Page 191 of The Company

Chapter Seventy-Six - Harper

I go to the beach alone the next day. Vincent is busy with… whatever. I’m not really sure what he does, but he left a note on the bedside table saying he would not be around and I should feel free to amuse myself today.

No restrictions. No guidelines. No rules.

Weird.

So I’m at the marina staring out at the sea. There’s a boat way out there, but from experience, I know what it is. A megayacht. I can tell by the top side that there’s a helipad, so I’m guessing that’s the yacht we came in on.

I look over at the boats docked in neat little rows. There are not a lot of them, it’s a small marina. Before I know it, I’m on my feet walking. The dock is metal and my feet pound as I walk the length of it looking at each boat. I know what a tender looks like. I mean, they come in all shapes and sizes, but I do remember what the tender looked like that we took from my father’s yacht to Vincent’s. It was large. One that held a lot of people. And it had a cabin for the helmsman.

My eyes scan the available boats until they rest on one at the end of the dock. I walk up to it and read the name. Illegal Tender. Cute. But very telling. It’s a tender boat all right. And that means it belongs to the yacht anchored offshore. I step inside and take it in. My eyes immediately go to the control panel. To the ignition. To the lockbox built into the side of the boat. I open it and there’s the key. Or at least, one key. That’s where we keep our keys when we’re docked somewhere private. So I guess whoever this person is out on that ship has something in common with my own family.

Besides me, of course.

I look back at the beach and then up to the tip of the mansion’s roof that is just barely visible from this low angle. I sit in the helmsman’s chair and start the boat.

She purrs.

I smile.

God, I have missed the water. The beach is not the same. I jump up, untie the boat, and then take my seat and ease her away from the dock. The Pacific is strong and the waves are looming, but I’m not in a rush. So I take it slow. Just casually meander my way towards the yacht. It takes a good while for me to get close enough to see her name—Barely Legal, another very telling sign that these are Company people—and then a few minutes later I can see a crew member waiting for me in the garage.

Megayachts always have a tender boat. It’s a limousine used to shuttle passengers to the shore. Our yachts actually have two, but the sailing ship, the one I escaped from last year, only had one. A quick look inside the garage tells me this one has space for two, but none are here at the moment.

The crewman says nothing to me as he secures the vessel, and I ignore him as well. I’ve grown up around servants and I learned to ignore most of them very early. Not because I was snooty, just because it was a rule. I was not allowed to talk to people, status in life notwithstanding, and that was something I took very seriously. James didn’t even know my name until I told him that morning under the pier. He asked me on the beach back when we become Six, but I kept that secret like I was supposed to.

Actually—my mind wanders as I make my way through the garage and towards the entrance into the main part of the ship—Nick saw me drawing pictures in the sand. I was trying to give James a hint so I drew all the instruments I could remember from an orchestra. The last one was a harp and I had been hoping he would guess my name when he looked down at it.

But Nick came, calling me sister, which meant he was mad. And then he ushered me away from James and back to the ship.

Where I proceeded to spend the day not with James, as I had thought, but with Vincent.

I could not tell the difference.

Of course, I was six.

I open the hatch and walk into the ship. There’s a ladder so I climb, because I know full well I’m not going to find the owner of this boat down here. The next floor up also has a ladder, so I climb again. This floor has decks. But not the deck I’m looking for. So I go up one more level. This is a big-ass ship.

I hear soft music playing in the saloon area and when I step in, the cramped companionway opens up to a room filled with sleek, modern furniture.

“There she is,” a woman’s voice says from off to my left. She’s middle age, maybe mid-fifties. Her hair is dark and piled high on her head in an extravagant updo that contrasts with her beachwear. She tips her sunglasses down her nose and stares at me with brilliant green eyes.

So they get them from their mother, I catch myself thinking as she stands and extends her hand, walking towards me. “Harper Tate,” she coos as she waits for me to shake her hand. I do that, I’m on autopilot, and her grip is soft and so are her hands. “Finally, we get to see the golden child.”

I step back. “I’m sorry,” I say politely. “I’m at a disadvantage here.”

“Oh,” the mother coos again. “Albert, I do believe your son has neglected his manners.” She looks over my shoulder and I turn to greet Albert.

I’m so glad my back is to the mother, because Albert is a drooling old man in a wheelchair. His head lies against his shoulder and his hands are secured to the arms of his wheelchair with Velcro strips.

He’s wearing a bib.

This. Is James’ father.

The titular head of a Company family. And from what my father said, only this family competes with our rank. Company royalty, he called my future children.

I look back to the mother and take her in again, this time seeing her for what she really is. The actual head of a global shadow government. A woman who not only bargains the lives of girls but sends sons off to kill on command.