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Al didn’t realize she’d leaned forward, that she held her breath, waiting for the rest of the story.
“The new king was not much older than a boy, but he was full of revenge. Understandably. But his revenge blinded him, and he had no interest in who was actually innocent or guilty. He was only interested in causing his own brand of bloodshed. He sentenced myinnocentparents to death, labeled me a traitor, claiming I had not raised the necessary concerns against my parents’ plot against the princess, and had me sent to Athens. With nothing. I wastwelve.”
Lysias was cold, angry, and even his hand had curled into a fist. Perhaps she should be afraid of him. He was a large man. A strong man—he’d thrown her attacker off as if it were nothing. He was full of fury and revenge.
But all she could think of was a boy of twelve tossed from everything he knew. Lost. She had always been lost, but she had no idea what had existed before. It would be much harder to adapt at twelve.
It was impossible to picture him as a youth, and yet she felt for the boy he must have been all the same.
“You are an avenger, Alexandra,” he said, though she thought she preferred Al to the overly feminine name she’d considered going by someday and foolishly told him about. “You have sought, at your own peril, to unmask the misdeeds of many a powerful man.”
He was right, but it felt like losing whatever little power she had here to admit that. So she lifted a shoulder, though it hurt—both her wound and her conscience. “For a price.”
Lysias leaned back, some of that controlled anger banked in his eyes. He smiled at her. “Yes, a price. A smart person always takes payment for the work they do. But the payment doesn’t matter if you’re dead, and you have risked death. You’ve decided to take that risk, again and again, because you wished to see justice done, regardless of what you might lose.”
She did not know how to argue with that. It was only the facts. Though she took the money to survive and had gotten into the whole spying on people game as a means of survival, she had taken increasingly higher profile people down. At her own risk, because she’d wanted to see powerful men who did bad thingsfall. Because she had, too often on the streets, seen the victims of their abuses of power.
Lysias’s smile widened when she said nothing. It was as if he could see through her, down to her very soul. Which had that same foreign warmth from earlier bloom deep within her. Her instinct was to look away, but his eyes compelled her.
“So now, Alexandra, you will help me enact my justice. Once and for all.”
Lysias watched the emotions play out over Alexandra’s face. He would turn her into Alexandra even though she tried very hard to keep her mask in place, a boyish kind of challenge she must have perfected over the years.
But she was hurt, and he knew his story compelled her. He could see it in the way she looked at him now: less hate, less suspicion, though some of both still. But it was all softer, there in her dark eyes.
“We are not that different, you and I,” he told her. “We come from a similar place. Once my plan is a success, you can have much of this too.” He gestured to the luxurious car they were in.
“Much, but not all?” she replied.
“No one can have it all. Except me.”
She did not smile in return, but something lightened in her gaze that made him want togenuinelysmile, instead of the media smile he trotted out to play the role of Lysias Balaskas. A mannotbent on revenge.
The car slowed, no doubt pulling through the gates to his expansive estate. “Ah, we are home. We will get you patched up, then discuss the plan.”
“And if I refuse to help you?” she asked.
He studied her. This woman, who’d posed as a boy for so long. Bloody in the back of his car. Alive because he’d saved her. And she dared suggest refusal? It should be an insult. An outrage.
He had no idea why he wanted tolaugh. He didnot, but he wanted to. He kept his gaze on her, his expression carefully bland. Because Lysias Balaskas had built himself into a man who gotwhateverhe wanted.
And he would have his revenge.
“Your refusal is immaterial. You will do everything I say. For this, you will be rewarded. Beyond your imagination. This I promise you. But there will be norefusal. I have saved you. I know your secret. You are mine for the foreseeable future.”
Her outrage was a thing of beauty. No matter how disheveled and bedraggled she was, her eyes flashed. Temper brought some much-needed color to her cheeks. Shecouldbe beautiful.
Shewouldbe once he was done with her.
“I have never cowed to a man before,Lysias,” she said, drawing his name out like one might draw out a curse.
He found himself aroused by it.Interesting, but not something to think too much on in the current moment.
The car had stopped, and the woman needed medical attention for certain. The driver opened his door first. So Lysias got out without response. The doctor he kept on his payroll to ensure any and all necessary silence stood at the entrance.
Lysias waved him over, and the man was quick to approach the car. Lysias himself opened the door to Al’s seat. She looked up at both of them with mulish distrust.
“Let me have a look now,” the doctor said briskly.
