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Dixon nodded. Adelisa and I had just come back from a movie. She stopped her car at the north gate, ready to drop me off at home, but the blackcoats had left it unattended. No one lifted the gate’s arm. I should have known that something was wrong, but it wasn’t until three trucks boxed in her car that I knew for sure. The blood squad snatched me from the passenger side and told her that our relationship was over. They told her she should enjoy her matron’s good graces while she still had them. Then they beat me on the hood of her car until I passed out. I just remember them asking her if it was worth it, over and over again. She didn’t even look that upset.
Lila slid her arm around his.
I woke up in a basement somewhere. I don’t even know everything that happened. I just remember them beating me and cutting my skin with knives and whips. Hot metal charred and scared my back. I kept asking what I’d done, but all they would say was that I had talked, that I had said things I shouldn’t have said, that I was a traitor to the family and had to pay.
On the last day, my matron came down. She ordered me to sing to her one last time. I thought if I sang well enough that she might let me go. I sang for hours until my throat burned with each note. When I could no longer sing clearly, she told them to cut out my tongue. Then she had them put it in a box and address it to Adelisa.
Lila squeezed him closer.
I don’t remember much after that. Just pain. The next time I came to, I found myself in a room. Tristan sat on the bed next to me. I remember my scalp felt so very cold and odd. They’d had to shave it to get at some of my wounds.
“They?”
He and Shirley and Doc.
“They broke you out?”
They tried. Their rescue attempt turned into a diversion. The blood squad was so distracted that when they loaded me up and dumped me in the river, they didn’t check my pulse so carefully. I was barely alive when Doc fished me from the water. He patched me up and fixed Shirley, too.
“That’s how she lost her fingers and her ear?”
Dixon nodded. The explosives she took had been mislabeled. She said her boss never did run a clean and orderly shop. After we were strong enough, we fled to New Bristol.
“And Tristan and Shirley went with you?”
They had to. Their boss noticed their absence and the loss of explosives. He ratted them out as thieves. They would have gotten another year in the auction house if they hadn’t run. Doc went with us, too. I think he’d grown sweet on Shirley. Besides, he’d been fired a few months before that and had no job and nowhere else to go. Tristan promised to help him.
“I don’t understand why your family called in their blood squad. You didn’t try to kill anyone or steal the family’s fortune. That’s all a blood squad is for.”
I suspect the Holguíns use them differently than most other families. I’m glad I do not belong to them any longer. Our family is better.
“It is,” Lila said, resting her chin against his shoulder.
Dixon shifted his weight, reaching for the shamrock bracelet on his wrist. He unclasped it and held it out to her. You keep this from now on.
Lila took it uncertainly.
Adelisa gave it to me. I’ve kept it all these years to remind me not to open my damn mouth, to keep my own secrets, to trust no one but myself. But I don’t want to live like that anymore, and I don’t want you to live like that either. Wear it and remember there’s always someone you can talk to if you want, someone who will keep your secrets and who will always tell you theirs.
Lila thumbed her belly, wondering if she should tell him her deepest secret. But what could she tell him, exactly? She still had no idea whom the baby belonged to. Perhaps when she knew more, she’d talk.
She just wasn’t ready.
When Lila did not accept the bracelet, he clasped it around her wrist. Lila played with the green shamrock charm, its unfamiliar weight odd against her skin. It shone in the light and paired well with her sapphire ring.
Lila cleared her throat. “Before I went to the Closing Ball, I found out more information about the snoop in the BIRD. It turned out that he had infected more than just that one application. He called himself the Baron. While I was at the ball, I found out that Senator La Roux might be the Baron.”
Dixon’s eyes bugged out.
“Yes, I know. That was my reaction too. I asked my sister’s fiancé to introduce us. They were cousins. I wanted a peek at his palm data, so I took him back to the great house. I got a look at his palm, all right, but what I found led me to believe he was innocent. I thought he was being set up.”
So you didn’t sleep with him?
“I thought the real Baron had him in their sights, Dixon. I thought that if I took him for the season, then I could protect him. The Randolphs needed an heir, anyway. So, yes, I did have sex with La Roux that night.” She sat up, pulling away from Dixon. “It wasn’t until he left the next morning that I realized the truth. He’d drugged my wine. He’d—”
Did he rape you? Dixon’s eyes narrowed to slits.
“No, he just wanted to make sure that I slept hard after we were through. While I dozed, he broke into my computer and copied files. He also bugged my room and my palm. I discovered it only a few moments after he left.” She ran her fingers over her legs, her skin now chilled to gooseflesh. “I should have let Mr. Shaw arrest him then, but I wanted to hear what he’d say without Bullstow hovering. When La Roux came over the next night, Mr. Shaw listened in.”
