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Beatrice fucking Randolph had set the date for him.
Senator Dubois stepped between them. “This isn’t helping either of you.”
“Why are you even here, Louis?” Lila snapped. “After everything she did to you? Someone should say these things. Someone should do a lot more than just talk.”
Senator Dubois held his arms up and backed away. He put a shoulder around Shiloh and pulled the boy in close.
Thank the gods for the senator. Lila had nothing left for the boy.
She had nothing left for anyone.
Lila leaned into her mother’s ear. “You never deserved my father, you know that? You didn’t make him into the man he was. He made himself into what he was in spite of you. He was the one who lowered himself to touch you. Remember that while you prance around in your little tower.”
“You know, Elizabeth, you can be quite hateful when you want to be.”
“I learned from the best. After you leave here, you’re going to go home, and you’re going to transfer every single credit I had back into my accounts. Do you know what’s going to happen if you don’t? I’ll take back every credit I’m owned anyway, and then I’ll take yours, too. All of it. I’ll steal it all, and you’ll never see it again. What will you tell the family then?”
“They’ll arrest you.”
“They’d have to find me first. I disappeared once, and I can easily disappear again.”
“I found you.”
“One of your spies found me right outside my father’s home. I hadn’t even left the city. How will they fare if they have to canvass the whole world?”
“You’re upse
t, but blaming me for your father’s heart attack won’t—”
“Upset? You took my father away too early. I’m more than a little upset. If you ever take what’s mine again, then I’ll use every bank in the world to fuck you. I’m playing without a soul now too. Thanks for the last lesson.”
“I can’t believe you’d talk like that to your own mother.”
“I’m way past giving a shit what you can and cannot believe. At some point you forgot who I was, Mother, what I was. It’s not good to be my enemy. You’ve made your point, whatever you intended it to be. Have I made mine?”
“You don’t want me as your enemy, either.”
“Enemy? I don’t want you in my life as anything at all, not ever again. Don’t look for me.” Lila turned on her heel, padding through the lobby toward the automatic front doors.
Senator Masson pulled himself off the wall near the entrance and blocked her path, still wearing his New Bristol coat and breeches. “I am sorry for your loss.” He bowed low, almost parallel to the pristine checkered tile.
“No, you’re not, but you will be. I’m done with you, and I’m done with Bullstow. Figure out shit for yourselves from now on.”
She stepped around him.
The doors opened with a metallic whirl.
Lila shivered as the stars loomed above her, the gods watching her from above. The air had grown colder after her ride through Bullstow, and it tore at her skin. She’d brought no coat, and her scarf remained in her father’s suit. She’d have to go back to that empty room and fetch her keys.
Perhaps one of the servants could retrieve them.
Holding her side, she started out for Falcon Home, ignoring the thudding footsteps behind her.
“Excuse me?” Masson called out.
Lila didn’t even stop. “You heard me, senator. You and your little friends are in my father’s shoes now. Much of La Roux’s network is still out there, wriggling in their beds. It’s up to you and yours to solve the problem. Find them. See how far you get on your own.”
He grabbed her wrist. “We had a deal,” he hissed.
