Page 82 of Outfoxed

“For the moment.” How long would it be until the music mages sang their lethal song and wiped out the place I’d learned to call home? “Tulsa’s been my home for years.”

“And nobody wants to see somebody hurt their home. That’s fair. I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t agree to help you, as I’m always trying to get those sons of mine to do good deeds without whining about it.”

“We shipped the girl he helped out of Tulsa. To the East.”

“What’s another bounty?”

Bounty? “I was thinking more of just finding her and giving her a job if possible.”

“That is not nearly as entertaining as a bounty, and it would take a lot longer to find her, and I could probably have her to the house in a few days if I just issue a good bounty with strict rules. It’s not like I’m making her an uncontested courtesan. Well, I mean, if she takes to one of those idiot sons of mine, it’s not like I have any sense when it comes to money.” Sandro’s mother took a deep breath and shouted, “And don’t you even start with me, Theo!”

“I’m not the one who told you that you’d lost your fucking mind. That was Marco. You know, your uncontested courtesan. The one you’re constantly begging to have just one more child with. It’s also not my fault you exceeded your budget. Not only did you exceed your budget, you ignored it completely.”

“I wasn’t letting some asshole take the boy’s vixen.”

“You still overspent, and yes, I already told him you overspent. You’re damned lucky he thinks the boy would be heartbroken if someone else took his fox. And the boy learned from you how to manipulate his father with a trembling lip and watery eyes, so I prevented that train wreck by reminding him you’d cry if the boy didn’t get to keep his fox, which in turn would lead to the boy pulling the same shit.”

“I am so proud of him for that.”

I couldn’t imagine Sandro crying over anything. “He makes his lip tremble and pretends to cry?”

“Yes, he does. He’s a master at it. His father cannot stand seeing any of our idiot sons cry. The boy is the only one who still does it just to drive his father insane. He starts with this sad sigh, and he stares, his expression one of deep disappointment. That’s when he does this thing with his lip. He bites it while it’s trembling, like he is determined to keep from crying. The bite is how I know the little shit is faking it. When he really cries, he retreats, hides, and does so in silence where he thinks nobody is aware he’s doing it. He likes dark, enclosed spaces. Preserves his privacy that way. Then we wait until he’s done and badger him until he talks about what’s bothering him. Expect to do a lot of badgering with that one. He’s shy.”

I considered the papers in my hand. Without another word, I handed them over. Sandro’s mother accepted them, flipped through, and when she reached the first page with signatures, she blinked. She glanced at me, resumed staring at the sheets, and snorted.

“Should I be concerned?” Theo asked.

“I’ve been snookered!”

“How could she have possibly snookered you beyond making sure she got paid properly for putting up with the boy?”

“The boy’s her provisional buyer. That’s how. She snookered me!”

“Oh, clever boy. He really got you good this time. Already put out paperwork for his little fox, did he?”

I pointed at the papers. “He asked nicely, and I was going to give him two years to convince me to put up with him.”

“You’re such a good little vixen. This is wonderful. I’ll pretend to negotiate with the brat, I’ll lure him home, and then ambush him. Then you can yell at him. After all, he lowered his guard and let you be taken out East.”

“On purpose.”

“What?”

“He did that entirely on purpose, because they let me out of the hospital earlier than he liked, and if I went to the East, I probably wouldn’t fall over dead, and he seemed to think he had the money to buy out the contract here. Or something thereabouts. Honestly, I was fairly heavily drugged at the time, but he wanted Anna to handle it so he could try to get in on the auction.”

Sandro’s mother giggled. “It just keeps getting better and better, Theo. They’re working together to snooker me.”

“And I get paid twice if he buys me from you, I think?”

“Yes, you would.”

“The boy’s grown up, and he’s out to snooker me and make his little fox rich at the same time. He’s playing the game, and if he wasn’t facing off against me, he might have even won it. He’d just take the money I just paid him, turn around, offer it back, then rob me to pay me off and make his little fox even richer. Isn’t it a thing of beauty?”

“No, Stephani. You may not sell the fox to the boy. You can continue with your original plan to put a bow on her head, tuck her into his favorite chair, and wish him a happy birthday. At least you can tell Marco you paid the boy rather than one of those Alley upstarts you so dislike.”

“Alley upstarts?” I asked, hoping to make the crazy rich people talk about something sensible that didn’t involve selling me again.

“Yeah, there are some middle-class morons from around here who think if they do well in the Alley and situate things to their liking, they’ll be able to get power and prestige in the East. It’s nothing you’ll have to worry about right now, but if any of them actually succeed in consolidating power in the Alley, in theory they might be able to make something of themselves and annoy us later.”