by Dean Murray
Riven
by Dean Murray
Copyright 2013 by Dean Murray
Also by Dean Murray:
The Reflections Series
Broken (free)
Torn (free if you sign up for Dean's Mailing List)
Splintered
Intrusion
Trapped
Forsaken
Riven
The Greater Darkness (Writing as Eldon Murphy)
A Darkness Mirrored (Writing as Eldon Murphy)
The Dark Reflections Series
Bound
Hunted
The Guadel Chronicles
Frozen Prospects (free)
Thawed Fortunes (free if you sign up for Dean's Mailing List)
Brittle Bonds
Shattered Ties
Chapter 1
Adriana Page
Graves Estate
Sanctuary, Utah
I had to keep telling myself that my mom flying into town wasn't as scary as seeing Agony nearly kill Alec. My brain knew that this wasn't going to be nearly as bad as what I'd seen almost happen in Chicago, but my emotions kept trying to convince the rest of me that the end of the world was about to take place.
Alec grabbed my hand as I started tapping a nervous beat on my leg for the fifth time since we'd sat down. I started to apologize again for fidgeting, but he simply smiled at me and gave my hand a reassuring squeeze.
"James and Dominic just texted me. Your mom's plane has landed. Knowing the way James drives, your mom will be here in less than ten minutes. Trust me, the anticipation is the worst part. Once your mom is here we'll have a calm discussion and then work everything out."
I gave him a brave nod, but I wasn't convinced, not really. Alec's mom spent most of each day lost in memories of happier times which meant that he'd more or less been raised by Donovan. Donovan was extraordinary, and I'd never been tempted to dismiss him as 'just one of the help,' but there was a different dynamic there than what Alec would have had with a parent who wasn't also the family butler. Donovan had always given Alec an incredible amount of leeway, way more than my mom had ever given me. It meant that Alec didn't really know what he was going to be in for when my mom arrived.
"Okay, I'll try to calm down. Just remember, I want to be with you no matter what. Short of hurting my mom or something like that, we need to keep escalating things until she agrees to let me stay here. It's important."
Alec nodded. "Things will be okay, I promise."
The next few minutes seemed to drag by, but then suddenly I could hear Donovan escorting my mom back to the sitting room where we'd been waiting for the last half hour.
"May I present Mrs. Nicole Paige and Mr. Russ Landsell."
As Donovan bowed and then retreated from the room with only a trace of his normal limp, I tried to adjust to the fact that things were already going a different direction than I'd expected. Mom had only been dating Russ for a few weeks, a couple of months at the max. I never would have expected for Mom to bring him along on a mission to come collect her wayward daughter.
Mom and Russ both took the chairs that Alec offered them, and then sat down slowly. I couldn't read the expression on Mom's face, but both she and Russ seemed content to let Alec start the discussion.
"I appreciate you coming out here, Mrs. Paige, Mr. Landsell. Under other circumstances I would have flown out to you rather than asking you to make the trip, but I'm afraid I'm not able to travel right now."
That was Alec-speak for the fact that the Coun'hij could attack us at any minute. Alec's power had finally fully manifested. That meant he could protect us all as long as he was around, but if he were to fly out to New York it would leave us all vulnerable.
"You didn't exactly leave me any choice. I got a call from my daughter from a blocked number telling me to be on your plane with a date and time."
I winced. A cowardly part of me wanted to just hang back and let Alec take the brunt of the attack, but that wouldn't be fair.
"That's not Alec's fault, Mom. I was the one who insisted on not giving you any more information than that. I didn't want to risk you causing him problems."
Mom looked at me for the first time, I mean really looked, and I saw just how mad she was. "Do you have any idea how worried I've been, Adri? First your school calls to tell me that you weren't in classes and then you didn't answer your phone when I called."
"I'm sorry, Mom. I didn't mean to make you worry, but I needed to be here."
"You needed to be here? Adri, this is the place that you just left. We talked and you agreed that Alec needed a wakeup call. You left here for a reason."
I fought a rising tide of anger and forced my voice to remain even. "Yes, Mom. I left for a reason and I came back for a reason. Alec and Rachel need me here right now, and I'm going to stay here."
It looked like my mom was going to start yelling at me, but Russ put a hand on her arm and spoke for the first time.
"Alec, I've been talking to some of my contacts in the FBI. Nicole hasn't filed a police report yet, but once she does it will be routed right to the FBI. You've kidnapped a minor and taken her across state lines. The repercussions are going to be pretty serious."
Alec shook his head. "I haven't kidnapped anyone. Adri left the state of New York without my knowledge. I have a dozen people ready to testify to the fact that Adri came here of her own free will, up to and including the pilot of the plane that brought her here."
"Your pilot. That's hardly a very independent witness, Alec. Trust me, things will go much better if you just back down and let Adri come back to New York with us."
It was like watching two dogs circling each other, looking for a weakness. I almost wanted to think less of my mom for bringing Russ along, but I understood why she had. Neither of us was versed in wealth, not like Russ or Alec were. Mom knew just how much influence Alec had in Sanctuary from when we'd lived here before. Mom couldn't combat that, but there was a chance that Russ could. Besides, it would be pretty hypocritical to look down on Mom for bringing Russ into the picture when I was sitting here hoping that Alec could wave a magic wand and make everything work out with my mom.
The thought served as a goad and I waved my arm at Mom to get her attention. "I know that you don't like it, but I'm determined to stay here and I'm willing to go as far as I have to for that to happen. If you fight me on this then I'll get legally emancipated."
Mom went white and collapsed backwards into her chair like I'd hit her. It was Russ who tried to calm both of us Paige women down.
"Let's not do anything hasty. Adri, I know you and your mom aren't seeing eye to eye right now, but emancipation isn't a trivial thing to pursue. There isn't even any guarantee that you'd win."
Alec looked at me with a question in his eyes, but I nodded so he took a deep breath and responded. "I have a team of lawyers who are very confident they can win the preliminary case, and in fact we've already got feelers out to two of the three judges we think are most likely to try the case, and given the circumstances, they are both in agreement that Adri would win."
Russ' smile wasn't in the slightest bit ruffled. "You're bluffing. Adri has no way of supporting herself. No judge in the world is going to stick their neck out that far. The ruling would be overturned in appeals so fast that everyone involved would get whiplash."
I felt my expression stiffen. Alec and I hadn't gone into those kinds of details. He'd just told me that he'd be able to handle everything and I'd believed him. I turned to ask Alec if Russ was right, but he smiled at me and then picked up a thick stack of papers.
"I rarely bluff, and never about people who matter to me." Alec tossed the folder to Russ and then he gave the other man the kind of cold smile that he usually reserved for the Coun'hij. "The top document is a fully-executed, i
rrevocable trust with Adri as the beneficiary. I think you'll find the trust assets are more than sufficient to allow Adri to support herself quite nicely until well after she reaches her legal majority. The documents below that detail all of your holdings. I think you'll find it's quite comprehensive."
Russ opened the folder and then spent a few minutes scanning through the documents while my mom and I both shifted nervously in our seats. When Russ finally looked up from the stack of paper there was a new wariness to his posture that hadn't been there when he first arrived.
"Don't you think that ten million dollars was a little excessive, Alec? That kind of wealth could turn her into a spoiled snob who isn't worth the air she breathes. It could destroy her."
My heart skipped a beat. I almost thought that I'd misheard the amount, but my mom's expression told me that I'd heard correctly. Not only had I not known anything about the trust, I would have opposed him putting so much money into it if I'd been aware of what he'd been planning.
Alec waved away Russ' point without missing a beat. "It's got all of the usual provisions designed to guard against that kind of thing. She can't touch the principal until she's twenty-six, and there are even caps on the amount she can draw out in any given year until then. It's the same kind of vehicle that Donovan set up for Rachel, but that's beside the point. I've made the mistake of underestimating Adri's strength too many times already. The wealth won't ruin her any more than it ruined you."
Russ considered the response and then flipped through the second half of the folder again. "Should I take the presence of the rest of this to indicate that you're threatening me?"
"No, nothing of the kind. I merely wanted to provide you with a sense of my capabilities. I think things will go much more smoothly if you understand exactly what you're up against."
Russ frowned and then looked at me. "I can tell this is as much of a surprise to you as it was to me. With this trust you won't ever have to work a day in your life if you don't want to. It means that there isn't any monetary reason for you to stay with Alec."
A flash of anger nearly made me give Russ a piece of my mind, but I stomped on my fury and shook my head at him.
"I thought you knew me better than that, Russ. I'm not here because of Alec's money. I'm here because this is where I'm needed. You could say that I've found my cause, but it's more than that. This is where I'm happy. I'm not some stupid, love-struck teenager. I know what I'm getting into, better actually than either of you do, and this is the future I want."
I hadn't planned on referencing his insight, but hopefully me telling him that Alec was my cause, the person I wanted to enable, would give Russ pause enough for him to actually hear what I was trying to say rather than just assuming that I was being stupid.
"I see. You're sure that you know what you're doing here?"
I nodded and then waited while he looked over at my mom. "It's your call, Nicole. We can file a report but you'll be in for a long fight one way or another. With a little bit of luck we can make sure she's back in New York while the lawyers bicker, but it isn't guaranteed."
I interrupted before he could continue. "I'll run away. Even if you can keep me away from Alec, I'll still make sure that I'm not home."
Russ winced a little, like he'd been hoping that I wouldn't realize that was an option, and then shrugged. "There are measures we could take, but nothing we could do would guarantee that she'd stay there with you. I'm willing to help you if that's what you want to do, but you need to know what kind of fight you'd be taking on."
Mom looked old. Somehow the stress of her professional commitments had aged her without me realizing it, but it was more than just all of the hours she was putting into work—my disappearing must have been even harder on her than I'd expected. She tapped the arm of her chair for several seconds and then frowned. "So it's going to be expensive."
Russ took her hand in his and squeezed it. "Don't worry about that. If you want to pursue that option I'll have my people take care of things."
Mom shook her head. "No, it's a hopeless cause. I've been gone more than I've been around. There isn't any way that we could win, not given how absent I've been lately."
I was glad that Mom had been the one to point that out. I'd been ready to go there if I had to, but I hadn't wanted to.
Russ sighed. "It will make things more difficult, but you shouldn't make this kind of decision based on fear. The real question is whether or not you think that Adri is mature enough to be on her own. If she is as much of an adult as she thinks she is, then you should trust her when she says that she knows what she's getting into. If not, then we should do whatever we have to in order to get her back."
Mom looked at me for several long seconds, and I could feel the decision balancing on the edge of a knife. Mom hadn't ever been big on tears. Most of the time she was too caught up inside of her head to let sorrow really touch her. She'd only cried once or twice since the funeral. She was crying now though and I was struggling not to join her.
"Okay. You can stay, Adri. I hope you really know what you're getting into, but if it turns out that you get in over your head then I want you to know that you can always come home."
I made it from my chair over to my mom's chair without realizing that I'd crossed the intervening distance. She wrapped her arms around me and for a couple of minutes I just sat in her lap like I'd done when I was little.
"I'm sorry, usually I'm not such a baby. I must look terrible." Mom dabbed futilely at her mascara and then looked around. "Is there a bathroom nearby?"
Alec nodded and stood as if to show her where it was but she waved him back down into his seat. "Just point me in the right direction and I'll be fine."
"It's back out the direction you came in from, down the hall, take your first left and it's the second door on the right."
Once Mom was gone and it was just the three of us, I turned back to Russ and took a deep breath. "What are you going to tell Mom? What have you observed while you've been here?"
Russ leaned back in his chair and gave me a measuring look. "I'm not entirely sure I should be telling you any of that, especially not with Alec in the room. Your mom's decision to let you stay here notwithstanding, I suspect that we're not exactly playing on the same team."
"Please, Russ. I need to know how much you've figured out because it will impact just how much of a problem my mom is going to be in the future."
"I've noticed, I suspect, more than you'd like me to have noticed, but there are still threads there that I can only begin to guess at."
I hadn't told Alec about Russ' ability to read people and situations because it hadn't really been my secret to give up, but he didn't seem at all fazed by the direction of the discussion. Russ met my gaze for several more seconds before finally shrugging.
"Alec obviously isn't your run-of-the-mill billionaire. He's almost more like royalty. Dominic was obviously serving as your bodyguard back in New York, but there is a different feel to things here. It's sort of like the Dark Ages. I don't get the feeling that Alec needs protecting from most threats, but his house seems chock-full of extremely dangerous teenagers. The best description I can give is that Alec is the king and he's surrounded himself with dukes and counts not because he fears any one man, but because he knows he'll need an army at his back if he's to protect his realm."
Alec gave Russ a nod of respect. "That's more insightful than most. I won't insult you by offering you a job that you don't need, but if you are ever in a position where you need a...diversion...I can make it worth your while."
Russ' chuckle gave the impression that he'd just filed away another piece of information in a mental folder somewhere with Alec's name on it.
"Money doesn't mean anything to you, but not because you're some spoiled heir. It's a tool and nothing else, but I get the sense that you just...expanded your reach somehow. With someone else I would say that they'd come into a substantial increase in working capital, but I have the feeling that isn't it. You've got
some kind of new tool in your back pocket though."
I fought to keep my expression under control, but I was pretty sure that I didn't succeed. Russ was keying into things that I never would have expected him to catch. I was scared to find out what else he suspected, but it was better to know than remain ignorant.
Russ sighed and then uncrossed his legs and leaned slightly forward. "I can tell that you are head over heels in love with each other, and there is more to that bond than I would have expected. It's almost like you've been through some kind of armed conflict together."
Alec gave Russ another nod and a smile. "You could say that we've been through our own little pocket of hell over the last few months."
"I don't want to know about that. The less I know the less Nicole can tease out of me at some point down the road. Understand this though, Alec. I know firsthand that being in love with someone now doesn't necessarily mean that you'll continue to keep her best interests at heart. If you do something to hurt her—really hurt her, not some stupid lovers' quarrel—then I will kill you. You can probably buy and sell me several times over, but I won't stand by and watch Nicole or Adri be hurt for no reason. You may be just as dangerous as you appear to be, but that won't stop me from taking you out from a mile away if that's the only way to make you pay for your sins."
A flare of power roared out from Alec, and it dwarfed nearly anything I'd ever felt out of him. It was so strong that even Russ seemed to sense the fringes of it. I could almost see the wheels turning in his head as he upped his evaluation of just how dangerous Alec was. Alec got control of his beast with an almost visible effort of will and then nodded at Russ.
"If I proved myself so lost as to hurt Adri in the way you've described, then I would truly deserve the bullet you've just threatened me with. Be very careful though with regards to the threats you choose to level at me. The consequences are likely beyond what you're expecting."
The silence in the room did a poor job of masking the fact that Russ and Alec were sizing each other up with new eyes. Before things could become further strained, Ash entered the room and leaned in so that he could whisper to Alec. Another surge of power lashed out from Alec, but this time it wasn't directed at anyone in the room. Alec debated his course for a second before nodding to himself and then turning back to Russ.
