Илона Эндрюс - Emerald Blaze (Hidden Legacy)

She still thought this was about Felix’s murder.

Alessandro sat in a chair next to me. I had brought him in as my guest. He was in his full Count Sagredo persona, beautiful suit, beautiful hair, beautiful smile. You would never know that less than twenty-four hours ago he’d killed sixteen of Arkan’s professional soldiers. I still remembered him smeared with soot and blood. I also remembered waking up next to him this morning. Covered with soot and blood or clean and in my bed, I didn’t care. I would be with him no matter what he did.

Alessandro saw me looking, reached over, took my hand, and squeezed it.

Around us the massive chamber was slowly filling up with Primes in jet-black robes, each wearing a green stole draped over their shoulders. We were in the Upper Chamber, where only the Heads of various Texas Houses could vote. Cheryl had demanded the judgment of her peers and only the Heads of Houses qualified.

Five rows away, in the front, Lander Morton sat in his wheelchair. A dark-haired teenage boy sat on his right and two younger girls, both with the same chocolate-brown hair, sat on his left. Lander had brought Felix’s children to face their father’s murderer.

I had made a report to Lander. It was carefully curated by Linus, but it outlined the version of events with enough accuracy. Cheryl had unleashed an illegal construct into the Pit. When Felix decided to seek outside assistance, she panicked, lured him to the Pit, and killed him. Then the construct ran amok, and when Cheryl realized that discovery was inevitable, she brought her House’s industrial army to kill off all the witnesses.

Linus had raided Cheryl’s workshop. He’d recovered the vial with traces of the Osiris serum in it. That was what remained of Cheryl’s sample. She had used all of it to push the nameless telepath’s mind into becoming the Abyss. She didn’t know how to duplicate the serum and probably decided that bringing in someone else to replicate it was too risky.

As if on cue, Cheryl walked through the door, surrounded by Primes. I recognized a few faces, all old Houses, all respected. She saw Lander and kept walking, looking straight ahead. Her squad shielded her from Lander’s gaze but not from his voice.

“Look, children,” he croaked. “Look at the woman who murdered your father.”

Cheryl crossed the floor and sat down in the front row on the other side.

Alessandro grimaced.

“What?”

“I should’ve killed her.”

“You can’t just murder the saint of Houston without some pomp and circumstance.”

“I realize that. I just dislike leaving things unfinished. It was my last job. A shame to leave it undone.”

That’s right. Lander had hired him to kill his son’s murderer. Wait . . .

“Last job?”

He turned to me. “I told you. I’m not leaving.”

He would stay. He really meant it.

My phone chimed. A call from Bern. Odd. He almost always texted. I put it to my ear.

“Yes?”

“I finally got the footage from a gas station near Christian Ravenscroft’s country club. You said the telekinetic was a Prime. Are you sure?”

“Yes. Why?”

A dark-haired man sat down in the row behind us. Alessandro went still.

I turned my head and glanced at the man. Recognition struck me.

“I’ll call you back.” I hung up.

There was no need to continue. I knew who Bern saw on that recording.

I skimmed his mind.

It made no sense. This man was barely a Significant the last time we met. Now, he was a Prime, a blazing powerful Prime. This was the power I had felt in the Pit.

“Long time no see.” The man grinned at me, his handsome face sharp.

I kept my voice neutral. “Prime Sagredo, let me introduce Xavier Ramirez Secada. He used to be Rogan’s first cousin, once removed.”

“We’ve met,” Alessandro said.

Telekinetic, silos, semi. Xavier was the one who’d knocked Alessandro off that silo, to his near death.

“It’s Prime Secada now. You’re probably wondering how,” Xavier said, a light Spanish accent overlaying his words. “The Osiris serum is a wonderful thing.”

When we raided Diatheke, Arkan’s pet scientist was trying to find a way to augment one’s magic with the serum. Her method warped her subjects. Apparently not all of them.

Xavier leaned his elbows on the backs of our seats and nodded toward Lander and the children. “Here’s the deal. You move, they die.”

Alessandro scanned the chamber.

“If it was up to me,” Xavier continued, “I would kill you both.” He looked at Alessandro. “You for obvious reasons.” He looked at me. “And you, because you destroyed my family.”

“You destroyed his family and I wasn’t invited?” Alessandro said, his tone light.

“I didn’t destroy anything. Xavier was under the impression he was related to Rogan. I simply found out that his mother chose to cheat on her husband.” I looked at Xavier. “It’s not my fault that you’re a bastard.”

Xavier bared his teeth at me. “When the time comes—and it will—I’ll make you suffer. I have learned all sorts of wonderful ways to make the pain last and last and last.”

“You were a sadistic little shit as a teenager,” I told him. “I see you haven’t changed.”

“This is so fun,” Xavier said. “But sadly, I have to take care of a bit of business.”

“Please,” Alessandro invited. “I’m getting bored.”

“Well, we can’t have that. The old man feels a sense of obligation to you for killing your father in front of you. He didn’t recognize you in Montreal, but he figured it out when you came back to life like Lazarus. He’s inclined to let you walk away. He feels it’s fair. He killed your father, you killed three of his best, and let’s not forget Cheryl.”

“I’m overcome by his generosity.” Alessandro’s voice was light and breezy.

“You should be. As I said, I don’t understand it, but he’s the boss. Walk away, stop trying to kill him, stop fucking up his plans, and he’ll let bygones be bygones. However, this dynamic duo you’ve got going is annoying, so I have orders to break the two of you up.”

Xavier smiled at me. “Everything you think he is is a lie. His family is penniless. They’ve been drowning in debt for generations. They started borrowing money in the eighteenth century and never stopped. Now they are so deep in the hole, they will never get out. His cars? Rented. His clothes? Bought secondhand. His pictures? Staged. The magic of photoshop.”

Alessandro’s face was unreadable.

“You see, with his kind of magic, he’s only good for two jobs, bodyguard or assassin, and his grandfather wouldn’t let him be either, because it’s beneath a Sagredo to serve other men. Do you know what his purpose in life is? To look pretty, so they can auction him off to the highest bidder. When some idiot rich girl marries him, they will use her dowry to stave off their creditors so they can stay afloat for just a little while longer. That’s how they survive. His Instagram is a billboard advertising him to his future bride. He’s a prince in plastic jewels.”

Alessandro’s expression was still blank. He looked almost bored. How much must it have cost him? He was so proud.

“Except our boy here decided to not play by the rules. They tried to marry him off three times, and he sabotaged every single engagement beyond repair.”

Xavier shook his head mockingly. “Why couldn’t you be a good boy, Alessandro? Why couldn’t you marry a rich girl and leech off of her, so your family could keep pretending to have some tattered dignity? Your father did it. Well, for a while anyway.”

You fucking asshole. “You won’t live to get old,” I promised him.

“Wait, you haven’t heard the best part yet.” Xavier grinned. “His grandfather got so tired of dealing with him that he kicked him out of the family. He isn’t a Count. He isn’t even a Sagredo. He’s been excised.”