“I was doing you a favor, Lila. You were never meant to walk around in a blackcoat and order your toy soldiers about. It’s time to put away childish things and take up what you were born to do. Your mother would have forced the issue at some point. I only helped you come to it sooner.”
“So that I would help you?”
“Yes! Can you blame me?”
Lila picked up her cuffs and slid them into her pocket. “I always wondered why my mother agreed to keep you in the great house. I suppose she knew it would only be a matter of time before you showed your true colors. She understood you far better than I ever did.”
“My true colors? Don’t pretend that you’re perfect, Lila. I might not know the details of what you’ve been up to in your security office, but I know enough. You’d hack into my life right now, privacy be damned, laws be damned, so long as you’d decided that the cause was just. The only difference between us is that I saw you for what you were when we were growing up and I accepted it. I liked you for it. Don’t pretend for a second that we’re all that different.”
Lila headed for the door, the bottle of wine still in her grasp.
“What are you going to do?”
“You ruined a good man, and because he is a good man, I can’t do a damn thing about what you’ve done. But I’m done protecting you. What happens to you now is up to my mother.”
“How do you know I won’t go to the media?”
“That didn’t take long, did it?”
“You’ve abandoned me. I have to look after myself.” Alex snatched up the velvet bag.
“I think you’ve always been looking after yourself.”
Alex pulled on the strings and withdrew a large silver coin. “My mark,” she said, her thumb brushing the Saxony seal and her name, engraved on the back. “You’ve had it all this time, haven’t you?”
“The chairwoman gave it to me the day I became chief. I can assure you that it’s been a heavy burden, but not nearly so heavy as it is today. You keep it now. I don’t want it anymore. And I wouldn’t go to the media if I were you. I might dig further into that little secret of yours. I admit that I would hack your life right now if I thought the cause was just, and in this case, I suspect it would be.”
“To protect your sister? What a joke. You’d—”
“To protect Senator Dubois, you ignorant little twat. You, my sister, and my mother have put him through enough. He doesn’t deserve to have his career ruined and his life mocked in the press, to have the hurt rubbed in his face every time he turns on the news. To have everyone know. So you bet your ass that I’d dig up all your secrets to prevent that from happening. I’d tell them to the world.”
Lila left the cellar and returned upstairs. It wasn’t until she reached the kitchens that she remembered she couldn’t drink the wine she’d taken.
She left the bottle on the counter and jogged upstairs to her room, snatching her riding jacket before slipping from the great house.
Night had fallen. Shadows loomed upon the grounds.
Lila didn’t care if it might be dangerous. She just needed to get away from everything for a while. She needed to move. She needed to feel the wind arcing around her helmet and chilling her skin. She needed to see bluebonnets and a thousand crumbling buildings fly past her as she rode down a winding road. Like Dubois, she needed to think. She didn’t even care that she had no destination in mind. She’d take her Firefly out tonight, assassin be damned.
She wouldn’t let fear stop her.
Lila came upon the garage and gripped the door handle.
The second her fingers touched metal, a gun cocked behind her, lost somewhere amid the trees and shadows.
Chapter 31
A thousand thoughts flew through Lila’s mind, and she cursed herself for freezing, rather than spinning and reaching for her Colt.
“Put your hands up and turn around.”
Lila paused, unwilling to give up her one chance to draw.
“Do it, now!” the woman snapped, breaking into Lila’s panicked thoughts. “And do it slowly, or you’ll be dead before you hit the ground.”
Lila finally did as she was bid.
Cristina Rubio peeked out from around a tree, night-vision goggles perched on her head, a gun aimed at Lila’s chest. A Weberly revolver, no less. Her hair was stringy, her eyes were wild, and her black coat matched the one Lila had seen on the security videos so many days ago.