Илона Эндрюс - Emerald Blaze (Hidden Legacy)

“Of course,” Cornelius said. “Smile, Bunny.”

Bunny bared a forest of teeth.

Three minutes later, armed with new IDs, we took the elevator to Tatyana’s office on the fifth floor.

I had imagined cherrywood and black glass and possibly random flames jetting out of the floor. Instead, I got white marble floors, pale walls, indoor plants, and tons of sunshine streaming through the massive windows.

Tatyana sat behind a beige desk molded from a single block of plastic into a curved ergonomic form. The desk supported a computer, a two-foot-tall glass sculpture shaped like a tongue of flame glowing with red and orange, and a cute kitten made of frosted glass with blue eyes and a swipe of glitter on its ears.

There it was, the difference between Cheryl and Tatyana in a nutshell. Both women were somewhat close in age and income. Both had gone through the same schools. Both ran multimillion-dollar companies and dressed the part. But Cheryl would rather be dead than have a cute glass kitten on her desk. She micromanaged her image. Tatyana didn’t give a damn what other people thought of her, because she had nothing to prove. She was powerful and confident, and if she wanted to have a kitten with glitter on its ears on her desk, she would have one. I pitied anyone who tried to tell her it was unprofessional. That would be a good show to watch.

Tatyana saw us, stood up, and walked around her desk. She wore a seafoam dress with a square neckline. Her makeup was expertly applied, neither too much, nor too little. She’d twisted her hair into a knot and stuck a pencil into it. Her feet were bare, her taupe-colored heels lay abandoned under the desk.

Tatyana crossed her arms over her ample chest, looked at Cornelius, then looked at me. “Good move bringing him.”

“She didn’t bring me. I brought myself,” Cornelius said.

“Of course you did. How is Diana?”

“She’s well.”

Tatyana nodded at the chairs. “Sit.”

I took the chair on the left. Cornelius chose the one on the right. Bunny lay down on the floor by Cornelius and stared at Tatyana like she was a striking cobra. She glanced at the ID clipped to his collar. The corners of her mouth curved, threatening to stretch into a smile. She caught herself and killed it.

“Let’s start with July 15 th,” Cornelius said.

Tatyana leaned her butt against her desk. “Is this necessary? Montgomery’s goons already verified my schedule.” She glanced at me. “How does that work, by the way? Are you taking orders from Augustine?”

“That’s not relevant,” Cornelius said.

“On the contrary, that’s very relevant. Morton drove a truck to MII’s headquarters and dumped a load of money on their doorstep. Montgomery sprang into action before ever talking to any of us. Agents everywhere, staff questioned, witnesses contacted. Then twenty-four hours later he drops the case in your lap. You’re what, twelve? Are you sleeping with him? Because really, he’s too old for you.”

Cornelius leaned back. “Does this type of misdirection usually work for you?”

“You would be surprised,” Tatyana told him.

“It will go faster if you disclose whatever it is you want to hide,” Cornelius said. “I’ll ferret it out eventually and it would save us time.”

Tatyana looked at me. “Do you ever speak?”

“Yes,” I told her.

“Hallelujah.”

Cornelius threw one long leg over the other. His expression turned stern. Uh-oh.

“I see that House Pierce hasn’t changed. I used to wonder if Adam was an aberration, but now I see that he was a direct product of his upbringing and environment. Not surprising.”

Tatyana stared at him. Behind her, flames shot out of a hidden fissure and for a moment she was silhouetted against a wall of fire. Wow.

“Choose your words more carefully,” Prime Pierce warned.

Cornelius reached into his pocket, took out his wallet, pulled a dollar out, and handed it to me.

The flames died.

“When I was a child,” Cornelius said, “I took the blame for Adam’s mistakes and I endured his punishments for him. Your family turned me into a whipping boy.”

Tatyana flinched.

“When eight-year-old Adam was caught stealing and burned the face of the store owner’s relative, disfiguring him, I was grounded for a month because I failed to help him make good choices. When twelve-year-old Adam set a girl’s clothes on fire, because she refused to let him grope her, and her entire body blistered, I was put on restriction for three months. My electronic privileges were revoked, my food intake was cut in half, and I couldn’t step a foot out of my room unless I was going to school. I went three months without direct contact with any of my animals. When Adam was sixteen and he burned down a club because they refused to let him in, the dog who had been my friend and protector since I was nine years old was put down as my punishment.”

Oh my God.

“I loathe your family, Tatyana. I’d like nothing more than to ruin House Pierce entirely. Unfortunately, I’m bound by professional ethics. They dictate that my priority is to obtain the information I need. You have a choice to make. You know which path I would relish more.”

Tatyana looked at him. The office fell completely silent.

She uncrossed her arms and rested them on the desk on both sides of her.

“You’re right, Cornelius. My younger brother is a sadistic little shit. I don’t know if God made him like that or he got warped along the way. I do know that my father ignored it and my mother made it infinitely worse. Either way, you’ve suffered, and I am sorry for it.”

Well, knock me over with a feather.

Tatyana leaned forward. “However, your family is just as complicit in your torture as mine. They chose to put you into this situation by deciding to use you to buy my family’s patronage. They chose to inflict the punishments. All of them. And they may not have loved you the way parents should, but at least they ignored you when Adam wasn’t trying to torch everything in sight. You could go home and be safe, Cornelius. I never got to be safe. I had to go back to the hell that was my family every day and try to survive between my father, who ratcheted the pressure because I was never good enough, and my mother, who punished me for the smallest infraction I committed. When Peter’s magic manifested, I cried in my room. These weren’t sad tears. I cried from happiness, because I realized they would now let me be. So yes, we are all fucked up. You are not special. Get over it or don’t. Your choice. I refuse to allow my parents’ shadow to rule my life. They fucked up my childhood, they don’t get to fuck up the rest. I’m an adult, I make my own decisions, and I own my mistakes. Your future is your responsibility, not theirs.”

Okay then.

Cornelius thought about it and nodded. “Fair enough. Let’s talk about your mistakes on July 15 th.”

Tatyana sighed. “Fine. MII’s report will say that I spent the day at the office. And I did. But I also left for two hours and saw Felix at the Tower.”

“The Assembly’s visitor log for that day doesn’t show your name,” Cornelius said.

“I met him in the parking lot.”

“Why?” Cornelius asked.

“He wanted to shut down the Pit. He demanded an emergency meeting that Thursday and argued that the Pit wasn’t safe. He thought there was something terrible in there. Something we didn’t understand. We unanimously voted against shutting it down.”

Cornelius nodded. “Why did you vote against it?”

Tatyana sighed again. “Well, there is the money. We’re in deep. More importantly, House Pierce can’t afford a failure. You know how things work. Adam set us on fire. Now everything we touch is smudged with soot. We live under a microscope. If we failed in the Pit, it would be a disaster. There would be speculation and articles in the media about how we are finished as a House and how everything we get involved in turns to crap. We’ve made enemies. We have business rivals. We can’t appear weak, so we have to make the Pit work.”