Илона Эндрюс - Emerald Blaze (Hidden Legacy)

“She worked on it for almost two years, building this enormous complex web of bribes, blackmail, and violence. She bought Merritt for five million dollars. She had the trafficker kidnapped, broke him, and then used the information to make the deposits. She has a clan of Vietnamese illusion mages in her pocket. It’s a large family, powerful, but poor, because they have issues with the Vietnamese government. They will do whatever she asks. If you ever worried that the children in the videos were hurt, they weren’t. They weren’t even children. Like the part where they break the girl’s arms and hang her off a hook—she’s an adult woman, an illusion mage. The guy who assumes Connor’s image and rapes her is actually her husband. I’ve seen the before and after footage. They laughed about it.”

Nevada struggled to say something. “Connor . . .”

“I know that Connor would have given Merritt the money. Merritt wouldn’t have taken it. He hated Connor, because he thought Connor was the reason they were on that mission in the first place.”

“The reason they went on that mission was because they were in the military, they had orders, and it was their job to go,” Nevada growled.

“Merritt hurt his back in the jungle. The military denied him disability. The family was on food stamps. Victoria found him at his lowest, used him, and then had him killed once he’d served his purpose.”

Nevada stared at me.

I stood up. The words poured out of me, messy and stupid, but honest. “I love you so much, and Connor, and the baby. I love Arabella, and Leon, and Bern, and Mom, and Grandma Frida. You can’t fight Victoria. You don’t think like her. You don’t know her secrets. But I do.”

My sister blinked. “Catalina . . .”

I couldn’t stop. I had to make her see. “She’s grooming me to be her successor. I go there every two weeks and I learn everything I can, no matter what it costs me. I’m building my own web around our grandmother. It requires time and careful planning. When the right moment comes, I will collapse her world. But that moment is years away. If you go there tomorrow, you’ll wreck everything I’ve built, because she’ll attack you and your baby, and I will defend you with my life. We won’t win, Nevada. She has contingency plans in place in case of such an attack. Even if we kill her, we will lose. You trusted me with the responsibility of keeping our family safe, and I won’t let you down. Please trust me again. I know how much you gave up for our sake. I promise you I won’t let you get hurt. I won’t let any of you get hurt.”

Nevada stood up, her eyes wide. I hugged her, squeezing her to me, and fled the room.

I climbed the stairs past the third floor, all the way to the top, where a brick utility building offered access to the paved roof. I walked out into the night, skirted the utility structure, and came to the narrow space that served as my hiding spot.

I’d claimed it soon after we moved into the building. I brought up plants and set them along the edge of the roof—Texas lantanas with their clusters of red and yellow blossoms, wild mint with humble purple flowers, white and pink zonal geraniums, and lush golden pothos. Bern and Leon installed an overhang for me and built a stone rail along the roof, Nevada bought me an outdoor couch, and Runa helped me string outdoor lights from the overhang to the rail. Arabella found a small fire pit filled with blue glass pebbles and Grandma Frida hooked it up to the gas line. Mom made me a blanket and bought pillows.

Alessandro once told me that I was loved by many people. He was right. But right now, I felt completely and utterly alone.

I leaned on the stone rail. Below, across the street, warm electric light spilled onto the pavement from industrial-sized bay doorways. After the warehouse collapsed, Connor gifted Grandma Frida one of the buildings he’d bought when he was trying to keep us secure. It used to be a massive industrial garage where semitrucks were repaired and Grandma Frida had pounced on it, so she could keep her business running. She didn’t know how to not work. Tanks, mobile guns, and cars spoke to her in the same way computers and code whispered to Bern and she loved talking to them.

The blinds on the large window at the top of Grandma’s building were open and through it I could see the inside of the motor pool. A bright red monster of a tank sat in the center. Grandma Frida stood on its side in her blue coveralls, digging in it with some weird tool. It was barely nine, and when Grandma Frida focused on a problem, she sometimes worked till midnight.

A heavy door shut somewhere. Nevada crossed the street and walked into the motor pool. Shadow followed her, wagging her tail. Grandma Frida turned away from the tank, waved at Nevada, and went back to messing with the tank’s insides. Nevada pulled one of the metal chairs open and settled into it.

I had upset my sister and she went to talk to Grandma.

I backed away from the edge and sat on my padded couch. Around me the night mugged the city, the air no longer scorching, but still warm. My insides churned. I’d never planned on talking to Nevada about any of it. My sister dragged around a truckload of guilt for forcing me to become the Head of the House and making me think it was all my idea. Now she knew that I knew. I had no idea what she was feeling. It was all terrible and fucked up, and it felt like my soul had been shredded. Anger, sadness, guilt, and sharp wailing anxiety boiled inside me into an awful, toxic mix. I wanted to punch something and cry, but I also wanted to curl into a ball in some dark hole and not come out.

I pulled out my phone, found Alessandro’s number, and texted him.

Where are you?

Where do you need me to be?

I was a fool. On the roof of my building. Look for the Christmas lights.

He didn’t respond.

I switched to Patricia. Someone’s coming to see me. Let him in.

Okay.

I leaned my elbows on my knees and hid my face in my hands. The ache gnawed at me, relentless. What if Nevada ignored me and went to see Victoria anyway? What if I failed?

I ran through my preparations in my head. Victoria would go for Gisela first. My aunt was a walking calamity. She spent her life bouncing from one man to the next, always on the fringe of crime. Both Bern and Leon despised her. She was like a comet—every time she appeared in our lives, disaster followed. If I were Victoria, I’d grab her. She was a veritable treasure trove of sensitive information only a close family member would know, everything from how four-year-old Leon used to wet himself when her then-boyfriend would scream at him to Mom’s PTSD. She didn’t know everything, but what she knew would hurt and it was exactly the kind of information Victoria weaponized.

“What are you thinking?” Alessandro asked.

I lifted my head. He sat on the rail under the string of outdoor lights. The black and grey fabric of his long-sleeved shirt and pants blended with the night. He looked like a thief on the prowl from the neck down and a prince from the neck up. The glow of the lights caressed his face, his bold, strong features, carved jaw, perfect cheekbones, amber eyes under the sweep of dark eyebrows . . .

“If I were smarter, I would kill my aunt,” I said.

“What did she do?”

He didn’t look shocked. He wasn’t outraged. He simply assumed that if I was thinking about it, it had to be necessary. This is who we were. Birds of a feather.

“Nevada is thinking about confronting Victoria tomorrow on my behalf. I tried to convince her not to. I don’t know if I succeeded. If she goes after Victoria, my grandmother will retaliate, and Gisela would make a handy weapon and a good bargaining chip. No matter how fucked up she is, she’s still my aunt and Mom’s sister.”