Илона Эндрюс - Emerald Blaze (Hidden Legacy)

“Catalina . . .”

“Ms. Baylor,” I corrected.

“Catalina,” he repeated. His voice told me he wasn’t going to budge on that point. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

I shut up. Nothing he said should’ve mattered, but it did, and I didn’t know if I was mad at him or at myself.

The Spider whispered to a stop before a large Tudor. I keyed the code from Augustine’s folder into the electronic lock, the gate slid aside, and Alessandro guided the Spider down the long driveway to the door.

Alessandro shut off the engine. We sat quietly in front of the dark building.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“This is a dead man’s house. Nobody’s home.”

I dreaded this part. I had done it several times now, and it always left me hollow.

“Let me help you,” he said.

“My objection to your presence was on purely professional grounds. You don’t share information, Alessandro. I don’t trust you.”

He didn’t just not share, he actively hid information.

“What do you want to know?”

Let me make you a list . . .

I went for the jugular. “Why did you become the Artisan?”

Silence.

As expected. Mr. Ask Me Anything lost his tongue. Alessandro didn’t answer any questions about himself, his family, or anything having to do with what he did or why he did it, and this was the most important one. He probably wasn’t even capable of that kind of honesty. Telling people about yourself made you vulnerable and he avoided vulnerabilities at all costs.

“When I was ten years old, a stranger murdered my father in front of me.”

What?

“I thought my father was the strongest man in the world. I’d watched him fight bigger men, scarier men, and he won every time. Important people came to the house and gave my father respect. He was invincible.”

His face was completely flat, his voice devoid of any emotion, but his eyes boiled with magic. It splayed out of him, filling the vehicle, a violent, dangerous current.

“I watched him die. The stranger had stabbed him. My father sagged on the ground by the killer’s feet. He was trying to breathe, and bloody foam bubbled up from his mouth. I remember the fear in his eyes. I think he must have wondered if my mother and I would survive. My invincible father was dying, he was afraid, and I couldn’t do anything.”

There was an awful, raw sincerity in his voice, and it cut me like a knife.

“There were hundreds of people around us, and none of them tried to help. They just watched. Like me.”

“Where did it happen?” I asked softly.

“At a wedding. My father was the best man.”

My research into the family said his father had died, but no amount of online prying told me how. Now I knew. How horrifying it must’ve been for a young boy to stand there and watch his father bleed to death surrounded by people, none of whom moved to help. How did they manage to hide it?

“After the stranger killed my father, he walked by me, patted my shoulder, and said, ‘Sorry, kid. It’s business.’”

Oh my God.

“My grandfather explained it to me later. The groom was the intended target. My father had jumped in to save his best friend and died for it. And my grandfather spent years expounding on what an idiot my father was for putting his childhood friend’s safety before the needs of his family. A man provides for his family first; nothing else matters.”

He turned to look at me. All of the rage against the killer and against his grandfather flooded his eyes. That’s what people must have imagined Lucifer looked like—beautiful, frightening, and full of fury. His magic twisted and convulsed through the car, sparking with deep amber.

“Every person I ever eliminated was a murderer or worked for one. I’ve spent the last ten years trying to find the man who killed my father.” His voice was a ragged growl. “I found him. Now he wants to kill you.”

Arkan had murdered Alessandro’s father.

It explained so much. When he spoke of assassins, he barely managed to keep his hate under control, and I had never understood why. The database of professional killers who I thought were his rivals? They were his targets. That’s why Runa’s mother, an assassin, had hired him when she knew her life was in danger. It must’ve been known in their circles that the Artisan was an assassin who killed other killers. He was their boogeyman.

The silence lay heavy between us.

“Is that why you left six months ago?” I asked him. “To track Arkan down?”

The rage in his eyes subsided. He seemed almost relaxed now. He’d ripped his biggest secret out and offered it to me. The effort must’ve drained him to nothing.

“Yes.”

They fought and Alessandro lost. I sensed it the same way I sensed that his failure had seared him, tempering him like fire tempered a sword. He’d survived, but whatever he’d been through had burned off the veneer of playboy and Instagram idol. The Artisan was in the driver’s seat now.

“I didn’t get him,” he said. “I fucked that up too.”

Oh Alessandro. There was so much pain in those two sentences.

“I won’t let him hurt you.” His voice, so suffused with rage a moment ago, was ice cold now, measured and calm, and the determination in his eyes scared me more than his anger. “I’ll kill anyone who tries to end your life. I’ll answer any question you ask. I’ll pay any price to keep you alive. Let me protect you.”

His magic coiled around me, a current of warm sparks.

“Say yes, Catalina.”

“My permission isn’t necessary. Linus ordered me to work with you.”

“I don’t care what Linus said. I know you. If you don’t want to work with me, you’ll find a way to . . . not. I will protect you anyway, but if you’re always trying to lose me, it will make things harder. We’re so much stronger when we work together.”

If only it was that easy. Six months ago, just a glimpse of his grief and pain, and I would have fallen over myself to throw my arms around his neck and kiss him until the hurt inside him melted away. But I had learned that life was a vicious bitch and people were complicated. They lied to themselves.

“Do you want to protect me because of me or because it would throw a wrench into Arkan’s plans?”

He opened his mouth.

“Please, don’t answer,” I told him. “I have work to do now.”

I got out of the car. He followed. I walked up the brick steps, keyed the code into the lock, and opened the front door. The house stretched before us, cavernous and dark.

Alessandro stepped around me, moving in that stalking smooth way, raised his hand to the wall, and the lights came on. The house was white: white walls, white ceiling, white piano in the foyer on the ashy pine floor. It had a classic Texas layout, particular to “executive-style” homes—a grand foyer with vaulted ceilings that opened into the formal living room. A wall of windows directly opposite the front door offered the view of an infinity pool and a cabana bar illuminated by solar lights. On the right lay a formal dining room. On the left an office waited.

I turned left. The office was furnished in the traditional English-study style. Ornate mahogany shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling, wood paneling on the walls between two oversize windows, a large baroque desk, and a fireplace with a mantel of carved mahogany. An oil portrait of Lander Morton and a plump blond woman, both in their fifties, hung above the mantel. The only modern touches were electronic. A thoroughly modern computer with a huge screen, a printer, and several digital frames displaying pictures of the kids. A teenage boy, around fourteen or so, already echoing Felix in the build but not in his face, and two younger girls with long dark hair. Kids riding horses. Kids tubing on the river. Kids fishing in the ocean from a boat.