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“So what does any of this have to do with Alessandro?”
“Like your family, mine is loud and filled with strong personalities. We function as a unit because once a plan is laid out and agreed on, all of us stick to it. Even Misha, despite his relentless fight against all orders, does as he is told in a crisis. I’ve worked with Alessandro before. Alessandro rejects all plans except his own. He doesn’t rebel, because to rebel against authority one has to recognize it exists in the first place. My distant cousin is an army of one, a world unto himself. He might put himself on a leash for a short while, but he will never let you hold it, and when he decides to charge, all bets are off. In short, if I had to work with him on a daily basis, he would drive me insane within weeks.”
“But you did work with him.” Not that Alessandro told me anything about that—yet another thing we would have to discuss. It just seemed like the logical assumption.
“Briefly, three years ago.” Konstantin leaned forward. “I’ll be blunt. The Imperium would move heaven and earth to recruit a Prime of Alessandro’s caliber. Yet, we’ve made no effort to do so. He’s a liability.”
He was making Alessandro sound like an irrational, petulant man-child. That was so wildly off the mark, it wasn’t even funny. Alessandro was perfectly willing to follow Linus’ orders. He’d changed after Arkan almost killed him, but it was mostly about setting his priorities straight, not altering the core of who he was. There was more there that I would have to dig up.
“So, I ask again, what’s the attraction? Help me solve this puzzle.”
I shrugged. “You saw the Alessandro he wanted you to see and drew the conclusions he wanted you to draw. I see a different Alessandro.”
“How do you know the Alessandro he shows you is the real one?”
Because he loves me. I smiled at him. “I trust him.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I ignored him.
“He is so much trouble, Catalina. Is he worth it?”
“Yes,” I told him. “He is.”
You could always tell how good the meal was by how much talking was done at the table. The family stayed quiet for an entire ten minutes, so the dinner was a resounding success.
Now everyone was on the second helping or the fourth taco, if you were Leon, and the conversation slowly restarted.
“You hired Augustine?” Mom asked.
“We hired MII,” I told her.
“Oh, how the tables have turned.” Leon bit into his taco.
“It’s coming out of the Warden budget.” I glanced at Arabella, hoping to prevent another explosion of financial outrage. “Hopefully.”
“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” Arabella said, giving Konstantin a dirty look.
“These tacos are delicious,” the prince said. “The chicken especially.”
He rolled some shredded cheese into a ball and dropped it on the floor for Rooster. She snarfed it off the tile without ever taking her eyes off him.
“Rooster will not respond to bribes,” Cornelius informed Konstantin. He had been trying to rest and recuperate from his injuries. His color was good and Matilda at his side was smiling.
“Pass the mango pico, please,” Runa asked.
“Blasphemer,” Grandma Frida told her. “Pico is pico, it’s not a fruit salad.”
“Can we not start that again?” Mom asked.
The conversation floated around the table like playful currents clashing and winding around each other. In this happy little pond, Alessandro was a dark gloomy rock jutting next to me. The waters of banter flowed around him, while he remained silent. It didn’t stop him from consuming a record number of steak tacos. They were his favorite.
Augustine Montgomery walked in. He was wearing his normal persona, a marble demigod in his early thirties, tall, lean, with perfect features and light blond hair. Konstantin glanced at him. The two illusion Primes stared at each other.
Leon whistled a vaguely Western tune.
“Nice scar,” Konstantin said.
“So is yours,” Augustine told him.
Arabella got up and pulled a chair out for Augustine. “Please join us, Prime Montgomery.”
“I’d be delighted.” Augustine sat down and began loading his plate. “It’s done. The FBI was positively giddy.”
Great.
“What’s done?” Mom asked.
“We’ve removed all of Arkan’s operatives embedded in the state,” I said. “He is flying blind. Konstantin provided the intelligence, Matt the snitch confirmed it, and the MII and FBI jointly apprehended everyone.”
“The FBI called it Operation Beartrap.” Augustine rolled his eyes and bit into his taco. “The food is delightful as always, Catalina.”
Konstantin looked at me. “Does everyone come to your house to eat?”
“Sometimes,” I told him. I had made enough to send plates to our guards. When I’d told Leon that my upset level was at eleven, I wasn’t lying.
My phone vibrated. I glanced at it. A text from Patricia.
We have a guest.
A video followed. I muted the phone and tapped play. Julian Cabera, the younger of Luciana Cabera’s brothers, in our office. A slack expression claimed his face. He’d clenched his hands into a single fist, staring at the floor.
