She’d thought that she’d found the hacker, Tristan’s associate, but she knew the man had a partner. That partner continued the ruse after Reaper’s death, blackmailing her, treating her like another nosy, corrupt highborn.
She hadn’t the time to deal with it then, for she had been busy with other things. So she had paid, and the blackmailer had squealed to her matron.
And Lila couldn’t explain any of it.
“You and your little secrets,” her mother had said after a long silence. “Fix it, Elizabeth. Don’t you dare come back to this estate until you have. I mean it. Not one toe!”
Lila had bowed, packed a bag, and left the compound for Tristan’s shop. Unfortunately, she hadn’t fixed it, not yet, and not for lack of trying.
But at least the blackmailer had not contacted her since.
“What does your mother want now?” Tristan stroked her belly with his thumb. His head tilted to the side as he studied her face.
“How’d you know it was her?”
“How could I not?” He pointed between her eyes. “You only get this furrow when you mention her.”
“She wants me to have breakfast with her in an hour. No reason given. Cryptic, isn’t it?”
“Your vacation doesn’t end until Monday.”
“Perhaps she wants an update. And when I don’t have my blackmailer’s identity, she’ll kick me out of the Randolph compound for good. I’ll be exiled like Natalie Holguín. I’m guessing that’s why my father messaged me last night.”
Her father had cleared his schedule, all so he could return early to New Bristol, the capital of the southern state of Saxony. He wouldn’t say why, but she could guess. Prime ministers didn’t do such things days before the legislative session closed, not unless they had a damn good reason.
“You think he came back because of you?”
“The timing is awfully convenient, don’t you think? He made a point of making lunch plans with me for this afternoon. He knows what my mother has in store for me, and he’ll try to soften the blow.”
“Maybe he wants to hire you for another job.”
“Doubtful. I was less than cooperative the last time we spoke.”
“He’d gone behind your back to put you on a forced vacation, and you were trying to protect secrets that weren’t yours to tell. You were exhausted, angry, and you still had a blackmailer to find.”
“I still do.”
“What if he asks you to find Oskar and Maria?”
“Then I’ll say no,” she said, sitting up and scratching at her tangled hair. “He won’t ask me, though. He and Chief Shaw still believe that the Holguíns set up the hit on Natalie and sold Oskar and Maria Kruger to the Germans. So does the Allied press.”
“Maybe the family will fall.”
“They won’t fall. They’re handling it, despite the protests. They’ve cooperated with Bullstow and proven the deal they had set up, a perfectly legal deal with a family in England, if what I saw in Shaw’s files is correct. One of my spies informed me yesterday that Chairwoman Holguín might even volunteer to go under the truth serum to prove it. If she’s reached that level of desperation, then she might demand every highborn and servant in her compound submit to the serum. She won’t let her family fall over this.”
He stroked her back. “Do you think your father found out about the warehouse?”
Lila shook him off.
They hadn’t talked about what happened at the warehouse since the day it happened, the day they recovered Oskar and entrusted him and his sister to the oracles for safekeeping, the day she helped kill a dozen Italian mercenaries, the day the oracle had taken the survivors to her compound so that she might gain more information about the empire’s plans.
Tristan did not cause the silence. Lila merely walked out of the room whenever he brought it up.
If only she could pull the same trick with her memories. If only she could wake before the dreams started, long before the bullets flew and the blood pooled upon the ground. If only she could slam that door behind her for good, keeping it shut and locked and forgotten.
But the door would not stay closed, and it would not stay forgotten. Like a monster beating its club upon the heavy wood, it demanded attention.
It demanded again, but Lila ignored it.