AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Lila stood up, laughing. “You want me to break into Liberté and steal account data? Are you mad?”
“Oh, is it too hard for you? I suppose I’ll have to tell Reaper and Toxic that their heroine can’t walk on water after all.”
“We’re not six years old,” she said, twirling her sapphire ring. “You can’t dare me. It has nothing to do with how difficult it might be. It’s about stupidity, and me not having any.”
In point of fact, Lila had already broken into the impenetrable bank once, as a test of her strength. It had been young and stupid and childish, and she wasn’t proud of it, but she had accomplished it at the age of fifteen. It was an age she had known would protect her from the worst of the fallout. But during the hack, she had been smart enough not to take any data.
Being caught as an adult was far more trouble than it was worth, especially if she had to steal data. The prime minister wouldn’t be able to save her even if he wanted to. “We don’t need to hack into the bank. There might be an easier way.”
“Enlighten me.”
“They arrested Simon.”
“Yes.” Tristan peeked at the file. “Simon Wilson-Craft, age seventeen, Chairwoman Wilson’s youngest son. The way I hear it, he was a good kid in his last few months of high school, not a wastrel son at all. Now he’ll be a slave for the next twenty years.”
Tristan shoved his mug onto the coffee table. “According to the bill of transfer on his mark, Simon will pick grapes in the Masson vineyard until he’s thirty-seven. Your mom was the one who bought him. As a present. Wrapped him up in a little bow and sent him to Chairwoman Masson as a gift for the Summer Solstice. Did you tie the ribbon?”
“My mother outbid Chairwoman LeBeau. No one else would.”
“Oh, is that what it is? Can’t let—”
“Chairwoman Wilson didn’t lift a finger to save her son from that woman. You might not be allowed to bid on members of your family, but your allies can. She didn’t ask them, though. My mother saved Simon. He would have been sent to a coal mine if she hadn’t stepped in, all because Chairwoman LeBeau wanted an easy dig at his mother during parties.”
“Yes, because picking grapes in the hot Saxony sun is so much better than—”
“It is better. Safer, too. Simon has always loved the Masson vineyard. That’s why he’s there. He might not be happy, but he’s not miserable and he’s safe. My family did the best we could by him, so go vomit your righteous indignation on someone else.”
Tristan dropped the folder on the coffee table with a slap. “Since your family still owns him, can you run down to the vineyard for a taste of your slave boy whenever you’re hungry?”
Lila’s face twisted in disgust. “Oracle’s wrath! He’s my best friend’s little brother.”
“Ah yes, of course, I forgot that you like to keep your friends on a leash. How is Ms. Wilson? Does she scrub your dishes after you eat? Wash your boots? Do you make her say ‘Yes, madam’ or is she—”
“Shut up about things you don’t understand. We did the best we could for both of them when they found themselves in very bad situations.”
“I think I understand the situation just fine.”
“Why? Because you grew up as a slave?” Lila asked, ignoring Tristan’s darkening expression. “I know who you really are, Tristan. I research the people I work with. You were well educated—tutored by Amala Devi, no less. I was impressed when I found that out. It explained a great deal, like how a slave can write like a senator.”
Tristan looked up.
“Yes, I know about that, too. You could have taken a servant’s contract anywhere with your education and abilities. You could have been a proper journalist, but—”
“I am a proper journalist.”
“A proper journalist can use his own name, but you c
an’t because you ran away before you aged out. Stupid, really. You had less than a year until your eighteenth birthday. Now you have those months hanging over your head and more time besides for cutting that thing out of your neck.”
“I don’t regret it.”
“No, but I imagine your mother didn’t approve of your choice. You hate her a little for choosing to stay with the Holguíns, don’t you? Finally free, after all that time. She could take a servant’s contract with any other family. She’s free now, and well educated, just like you. She could go anywhere with her credentials. She could even open her own lowborn business if she saved up the capital or found an investor. Yet she stays with those people who bought her mark, day after day. She stays with him and the rest of that family. Out of comfort? Out of loyalty? Is she still his mistress? I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you target the Holguíns so often.” Lila held up the mug with its last few drops of Sangre, and his eyes narrowed even more.
“I work in a security office, Tristan. Did you think I wouldn’t know? We get tagged all the time by Bullstow for security alerts, thieves stealing this and that. Chairwoman Holguín’s sons had a few Cruz trucks go missing last week. A few Cruz trucks happen to be downstairs in your shop right now. What a coincidence.” She tapped her boot against one of the ottomans. “If I cut away the cushion, would I find the Holguín label underneath? I knew you and your men hit their warehouse a few weeks ago—technically not their winery, so I suppose you didn’t just lie to me ten minutes ago, but I couldn’t figure out where you had stored all that wine. I didn’t know you and your people had moved into this place, though. That managed to slip past me.”
She sat down on the coffee table across from him. “It’s always amused me before, this strange habit and vendetta you have against the Holguíns. If your highborn father hadn’t retained Devi’s services, you would—”
“I would have grown up poor and stupid, indoctrinated and indebted to the highborn so that I’d take any contract offered, rushing into a different brand of slavery the moment I was released.”
