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I walked around the desk and sat in the chair. Two picture frames flanked the monitor. On the right, the kids again, looking crestfallen and wearing brand-new school uniforms. On the left, a woman in her early thirties, slim, dark haired, with olive skin and big brown eyes. Felix’s wife and the children’s mother. According to Augustine’s dossier, she’d died three years ago. Rich or poor, mage or a dud, cancer didn’t discriminate.
I hated this part. Walking into someone else’s life, cut so abruptly short. The signs of things left undone everywhere. Notes scribbled on a pad of paper. A cup of half-finished coffee that nobody remembered to take to wash in the torrent of shock and grief. We were trespassing. Intruding on someone’s private existence without their permission.
I pushed the power button on the tower and the computer came to life with a soft whir. I pulled a USB stick I had taken from Rhino before I got into the car with Pete out of my pocket, plugged it in, and accessed the new drive. An icon of a heraldic shield with a styled B and S on it popped up. I clicked it and watched the program install.
Alessandro drifted through the office, looking at the pictures, studying the book spines on the shelves, and eventually came to stand beside me.
The installer finished. I pressed Windows and R. A Run window popped up and I typed “recent” into it. A new window opened, presenting me with a list of recently accessed files.
“What are you looking for?” he asked.
“Anything that has to do with the Pit. Felix was trying to keep what he found secret, so he likely saved it under some mundane name.”
I found the image from the file on the fourth try, saved as Sofia’s Dance Recital. There were two others, one from a different angle, and a close-up, zooming in on the churning ring with the glowing bulb in it, all saved under innocuous names. I copied all three to the USB, right clicked them one by one, selecting Add to Scrubber, and combed the computer for anything else related to the Pit. There were three folders and a few dozen documents. I copied them to the USB, added them to the Scrubber as well, clicked the shield icon on the desktop, and watched the list populate in the window.
“What is this?” Alessandro asked.
“Bern’s Scrubber. It deletes the files and overwrites the disk space with random data over and over, making the files unrecoverable.”
He drifted to the other side of the desk and leaned against the bookshelves.
“Why are you doing this?”
“When your father died, did you search the Internet for the man who killed him?”
“I did.” His expression turned grimmer.
I nodded at the picture of the three teenagers. “If my father was murdered, I would get on his computer and I would try to find out everything I could. What he was doing, where, why, with whom. The theft of the Osiris serum is a huge failure for the US Assembly. They will do anything to erase the evidence of that failure.”
“Including killing children?” he asked.
“I would like to think not, but I don’t trust them enough to take that chance.”
The Scrubber chewed through the files one by one. The silence was almost unbearable. He tore himself open for me and I couldn’t just ignore it. I had to clear the air.
“Why do you care what happens to me, Alessandro?”
“Do you remember what you told me when I came to see you after the trials?” he asked.
No, I didn’t. I had rambled, because I thought my magic had affected him and I’d panicked.
“You said, ‘I want you to have a happy life. I want you to get to do all the things you want to do.’ And then you went on about how your powers had scrambled my brain and you were so sorry, but ‘it will wear off, I promise.’”
“All that?”
“Those were the highlights.”
His magic coiled around him, a focused dense current flashing with orange like a lethal serpent whose scales shimmered, catching some hidden light. Suddenly the office seemed too small and the distance between us nonexistent.
“I want you to have a happy life, Catalina. I want you to get to do all the things you want to do. It’s not everything I want but it will have to be enough.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re the person I care about the most.”
He had no idea how much that meant to me. Maybe . . .
No. He left before, he would leave again. It had been so hard when he left. If I let myself care about him now, the next time he walked away would shatter me. I couldn’t afford to be that hurt. I had to be sharp and capable. My family counted on me. Linus counted on me. I had to guard the people I loved from Victoria. I could never allow a repeat of what happened eighteen months ago.
And even if he meant every word he said, I wasn’t free. Victoria Tremaine made sure of that. There would be no future for me and Alessandro.
I had to pull myself together.
The Scrubber finished. I ordered it to uninstall itself and looked at him.
“What do you think your ‘uncle’ Lander wants?” My voice was even. Grandma Victoria’s lessons paying off.
“Punishment.”
I nodded. “Lander wants to punish, Linus wants the serum, the National Assembly wants to keep it all quiet, Augustine wants his fee, and the Pit Primes want their project reopened.” I reached out and brushed the frame with the three children. “I want to help them.”
“Noble. And foolish.”
“Says the man who ran into the building full of assassins to save a teenage kid. Ragnar Etterson still talks about how awesome you are. You have to be careful. If you show up unannounced when he is over at the house, he might faint.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I’m not naive, Alessandro. Since you left, I’ve seen and done things I never thought myself capable of. I know what my role is now. When I take on a case, I do my best to make sure that people devastated by whatever fucked-up mess I’m walking into can salvage some small part of their lives. I’m the mitigating factor.”
“The buffer.” His voice sounded bitter.
“Yes. What I do makes the world a little safer for my family. It makes a difference, and while it may not seem like much, to the people affected by it, my help is everything. These are the cards I was dealt, and I choose to play the game this way. I don’t need a rescue or your protection.”
I took the USB, shut down the computer, and walked to the door. Behind me, Alessandro turned off the lights. We left the house as we found it, dark and devoid of warmth.
We didn’t speak on the way out of the subdivision.
I should’ve never started this conversation. When I got into the car, I was okay. My emotions had taken a beating, but I was functional. Now . . .
“Ask me something else,” he said. “Ask me any question. I’ll answer.”
He must have realized that information about himself was the only currency he had, and he was desperately trying to spend it. For some unknown reason, I was that important to him.
He was waiting for my answer.
Stab him, Victoria’s voice said in my head. Stab him now, right into his soul, while he’s vulnerable, and slam this door shut forever. Do it before he hurts you again.
Victoria Tremaine’s granddaughter would’ve done it. Should have done it. But I was Catalina Baylor.
I couldn’t hurt him. I felt like crying from the sheer strain of it.
The truck in front of us slammed on the brakes. Alessandro braked hard, throwing an arm in front of me.
I would treat this as a professional partnership. Linus ordered me to work with Alessandro, after all. I would do what I had to do, and I would never let Alessandro or anyone else know what it cost me.
“Marat’s expecting me tomorrow at ten. Would you like to join me?”
“Yes,” he said.
“My family hates you. If they try to provoke you, don’t injure them.”
“I won’t,” he said.
“They don’t know I am a Deputy. They do know that I work for Linus, and that my assignments are government-related and confidential. They know I can’t refuse the jobs he gives me. They accept it, they help me, and they don’t ask questions. Please don’t put them in danger by saying too much.”
It didn’t hurt that being a Deputy Warden paid exceptionally well. Linus had failed to mention that part when he deputized me. When the first wire had landed in our account, I’d almost had a heart attack.
“I promise,” he said.
“Give me your number.”
He rattled it off and I added it to my contact list.
He turned the corner. Our guardhouse swung into view, lit up by floodlights. Alessandro brought the Spider to a smooth stop. He parked and moved to get out of the car.
“No need. I can open my own door.”
“Tomorrow,” he said.
“Yes. See you tomorrow.”
I got out of the car and headed to the guardhouse. I felt like I was bruised from the inside out.
Things would be so easy if it wasn’t for feelings.
Chapter 5
I walked to the window of the security booth and pressed my hand against the glass in the designated circle where small round holes had been drilled in the bulletproof glass. The tinted windows hid the two guards inside, and I felt slightly vulnerable.
“Password?” a clipped male voice demanded through the speaker.
