by Wren Weston
For what? Lila couldn’t even remember why they’d become cross with one another. Knowing Olivia, it had been about a boy. Olivia was territorial about men, which was an awful trait for a highborn. Of course, that wouldn’t matter much after the night was over. Olivia would never bed another highborn again, not unless she found a rare love match. The family’s precious little auction house might never recover after the heist, and her matron would make her suffer for it.
It was Olivia’s own fault, really. If security had been tighter, Lila and Tristan never would found a way in. The LeBeaus, and Olivia in particular, had no business running an auction house. They should have stuck with groceries and meat and mines.
“I could say the same about you, Olivia, slipping into the Wabash fundraiser.”
“I was a guest of Senator Cole.” She sniffed. “Why are you even here? I thought you were too good for these things.”
“I’m serving as my matron’s escort.”
Olivia’s gaze slid into the ballroom. “Yes, I see how well you are escorting her. You do realize she hasn’t yet arrived?”
“I’m checking the place out first, you ignorant twat.” Lila didn’t even bother to give Olivia a second glance before plunging into the room.
Opening her clutch, she retrieved her palm computer, glad she wasn’t escorting her mother after all. The chairwoman hadn’t even bothered to arrive on time for her own auction. After recovering the relatively few antiques and art pieces that Celeste Wilson hadn’t already sold, her mother had taken what she wanted, then put up the rest for auction throughout the Allied Lands. She’d strategically placed each item where it would fetch the best price or draw the most attention. Some things she’d chosen to sell in New Bristol, mostly for the show of it, mostly for the excuse of having the event. Mostly to demand that Lila join the festivities, to prove to the other families and the press that she wasn’t dead.
The Randolphs also had several dozen highborn to sell, Wilson highborn, who hadn’t had the funds to rebuy their marks from the Randolphs. It had prompted quite a bit of talk in the press about the rumored Slave Bill. If the legislation actually existed and passed the senate, then highborn from fallen houses would no longer be sold into slavery if they didn’t have enough money to purchase their mark. Failed business owners wouldn’t automatically lose their marks, either.
Lila knew such legislation wouldn’t pass, though. The highborn enjoyed the embarrassment and the shame and the show too much.
Leaning against the wall, she positioned herself near the ballroom’s entrance, turning so she had a clear view of the pacing militia outside. She then slipped in an earpiece and tousled her hair over it, dipping her gaze to her palm. The thin, flexible device had much the same computing power as her desktop, though in a much smaller package. Tapping and swiping, she hurriedly pulled up the security feeds while heirs bid on a Rembrandt. A stooped auctioneer in a navy coat tossed out number after number onstage, his words blurring together.
He ended on a number that seemed much too high. Lila glanced up at the painting on display, a painting she’d seen often on the Wilson estate during highborn parties, a ship braving a storm on choppy seas. No doubt everyone else in the room had seen it as well. No doubt that was the very reason her mother had chosen to sell it in New Bristol. The Weberlys and Holguíns would want a token to remember their ally; the Wilson family’s rivals would want a souvenir from her fall.
It seemed the rivals had won this particular round. Chairwoman Hardwicke lifted her paddle in triumph. The painting would likely be hung in her office by Monday, money traded for sentimentality and ego.
Lila turned her gaze back to the security feeds, stopping on one in particular that she’d looped and hidden from the militia. Two men stood in front of the LeBeau holding cells, both working on separate doors, both dressed in black t-shirts, matching trousers, and work boots. Knitted balaclavas covered everything but their eyes, though Lila hardly needed to see their faces to tell them apart.
The smaller, rangier man gripped his blowtorch and started severing the last bar that would free the fifteen-year-old boy inside.
The boy was not Oskar Kruger, the boy Tristan had actually gone to rescue, but Phillip Wilson. Phillip’s scowl betrayed his conflicted feelings. On one hand, some petty thief from the poorer classes might save him from many years of slavery. On the other, his rescuer was some petty thief from the poorer classes.
Leave it to a Wilson to find fault with his rescuer.
“Stop it,” Lila whispered, unmuting her mic. Only Tristan could hear her words, for he was the only one on his team who knew her identity. “There’s barely enough time to free Oskar.”
“He’s being seen to,” Tristan growled, his vowels long and rolling with a Bordeaux accent. “I’m not going to leave a child behind.”
“What will you do with him after the auction? Take him back to the shop?”
“I don’t know. Stop nagging me.”
“Then stop being stupid. Get the one you came for and get out now. You’re lucky you haven’t been caught already, what with the—”
An alarm blinked on her palm.
“You’re too late. The militia has caught on to the loop. Leave now.”
“We don’t have—”
“Get out now!” Lila opened her clutch and slipped in a second earpiece, tuned to the LeBeau militia’s audio feed.
“Baxter to Wendy, over?”
Lila held her breath.
“Wendy? Who tranqed that one?” Toxic snickered in her other ear. The young woman pumped the militia’s audio through their earpieces, audio Lila had captured before the auction.
“I think I did,” Fry grunted, not turning away from his work. Tristan broke away from Phillip’s cell and joined him. He pointed his blowtorch toward the last steel bar holding the slave inside.
“Baxter to Wendy?” the man asked again impatiently. After a slight pause, he tried again. “Baxter to Thomas?”
“I believe our fearless leader got Thomas.”
“Baxter to Lewis?” the man pleaded, naming another downed blackcoat. Frustration replaced panic when no one answered. “Doesn’t anyone have their damn radios on down there?”
“Ah, Hood tranqed Lewis. That guy really needed a bath.”
“So everyone got a point?” Toxic asked.
“It’s generally not good to get a point. It means someone found you when they shouldn’t have. It means we’re out of time.”
“Natasha to Baxter, what seems to be the problem?” Another voice had broken in on the militia’s channel.
“We’re being robbed, that’s the problem. Go check on the art.”
Lila flicked to the relevant security footage, watching a capable-looking blackcoat in a hallway near the basement. Upon her whistle, a half-dozen blackcoats trotted to her position and fell in line. “Switch to the emergency frequency,” she ordered Baxter. “Someone might be listening in.”
“I’m on it!” Toxic squeaked, all humor gone from her voice.
“Abort now,” Lila hissed at Tristan as the militia’s audio fell silent. “You have one minute before they realize you’re not here for the art. Maybe less if they get the basement cameras back up.”
“Not yet. We just need more time.”
“There is no more time! Get out, and get out now!”
Tristan turned off his blowtorch.
The small-framed teen inside the holding cell stepped forward, his cheap trousers and gray t-shirt too big and too new.
“Please,” Oskar wailed, tears running down his cheek. Once again, freedom had slipped through his fingers. He shook the last steel bar madly as though he might be able to break it. “Don’t leave me, please. I’ll do anything!”
Tristan hesitated before the red-faced, crying boy.
“We’ll fetch him later,” Fry promised, shoving his boss t
oward the hole in the floor, a hole Dice had cut while the others had worked on the bars. “Hood, if you’re still there, we need you. Tell the boss what the militia is doing.”
Lila looked up to check.
A well-manicured hand snatched her palm.
Chapter 2
“Whatever work you have on the compound can wait,” Chairwoman Randolph said, turning off the device without looking at the screen. “You’re surrounded by the most eligible senators in all of Saxony, Elizabeth. Do try to appear interested.”
Lila snatched back her palm and slipped it into her clutch. “I was just about to visit the ladies’ room.”
“No, you weren’t.” Her mother straightened her silvercoat as though the matter had been decided. The garment marked her as the matron of the Randolph family and the CEO of Wolf Industries. As such, its fabric was even finer than Lila’s tonight. Its hue matched her silver hair, which had been curled to perfection on the ends.
The chairwoman took Lila’s arm and dragged her further into the room. “You expect me to think highly of Commander Sutton, yet you seem to believe she cannot fill in as chief for a few hours without supervision. The woman spent ten years in the infantry. She’s not a toddler.”
A crash sounded in Lila’s earpiece, followed by a muffled curse. If Tristan had just been caught, then one prick from a DNA wand would ferret out his true identity, that of a long-escaped slave. It was only luck that he’d never been caught before. “Get out of the ballroom and keep an eye on the militia!” he shouted.
Lila took a quick look at the front of the auction house. “A lot can go on if a blackcoat isn’t paying attention, madam. It’s not like every blackcoat just paces around with their thumb up their—”
“Elizabeth!”
“Hood says the militia isn’t onto us yet,” Tristan told Fry. “Shirley, there’s not enough fuel left in the blowtorches! We won’t be able to collapse the tunnel.”
“I didn’t tell you to waste the fuel on some highborn snob, now did I? Get to the rendezvous point. I’ll meet you there. We’ll take off the regulators and make do.”
Lila tuned out Shirley while she gave the others more instructions. “Don’t start with me, Mother. I agreed to come to your little auction, didn’t I?” She grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing servant and took the lead, finding another perch that offered a decent view of the militia outside. She stopped, took a sip, and pretended interest in the senators.
“Yes, you barely argued at all. I’m still trying to figure out why.”
Lila ignored her. “The Rembrandt went for quite a bit.”
“As I knew it would. Ah, look, there’s Chairwoman Holguín.” Her mother smiled and inclined her head slightly. The woman in question nodded pleasantly from across the room.
“Why smile when you hate her? Why not walk over and tell her she’s a—”
“Elizabeth, don’t bait me this evening.”
“You started it. I put away my blackcoat for this. Don’t make me put away my humor.”
“What humor? Is it so hard to go out for one afternoon with your mother?”
“You didn’t want quality time. You wanted to show the other families that I’m not dead yet and prod me to find a bedmate for the season.”
“A what?” Tristan blurted over the sound of splashing.
“Focus,” Fry shouted.
The chairwoman took a sip of champagne. “Yes, I suppose I should—”
The militia stopped pacing out front.
Lila cursed under her breath. “Mother, look. The militia is running to the back of the auction house. Running very, very quickly.”
The chairwoman narrowed her eyes. “Really, Elizabeth? Commenting on the militia rather than your peers? Can’t you put away your occupation for one afternoon?”
“I suspect a robbery. I should go inspect the art.”
Lila took a step away from her mother.
The chairwoman grabbed her shoulder and snatched her back. “Think of the long game. All of highborn society is here this afternoon, and the LeBeau family insured my property for quite a sum. Their public failure is worth more than the loss of a few pieces of art. It will bankrupt the auction house, and I’ll still get a good return.”
“Couldn’t happen to nicer people.”
“Couldn’t happen to us. We should open a replacement. You’d be far more competent to run its security. Isn’t this the second robbery of LeBeau’s in the last two years?”
“The third, actually,” Lila answered as another crash sounded in her ear. “You’re really thinking about it, aren’t you?”
“When a void appears and you have the capital…”
“How much of that capital do you want to waste in security? How much do you want to throw away on art appraisers?”
“There’s always Jewel.”
“Jewel’s far too busy for a second full-time job. And when she doesn’t get a chance to engage in this new experience you’ll inevitably offer someone else, she’ll make our lives miserable.”
“Fair point.”
The crashing in Lila’s earpiece grew louder. Tristan, Fry, and Shirley must have reached the tunnel, collapsed it, and cut off LeBeau’s pursuit.
“There’s Senator Langston. We should say hello.”
Lila didn’t budge. Tristan and his people might not have gotten away. She fumbled, trying to think of an excuse not to abandon her post.
“Elizabeth, come along. Senator Langston is an important—”
An engine choked in her earpiece.
Her part in the heist had officially ended. Five days and nights spent searching and planning, and Tristan had thrown it all away.
“Langston is a self-important blowhard, just like the rest of them,” Lila muttered, staring at the young senator with long blond hair and a perfectly knotted cravat.
“Elizabeth!”
Lila drained the rest of her champagne and placed it on a waiter’s tray. When her mother turned her back to do the same, she discreetly slipped out her earpieces and dropped them into her clutch.
She wordlessly took the fresh glass her mother handed her, then followed the chairwoman deeper into the room.
It took all her discipline to attend to Senator Langston’s conversation, and even then, she failed to pay attention. Her mother nudged her elbow and made appropriate remarks, continuing the conversation when Lila did not. It wasn’t that he annoyed her. He merely lacked a certain pair of brown eyes—brown eyes she’d grown far too attached to over the last week, brown eyes she kept thinking about even when she left their presence, brown eyes attached to a rangy body she currently wanted to throttle.
And not in the fun way.
Not that she really had the option. Tristan had not touched her since the hospital the week before, despite how closely they’d worked on their plan to free Oskar, despite how many nights she’d spent with him in his bed.
Both clothed.
Once again, her thoughts slipped from annoyance to hunger.
“So would you like to go with me, Chief Randolph?” Senator Langston asked, offering a slight, hopeful smile.
Lila blinked, her mind slowly shifting from a naked Tristan to the clothed Bullstow senator before her. “Excuse me?”
“Would you like to come with me to Senator Dubois’s party next month? It’ll be at the Masson’s winery, a jewel, as you well know.”
Oh great, a pun on her sister’s name. That never got old.
Lila tried not to vomit.
She’d almost forgotten about the stupid party. Senator Dubois tried every year to tie her to one of his kin. It should have been enough that he had a claim to her younger sister, but senators could be just as ambitious as their matrons.
“No,” Lila answered.
The chairwoman eyed her daughter in annoyance. “What my daug
hter means is that Senator Dubois would rather she remain unescorted to this particular event.”
The senator’s expression changed from confusion to acceptance immediately. “Of course. I should have guessed.” He bowed and excused himself, no doubt searching for a more receptive heir for his flirtations.
“Really, Elizabeth? At least try to be civil.”
“Since when does civility preclude bluntness?”
“Since always, you heathen,” the chairwoman snapped as the auctioneer climbed down from the stage, conferring with Olivia. The slave auction would no doubt begin soon. “I have half a mind to drop you in St. Kitts for the next two weeks. Chef is right. You’re starved, and it’s making you act like a bratty teenager.”
Lila frowned. The three highborn resorts on St. Kitts catered to a certain clientele, the sort who could appreciate their special touches: sheets made of the finest Egyptian cotton, tubes of lube on the bed pillows, and sheets of condoms in the bedside drawer. One needed an appetite, a flush bank account, and a fresh STD screening and vaccination for admission, the latter two provided on site.
Apparently the food wasn’t bad either—not that anyone booked a room for that reason.
“I’m not starved,” she lied, trying to shake Tristan from her mind once more.
A naked Tristan.
“See to your attitude, then, or you’ll choose between St. Kitts or taking a lover for the season, for all our sakes.” Her mother dragged her to the back of the ballroom, toward a man who wore the most beautifully tailored coat and breeches in the room: pure snow white, unspoiled by any family’s colors, unmarked by any coat of arms. He had the shoulders to carry it well, with the cut unable to hide the body of the athlete inside. His salt-and-pepper hair matched all the experience he had gained during his time in the New Bristol, Saxony, and Unity senates.
Now he ruled them all as prime minister.
“Lila, girl.” Lemaire pulled her into a bear hug. Lila had missed seeing her father over the last few weeks. He spent most of his time at Unity but governed from Bullstow during Father’s Week each month, for the bulk of his children resided in or near New Bristol. “I hated watching the news last week. I couldn’t help feeling like I’d really lost my daughter. The senators and highborn in Unity offered me their condolences for two days straight. I worked from my suite because I couldn’t listen to it anymore.”
