn thing on Jewel’s Firefly.

  She spent another ten minutes carefully combing her car, then connected her palm to her car’s GPS and ran her snoop programs.

  It didn’t take long to discover her mother’s second gift, a section of code that wouldn’t quite turn off the program when she requested it. If the bug hadn’t been on her car, she might not have run her full snoop program on the GPS. She might not have found it at all.

  Lila’s eyes locked on to her mother’s beloved Blanc convertible, smooth lines and curves and an engine that didn’t so much purr as growl.

  Payback was a bitch.

  She’d have it soon.

  Since Lila didn’t have time to wonder what else her mother’s people had done to her car, she downloaded a copy to a star drive, then wiped the entire car, reinstalling its systems from a second star drive she kept close.

  At last, she pulled from the garage.

  “What took you so long?” Tristan hissed as she stopped beside him, idling.

  “Sometimes when I check for bugs, I find them.” She popped the trunk and joined Tristan outside the car.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “It’s just for a few moments.”

  “This is ridiculous,” he grumbled as he slipped inside, twisting and turning and curling. The car shook on its thick tires.

  “I agree. It’s extremely ridiculous, but I’ll reward you later.”

  “A naked reward?”

  Lila closed the trunk softly.

  After a quick drive to the gate, she waved to Sergeant Nolan, barely slowing.

  The guard cocked her head, clearly sensing the chief was up to something, but she damn sure wasn’t going to ask.

  Lila rolled through as soon as the gate lifted. She didn’t stop for several blocks, not until she’d left the Randolph dominion. Pulling to the side of the road, she popped her trunk.

  A very annoyed Tristan uncurled himself from the trunk, eyeing his location. “Roomy,” he said as he climbed out.

  Lila opened the driver’s-side door with a flourish. She jiggled her keys like a treat bag and jerked her chin toward the wheel. “Your reward.”

  Tristan cast a bemused look toward the roadster.

  “I know you want to drive it. Just don’t wreck it, okay?”

  “Screw you. I’m an excellent driver.”

  “I’m sure you are,” she said, hurrying to the other side.

  Tristan hopped into the driver’s seat and pulled back onto the road. He wasted no time zipping down the empty streets, slaloming around the occasional delivery truck. His grin nearly split his face, as though he were a child who’d finally gotten to play with a toy he’d always wanted. Or perhaps it was merely the smile of someone happy, someone not afraid to show childish wonder in front of someone he cared about, someone he’d just bedded.

  Lila approved of the look. His eyes had always been a bit too old. The product of too much responsibility thrust upon his shoulders too early. It was something they shared, something that had been pushed onto them by birth or by circumstance, but he still had it in him to be childlike.

  Did she?

  Lila wasn’t sure anymore. It was the first time she felt the age difference between them. Though he was twenty-four, he had not yet attained the breadth of a man, still a touch too rangy and slender.

  Perhaps his mind was no different. Perhaps he was still growing into the man he would become, settling into his moods, now thinking twice about charging into the fray half-cocked whenever the chance arose.

  Perhaps she should stop being so hard on him, expecting him to have all the answers, trying to make decisions for him when she didn’t like the ones he’d made. She’d done that in the past, slighting him when whatever plan he came up with was imperfect or too impulsive.

  She’d been trained by the best all her life and sculpted into a leader. She’d been told over and over that it would be her destiny. Tristan had been trained by no one. He’d been forced to wing it, managing to earn the respect she’d only attained from her prosperous birth.

  She had to admit, he was doing much better than she would have. Perhaps at twenty-eight she hadn’t grown into the woman she would become, either.

  Who was that? Who was she?

  Was she her mother? Was she her father?

  Right now, she didn’t want to be either.

  Tristan stopped the car two blocks away from the shop. “This is a fabulous car. I really must get one for myself.”

  “You mean steal one for yourself?”

  “Stealing makes it more satisfying. Of course, Shaw would be on my ass in two seconds. Only a handful of heirs in all of Saxony have a car so fine.”

  “I’ll let you drive it again.”

  He pulled her face to his and kissed her slow and deep. “Come find me after you get back. We’ll compare notes.”

  He grazed her cheek with his thumb and got out of the car, slipping into the night.

  Lila watched him disappear, then slid into the driver’s seat and turned the car toward the airport. On the way, she typed a familiar number into her palm.

  Her mother would feel her wrath.

  So would her beloved Blanc roadster.

  Chapter 21

  Lila and Shaw flew from New Bristol International on her father’s plane, a crowded four-seat affair that left little room for Lila’s boots, much less her legs. Dedicated to the principles of austerity, Unity would not splurge for the prime minister, choosing a budget model that would get her father from point A to point B with no added frills.

  At least the seats were lush. Lila shifted on the cream-colored leather, careful not to bump her fold-out table for the twelfth time, for her laptop perched precariously upon it. She’d brought it on board in her satchel, knowing that Chief Shaw wouldn’t waste her time with a longwinded debriefing of the case. In fact, he’d said nothing about it. He preferred her to remain untainted by his militia and their initial thoughts, claiming it was best all around.

  Lila didn’t care one way or the other. She had work to do, work she’d rather Shaw not be privy to. Luckily, the chief sat in the seat facing her on the opposite side of the plane. That was the benefit of arriving late. She’d been able to choose a seat away from his curious eyes.

  “Militia reports,” she’d answered pleasantly when Shaw asked what she was doing.

  He’d raised a brow, clearly not believing her story. The brow shot higher when she told Captain McKinley to disengage sections of camera feeds throughout Wolf Tower until nine o’clock. When McKinley pressed for a reason, Lila only gave her one. “It’s for a test,” she’d said before disconnecting.

  “That’s not for a militia report,” Shaw observed.

  “You bet your ass it’s not.”

  Mischief complete, Lila spent the next hour suffering through a spotty net connection while tracking Natalie’s friend of a friend. The initial message had come from Teresa Bailey, the lowborn owner of the first chop shop that she and Tristan had visited. Unfortunately, Lila needed an unofficial net ID, a whole host of snoop programs, and far more privacy if she wanted to follow Teresa’s trail further.

  She’d need the same to follow Xavier.

  Instead of taking a much-needed nap, Lila switched gears and used the second hour of the flight to tackle her militia inbox. She managed to handle a third of it before they touched down in Sioux Falls. Her fingers locked in a white-knuckled grip on the armrest as they landed.

  Lila gathered her things as soon as the pilot stopped in a far corner of the small regional airport, eager for
her boots to touch the ground once more. The plane’s steps bobbled under her weight when she descended, and she pulled up her heavy scarf against the cold La Verde air.

  To think that only a small flap of metal had separated her from death during the flight.

  She nearly tripped when her toe met the tarmac, and she eyed the plane as if it might explode.

  Shaw chuckled. “The auction house hero hasn’t got her sea legs yet.”

  “You’re going to see my legs kick you in the face in a minute,” Lila mumbled, hitching her satchel farther up her shoulder.

  “Is that before or after you fall on your butt? You forget. I was there for your hand-to-hand training. It was endlessly entertaining.” Shaw pointed into the darkness toward the sound of a wheezing electronic engine. “I think our ride is here.”

  Lila squinted toward the noise. By the light of the lamps overhead, she made out a blackcoat inside an open four-seater cart.

  Chief Vance, the La Verde militia chief, stopped before them, cart shaking as he hopped from the driver’s seat. His blackcoat covered a navy uniform lined in silver piping, an orchid stitched on his breast in silver thread. The buttons flashed in the light as he shook hands with Chief Shaw, his blue eyes curious, his blond hair chopped off at the collar. The length was a compromise between his upbringing as a senator and his choice to enter the militia after he could not. He’d been ambitious, talented, charming, and handsome, a perfect candidate. Unfortunately, the doctors had ruled him infertile, barring him from advancing as a senate intern.

  No High House and no children, at least not without effort and a lot of money. At eighteen, Vance had been forced to choose a new career. His professors had pushed him toward graduate studies and a potential teaching role with Norrington. He would train great statesmen, they promised.

  But Vance hadn’t wanted to train great statesmen.

  He’d wanted to become one.

  Ambitious to a fault, he’d chosen a different sort of power. He’d become the youngest government militia chief in the nation’s history, shortly after his thirty-eighth birthday, partly through a convenient set of retirements. Some forced. Some not.