Jenna Black - Resistance

“I’m going to head back to the city,” he said, hoping Nadia would be proud of him. “You want to get out of here?”

Agnes bit her lip nervously, but it was impossible to miss the hope that flared in her eyes. “My father wouldn’t like it.”

Nate leaned forward and dropped his voice so that no one but Agnes could hear him. “But you would. Besides, our fathers have been shoving us together with both hands. Surely yours won’t mind if you catch a ride back to the city with me.”

Agnes raised an eyebrow. “When this reception is likely to go on for another hour, at least?”

Nate shrugged. “ I’m the one you’re supposed to be getting to know, right?” Though perhaps that would no longer be true, once the existence of the Chairman’s “long-lost daughter” became public knowledge. Nate assumed his father hadn’t dropped that particular bombshell yet, or the tone of the gossip and chatter in the room would have been quite different.

Nate held out his elbow to Agnes. Her lips curved into the tiniest hint of a grateful smile, and she slipped her hand through his elbow, her touch so light he could barely feel it. Then, he guided her out of the room toward the exit, ignoring everyone who tried to talk to him along the way.

He basked in the glow of his “good deed,” right up until the door of the limo closed, leaving him alone in the back with Agnes. A privacy screen blocked the driver and Nate’s bodyguard from view. The drive back to his apartment was going to take about four hours. Agnes might have more redeeming qualities than Nate had previously allowed himself to acknowledge, but that didn’t mean he wanted to spend four hours shut up in a car with her.

What had he been thinking?

Agnes let out a soft sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes. “If you don’t mind,” she said in her timid little-girl voice, “I’d like to close my eyes for a while. My head’s been pounding ever since I had to come inside after the service.”

Nate wondered if she really had a headache, or if she was just trying to give them both a graceful way out of trying to make conversation.

“Go ahead,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound too eager. “My head isn’t feeling that great, either, to tell you the truth.”

She opened her eyes briefly to give him a sympathetic smile, but she didn’t try to console him with any empty platitudes. He gave her credit for that. When she closed her eyes once more, he patted his pockets until he found the secure phone Kurt had given him, which he carried with him at all times just in case.

Obviously, he couldn’t phone Kurt, not with Agnes in the car. Or even without her in the car, because the barrier that separated him from the driver and his bodyguard wasn’t soundproof. But he could send a text. Kurt wasn’t exactly an expert reader yet—the murder of the original Nate Hayes had put a stop to their reading and writing lessons—but Nate was sure his skills were up to deciphering the simple message he sent: need to see u. come 2nite?

If ever there was a time he needed to see Kurt, it was tonight. Not just because he needed the comfort of a lover’s touch, though he did. But because the introduction of Dorothy meant his own lofty goals to make Paxco a better place someday might never come to pass. If Nate was going to make a difference in the world, it seemed it would not be as Chairman of Paxco after all. Which meant it was time to have a long talk with Kurt about this resistance movement of his, and whether it was something Nate might want to get involved with.

Kurtdidn’t answer Nate’s text, but Nate wasn’t alarmed. Kurt’s answer would be showing up at the apartment tonight. Or not showing up.

Thinking that the chances Kurt wouldn’t show up were pretty slim, Nate decided to wait up for him. With a thermos of coffee by his side, he flopped on his bed in his pajamas and resolutely started reading up on the laws of succession, something he had never paid much attention to when he’d known he was the undisputed heir.

The laws themselves were impenetrable, of course. Nate suspected lawyers had been making up their own language from the beginning of time and would continue to do so for the foreseeable future. He read through the laws, just to be thorough, but then he went searching for a layman’s explanation. Realistically, he didn’t expect to find any convenient clauses that would prevent his father from naming Dorothy the Chairman Heir, but it wouldn’t hurt to look. He wasn’t going to sit idly by and watch his father hand their state over to some impostor. Especially not to one he’d handpicked to follow in his footsteps.

Nate had the best of intentions, trying to be more like Nadia and thinking about the future, planning for the challenges and hurdles that might present themselves. Unfortunately, he didn’t have Nadia’s single-mindedness or determination. His eyes glazed over almost instantly, and he had to read everything about three times before his mind would grasp even the simplest concepts. Not because he was an idiot, but because the layman’s explanations of the laws of succession seemed all to have been written by lawyers, who had a different definition of layman than Nate did. And the reading was so dry and boring it made him want to scream.

He chugged coffee, but though he felt its buzz in his veins, it didn’t make the reading any more interesting. His eyes dried out so that he had to blink all the time, and his head started aching. He laid his reading aside, telling himself he would just close his eyes for a few minutes …

… and woke up who knew how much later to find Kurt sitting on the bed beside him, squinting at his handheld as if he were trying to decipher hieroglyphics. Of course, the lawyer-speak had gotten the better of Nate, so it probably did look like hieroglyphics to someone like Kurt, who was barely literate.

“If you can make sense of any of that crap,” Nate said in his sleep-roughened voice, “please enlighten me.” He yawned hugely and rubbed his eyes.

Kurt grinned and tossed the handheld onto the nightstand. “I was looking for the pictures. What’s the point of a book without pictures?”

Nate tried to grin back, but there was too much pressure weighing him down. His mother was dead. He’d met his father’s “daughter,” who just happened to be older than he and therefore a potential heir. And he’d been so distraught at the news that he’d managed to miss the funeral. Even a small smile was beyond him at the moment.

Kurt pried off the heavy black boots he was wearing and climbed onto the bed beside Nate, gathering him into his arms. Nate didn’t think a hug had ever felt so good, and for a moment he allowed himself to bask in it.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” Kurt said gently. “I know you had mixed feelings about her, but it’s still hard.”

“Yeah,” was all Nate could manage to choke out.

There was a long silence, and when Kurt broke it, his voice was even softer and more gentle. “My ma used to beat the shit out of me when I was a kid.”

Nate’s whole body went on alert, and he practically held his breath. Kurt never talked about his family. In fact, he’d been so resolute about not talking about them that Nate had wondered if he even had any.

“I was maybe around eight when she introduced me to the family business.”

Nate winced, but he bit his tongue to keep himself from saying anything sympathetic. He knew what Kurt meant by “family business,” and the thought that Kurt had been subjected to it at such a young age turned his stomach. However, he doubted Kurt would appreciate the sympathy. And worse, it might cause him to clam up.