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“We’re already getting weird, so go for it.”
“Do you know anything about a drug called Oparid?”
She let out a breath. “Sure. That’s Daddy’s pet painkiller. He doesn’t talk about it much, but I know he’s been developing it forever.”
“He’s releasing it soon, or so I heard. I was curious what he said about it.”
“Not much, just vague stuff. Why do you care about that, anyway?”
“I’m not sure. It’s sort of a long story.”
She considered me before taking out her phone. “What’s your number?”
I opened my mouth, but paused.
I didn’t need to do this. I could stand up and walk away and never see my cousin again. She seemed like a nice girl and I didn’t want to drag her into this dirty business if I could help it. I was an Oligarch, born into the family and bred for this sort of work, but she was still a normal person. She didn’t need to be stained by my obsessive quest.
But she could be useful. She had to know something about it, or at least more than she realized or was letting on. And I wanted to get to know my cousin.
I rattled off my number. She typed it in then sent me a quick text. I added her to my contacts.
“Let’s have lunch,” she said. “I’m going to law school at Stanford, so I figure—”
“Wait, you go to Stanford? I do too!”
She laughed, brushing back her hair. “I guess we really are a family of geniuses. How about lunch on campus tomorrow? When are you free?”
We traded schedules and set a time. She waved as she went back to work, and I sat back in the booth, staring at my closed laptop and wondering what the hell I should do now.
For the first time in my life, I had a cousin.
And I wanted to use her for information about her father.
I felt sick inside. She didn’t understand what I was doing here, and if she did, I was sure she wouldn’t talk to me. I wanted to find out the truth about my mother’s past, and I was sure her father was deeply wrapped up in the whole filthy tale.
I couldn’t let my weakness stop me. I gathered my things and left the cafe.
Laurel was smart, charming, and beautiful. She went to Stanford Law, which meant I needed to be extremely careful. If I was too obvious, like I had been back inside, she’d see through my crap and disappear like dust in the wind.
I didn’t want that to happen, which meant I needed to prepare for this lunch if I was going to come out the other side alive and on top.
Chapter 12
Nervosa
The boxing gym was a sauna of sweating, grunting men. I drifted through the room, keeping to the edges. I felt multiple eyes tracking my every movement as I posted up near the ring, watching an amateur bout between two men with more enthusiasm than skill.
I thought of Melanie. The way she smiled, the way she laughed. Her intense, angry confrontation with her uncle, and those final, parting words.
I know what you did.
Her grandfather, Lionel Yardley, died peacefully in his sleep when he was fifty-eight of natural causes, according to his obituary. I had my people dig it up. There wasn’t much else about his passing—a few local papers ran some tributes to him, and several in the pharma industry made public comments about his loss, but otherwise he was a rich but unimportant man and he went unnoticed into the grave.
There was no hint of foul play, but the way Melanie had confronted her uncle suggested I was missing something important.
One of the fighters ducked a right jab and slammed a sharp hook into his opponent’s face. The guy staggered, took another couple punches to the jaw, and dropped like a stone. The winner threw his hands up, a bald guy with a stupidly hairy chest, and the coaches rushed onto the mat to make sure the loser wasn’t dead.
“You like to watch fights?”
I glanced over. Liam stood with his arms crossed, his gray tank top damp with sweat. He stared at the fallen fighter, his face impassive like he was looking at a particularly boring piece of art. He was muscular, with a broad chest and arms, and small cuts and scars dotted his skin like criss-cross marks. It was gruesome, and if I hadn’t seen them before, I might’ve stared.
As it was, Liam didn’t intimidate me. He put on a show for the other Oligarchs and for his people, but I didn’t fall for it. Where everyone else saw a man living on the edge of sanity, I saw a broken little boy crying out to be loved.
“It’s not my thing.”
“I find it exciting,” Liam said, head tilted. “The uncertainty’s a rush. Even if a badly trained fighter goes up against a skilled and strong opponent, there’s always a chance that the lesser man will land a lucky punch. The brutality is beautiful and the movements are incredible. It’s like dance with more blood.”
