Emerald Blaze

Chapter 17

Alessandro came for me, covered in blood, picked me up, and we jumped off the roof while Bug screamed through his drone. I closed my eyes and clung to him, shell-shocked, my mind reeling. It felt like everything was happening to someone else.

Alessandro loaded me into a helicopter. I held on to him, afraid that he would leave, but he stayed on the seat next to me, his arm around me.

“It’s over,” he murmured. “It’s all over.”

All around us, soldiers moved with purpose, but there was nobody to kill. Alessandro had reaped a bloody harvest. None of Arkan’s people survived.

Linus appeared by the helicopter and studied me, his face concerned.

“Do you know who I am?”

I stared at him, blank. Making words was too hard.

He glanced at Alessandro. “Has she spoken?”

“No.”

Linus turned to me, his face tense. His eyes looked . . . afraid.

“Catalina, say something. Anything at all. It’s very important. Make a sound, but don’t sing. Say a word.”

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

“Just one word. You can do it. Say no. You say no so well. You’ve had a lot of practice.”

I struggled to push words out.

“Come on,” Linus prompted, his voice gentle. “Just one word. Remember, don’t sing.”

“ . . .”

“You can do it.”

Something clicked in my brain. “I told my family that I’m the Deputy.”

Linus exhaled and slumped against the side of the chopper. For a moment he looked old.

“Don’t kill my family.”

“That’s fine. Don’t worry. The Baylors are safe. Quite frankly, I’m surprised that it took so long. I thought you would tell them months ago. It’s unrealistic to expect a Deputy Warden’s family to not know their position.”

It was another one of his tests. Bastard.

I looked at Alessandro. “Please hurt him for me.”

“Good job,” Linus said. “Carry on.”

He went away. I closed my eyes and stuck my face into Alessandro’s shoulder and let the world go.

I had no idea how much time had passed. At some point we were in the air and then I fell asleep again.

I woke up because the helicopter landed on a roof. Alessandro gently sat me upright.

“Where are we?” I asked.

He smiled. “Come on, there is someone who wants to meet you.”

We got out and entered the building. He held my hand and we walked down a hallway, took an elevator down, walked down another hallway . . . I was just walking next to him. I didn’t want to be away from him. I loved him so much, and a part of me still couldn’t believe that the Abyss was dead and that this wasn’t a dream. I needed convincing that I was actually here and not sitting in the bubble of the Abyss’ magic, deep inside his mound.

We stopped at a nurse’s station. Someone put a cap and gown on me. Someone poured sanitizer on my hands and wiped my face with some kind of wipe. It smelled like rubbing alcohol and stung. A nurse told me to follow her. I tried to stay with Alessandro, but she told me he was too bloody. I followed her down the hallway through a door with four guards outside of it.

In a large comfortable room, Nevada sat on the bed. Connor sat next to her in a chair. I saw Mom and Grandma Frida, Arabella and my cousins. Nevada was holding a bundle of blankets. I came closer, and she offered it to me.

“Congratulations. You’re an aunt.”

I looked at my tiny, red-faced nephew, reached out, and touched his little fist.

Everything hit me at once. I wrapped my arms around the baby, sat down on the floor, and cried.

The next morning, I sat in a plush chair in the America Tower, waiting for the start of the special session of the Texas Assembly. Cheryl had somehow escaped the Pit and thrown herself on the mercy of the Texas Houses. She must’ve run the moment Alessandro jumped off the roof, otherwise he would’ve killed her. Instead she ended up at the House of one of her well-respected friends. All of her charitable work and connections bought her a lot of goodwill and she intended to use every drop of it to shield herself from Lander’s vengeance.

She still thought this was about Felix’s murder.

Alessandro sat in a chair next to me. I had brought him in as my guest. He was in his full Count Sagredo persona, beautiful suit, beautiful hair, beautiful smile. You would never know that less than twenty-four hours ago he’d killed sixteen of Arkan’s professional soldiers. I still remembered him smeared with soot and blood. I also remembered waking up next to him this morning. Covered with soot and blood or clean and in my bed, I didn’t care. I would be with him no matter what he did.

Alessandro saw me looking, reached over, took my hand, and squeezed it.

Around us the massive chamber was slowly filling up with Primes in jet-black robes, each wearing a green stole draped over their shoulders. We were in the Upper Chamber, where only the Heads of various Texas Houses could vote. Cheryl had demanded the judgment of her peers and only the Heads of Houses qualified.

Five rows away, in the front, Lander Morton sat in his wheelchair. A dark-haired teenage boy sat on his right and two younger girls, both with the same chocolate-brown hair, sat on his left. Lander had brought Felix’s children to face their father’s murderer.

I had made a report to Lander. It was carefully curated by Linus, but it outlined the version of events with enough accuracy. Cheryl had unleashed an illegal construct into the Pit. When Felix decided to seek outside assistance, she panicked, lured him to the Pit, and killed him. Then the construct ran amok, and when Cheryl realized that discovery was inevitable, she brought her House’s industrial army to kill off all the witnesses.

Linus had raided Cheryl’s workshop. He’d recovered the vial with traces of the Osiris serum in it. That was what remained of Cheryl’s sample. She had used all of it to push the nameless telepath’s mind into becoming the Abyss. She didn’t know how to duplicate the serum and probably decided that bringing in someone else to replicate it was too risky.

As if on cue, Cheryl walked through the door, surrounded by Primes. I recognized a few faces, all old Houses, all respected. She saw Lander and kept walking, looking straight ahead. Her squad shielded her from Lander’s gaze but not from his voice.

“Look, children,” he croaked. “Look at the woman who murdered your father.”

Cheryl crossed the floor and sat down in the front row on the other side.

Alessandro grimaced.

“What?”

“I should’ve killed her.”

“You can’t just murder the saint of Houston without some pomp and circumstance.”

“I realize that. I just dislike leaving things unfinished. It was my last job. A shame to leave it undone.”

That’s right. Lander had hired him to kill his son’s murderer. Wait . . .

“Last job?”

He turned to me. “I told you. I’m not leaving.”

He would stay. He really meant it.

My phone chimed. A call from Bern. Odd. He almost always texted. I put it to my ear.

“Yes?”

“I finally got the footage from a gas station near Christian Ravenscroft’s country club. You said the telekinetic was a Prime. Are you sure?”

“Yes. Why?”

A dark-haired man sat down in the row behind us. Alessandro went still.

I turned my head and glanced at the man. Recognition struck me.

“I’ll call you back.” I hung up.

There was no need to continue. I knew who Bern saw on that recording.

I skimmed his mind.

It made no sense. This man was barely a Significant the last time we met. Now, he was a Prime, a blazing powerful Prime. This was the power I had felt in the Pit.

“Long time no see.” The man grinned at me, his handsome face sharp.

I kept my voice neutral. “Prime Sagredo, let me introduce Xavier Ramirez Secada. He used to be Rogan’s first cousin, once removed.”

“We’ve met,” Alessandro said.

Telekinetic, silos, semi. Xavier was the one who’d knocked Alessandro off that silo, to his near death.

“It’s Prime Secada now. You’re probably wondering how,” Xavier said, a light Spanish accent overlaying his words. “The Osiris serum is a wonderful thing.”

When we raided Diatheke, Arkan’s pet scientist was trying to find a way to augment one’s magic with the serum. Her method warped her subjects. Apparently not all of them.

Xavier leaned his elbows on the backs of our seats and nodded toward Lander and the children. “Here’s the deal. You move, they die.”

Alessandro scanned the chamber.

“If it was up to me,” Xavier continued, “I would kill you both.” He looked at Alessandro. “You for obvious reasons.” He looked at me. “And you, because you destroyed my family.”

“You destroyed his family and I wasn’t invited?” Alessandro said, his tone light.

“I didn’t destroy anything. Xavier was under the impression he was related to Rogan. I simply found out that his mother chose to cheat on her husband.” I looked at Xavier. “It’s not my fault that you’re a bastard.”

Xavier bared his teeth at me. “When the time comes—and it will—I’ll make you suffer. I have learned all sorts of wonderful ways to make the pain last and last and last.”

“You were a sadistic little shit as a teenager,” I told him. “I see you haven’t changed.”

“This is so fun,” Xavier said. “But sadly, I have to take care of a bit of business.”

“Please,” Alessandro invited. “I’m getting bored.”

“Well, we can’t have that. The old man feels a sense of obligation to you for killing your father in front of you. He didn’t recognize you in Montreal, but he figured it out when you came back to life like Lazarus. He’s inclined to let you walk away. He feels it’s fair. He killed your father, you killed three of his best, and let’s not forget Cheryl.”

“I’m overcome by his generosity.” Alessandro’s voice was light and breezy.

“You should be. As I said, I don’t understand it, but he’s the boss. Walk away, stop trying to kill him, stop fucking up his plans, and he’ll let bygones be bygones. However, this dynamic duo you’ve got going is annoying, so I have orders to break the two of you up.”

Xavier smiled at me. “Everything you think he is is a lie. His family is penniless. They’ve been drowning in debt for generations. They started borrowing money in the eighteenth century and never stopped. Now they are so deep in the hole, they will never get out. His cars? Rented. His clothes? Bought secondhand. His pictures? Staged. The magic of photoshop.”

Alessandro’s face was unreadable.

“You see, with his kind of magic, he’s only good for two jobs, bodyguard or assassin, and his grandfather wouldn’t let him be either, because it’s beneath a Sagredo to serve other men. Do you know what his purpose in life is? To look pretty, so they can auction him off to the highest bidder. When some idiot rich girl marries him, they will use her dowry to stave off their creditors so they can stay afloat for just a little while longer. That’s how they survive. His Instagram is a billboard advertising him to his future bride. He’s a prince in plastic jewels.”

Alessandro’s expression was still blank. He looked almost bored. How much must it have cost him? He was so proud.

“Except our boy here decided to not play by the rules. They tried to marry him off three times, and he sabotaged every single engagement beyond repair.”

Xavier shook his head mockingly. “Why couldn’t you be a good boy, Alessandro? Why couldn’t you marry a rich girl and leech off of her, so your family could keep pretending to have some tattered dignity? Your father did it. Well, for a while anyway.”

You fucking asshole. “You won’t live to get old,” I promised him.

“Wait, you haven’t heard the best part yet.” Xavier grinned. “His grandfather got so tired of dealing with him that he kicked him out of the family. He isn’t a Count. He isn’t even a Sagredo. He’s been excised.”

Oh my God.

I think your pauper prince truly loves you, poor fool. It’s a shame. My grandmother knew. I thought she’d been talking about his clothes, but Victoria knew.

“All he has is what you see. He’s been running around the planet, killing assassins, and sending money home to his poor mother so she can keep the lights on for his two sisters. He doesn’t even keep what he earns.”

So many things made sense now.

Xavier turned to Alessandro. “There is something you should know about her too. She’s a gold digger like her sister. Her whole family is. Without money, a title, and a House, you’re worthless to her. What’s that fun American expression? She will drop you like a hot potato.”

Alessandro stared at him, his expression so dark I barely recognized him.

“Go home, Alessandro. Accept what you are. Your grandfather refused to announce the excision in public, because he still hopes you will come back to the fold and earn your keep by fucking some rich heiress until she opens her bank accounts. That’s your destiny.”

Alessandro smiled. It chilled me to the bone.

“Well, I have done my part.” Xavier rose. “Please enjoy the rest of your day.”

He got up and walked away.

Alessandro looked at me. He didn’t say anything, he just looked at me. They had tried to auction him. Like a horse. He must’ve known that’s what they had planned for him. He’d spent half of his life pretending to be someone he wasn’t.

Linus sat down next to me. “The show is about to start.”

Slowly, deliberately, Alessandro turned away from me and looked at the dais.

The Speaker of the Assembly, Luciana Cabera, walked into the chamber. She was a Hispanic woman in her sixties who had been elected to the position after the previous Speaker retired last year. A white man in his forties walked onto the dais carrying a golden staff. He banged it on the floor. A pulse of magic burst from him.

“This special session is now open.”

I didn’t even care anymore. Alessandro sat next to me, still like a statue and I wanted to fix it.

Luciana walked up to her thronelike chair on the dais and sat.

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us on such short notice. I promise this will be quick. As you all know, Cheryl Castellano, Prime and Head of House Castellano, has appealed to this body. She claims to be falsely accused of murdering Felix Morton, Prime and heir to House Morton. She believes that her business partners conspired with Lander Morton, Prime and Head of House Morton, to intentionally smear her name in an effort to remove her from the board of the Pit Reclamation Project and requests that we hear her case and render our judgment.”

Cheryl had some balls. Wow.

“Normally, the Texas Assembly would be only too happy to adjudicate this matter.”

A light ripple of laughter ran through the chamber. The Texas Assembly hated dealing with inter-House feuds.

Luciana raised her hand. The laughter died.

“Regretfully, we have another pressing matter, which overrides this appeal.”

A burly bailiff who looked like she could stop a tank barehanded walked up onto the dais and handed the Speaker a sealed envelope. A camera projected the image of the envelope onto a huge digital screen behind Luciana. It bore the seal of the National Assembly.

Luciana opened the envelope, pulled out an old-fashioned parchment, and unrolled it.

“Cheryl Amanda Castellano of House Castellano, you are hereby remanded into the custody of the National Assembly on charges of crimes against humanity and unlawful magic experimentation.”

The chamber erupted.

“Order!” the Gold Staff roared.

Cheryl jumped up. “No! No.”

Chains burst out of the ground and wound around Cheryl. She fell silent, her scream cut off. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she sagged down.

Two figures stepped out from an alcove behind the dais, both wearing crimson robes with hoods that hid their faces. The shorter figure waved a hand and Cheryl rose three inches off the ground. They walked to the doorway, and Cheryl followed, gliding silently.

I leaned to Linus and whispered, “Who are they?”

“Wardens from other states,” he murmured back.

Right. And everyone would see Linus sitting in the chamber, presumably having nothing at all to do with the scary hooded figures taking Cheryl away. His identity as a Warden would remain confidential.

“This is an outrage!” Lander howled, punching the arms of his chair. “She killed my son! I demand vengeance!”

The robed figures paused before Lander’s wheelchair. The front figure spoke in a deep female voice.

“The National Assembly regrets the loss of your son and acknowledges the anguish of House Morton. Should she be found guilty, we invite you to join us for her execution. Be assured, Prime Morton, you won’t have to wait long for that invitation.”

Lander took a deep breath, then sagged in his chair. The hooded pair walked out of the chamber, Cheryl in tow.

“All is well that ends well,” Linus murmured. “I’ll see you both for dinner tonight. My place.”

Sunshine flooded the parking lot. Heat rose from the pavement in waves. I pulled the black robe off and tucked it under my arm. Another moment, and I would bake like a pie.

Tonight, Linus would want the full report. Most likely he was working on a plan to take down Arkan. That was okay. Arkan needed to die and Xavier had to die with him. I was fine with that.

In front of us a large fountain in the shape of a giant dandelion sent mist and water into the air.

Alessandro hadn’t said a word.

I held the keys out to him. “Would you like to drive?”

He turned to me, his face grim. “We need to talk.”

I had expected it, but my world cracked in half anyway. I stopped.

A muscle jerked in his cheek. “What he said was true. Every word of it.”

“I know.”

“I grew up pretending to be the man I should’ve been. My job was made very clear to me after my father died. My mission in life was to attract the right kind of bride with a bank account large enough to keep our family alive. I went to the parties wearing designer clothes after listening to my mother cry on the phone with our creditors. I attended gallery openings and drank champagne while my sisters ate the same pasta with nothing but a bit of salt for three days in a row because it was all we had.”

The burden of it, the shame he must’ve felt, had to be crushing. But he talked about it as if he were discussing the morning news over coffee.

“Every time I tried to earn money, my family spat on it. After the third time my grandfather hurled the money I brought home in my face, I realized that they would never accept it. And when I refused to be sold, they excised me. In the last decade I’ve earned over sixty million. All of it, except for fifty thousand dollars I keep in my account as operational expenses, went to our debt and to my mother and my sisters. Xavier is right. I’m the reason their lights are on. I have earned enough to keep the creditors off their back and to make sure that my mother and my sisters won’t starve. They can afford clothes and shoes. They won’t go without. I would have kept going, but my oldest sister grew up. She’d acted as my agent since she was fourteen, but now she refuses to take my blood money. She says she doesn’t want the guilt of knowing I might die for it.”

“I think I would like your sister.”

His voice was so detached. He’d locked all his feelings into a cage of will and kept them there.

“I can offer you nothing except myself. All I can do is be an assassin or a bodyguard. I’m done being an assassin and you’re the only person I want to guard. I tried to tell you this before, but I wanted you so much, it almost made me insane. I am a prince in plastic jewels, but I was still raised as a Prime. I know what a Prime should bring to the marriage.”

“And what would that be?”

“A stable House. Political and financial connections. Alliances. Wealth. Security. I have none of it. I come to you with nothing. Right here, right now, this is all I will ever be. I can’t leave you on my own, Catalina, but if you tell me to go, I will. I promise I’ll never bother you again.”

He waited.

His words floated from my memory. You’re beautiful, you’re brilliant, and if they knew how dangerous you were, you would get buried in proposals.

It was my turn.

“Alessandro, you’re the most powerful antistasi on the planet. What you did in the Pit was beyond anything I could’ve imagined. You’re strong, skilled, educated, and you have this incredible brain that unravels complex schemes in seconds. You walked into a building full of trained killers and eliminated everyone there to save a child you barely knew. And then you went to see Victoria Tremaine and threatened to cut her head off, and she let you go because you are charming, and your bearing is flawless. Who in this world can do that? You’re kind to my relatives when you have nothing to gain. You’re probably the only person aside from my family who understands me and can call me on my crap. And with all of that, you love me. You bring so much, Alessandro.”

He stared at me.

“Don’t you get it? Right here, right now, you are everything I ever wanted. I don’t care about money, connections, or reputation. We can earn all these things, together. I just want you. You’re so much more than I hoped for. If you come home with me, I’ll be the luckiest person alive.”

I didn’t see him move. One moment he was standing by the fountain and the next he kissed me, his lips hot and desperate. He stole my breath away.

“Stay with me,” I asked him.

“Always,” he promised.