Somehow, some way, she was going to figure out how to get the message across to her sister without betraying everything she knew.
Her eyes were watering, and she was practically choking on a toxic combination of hurt and anger. Her mother was implacable, and her father was too weak-willed to fight for her, and no one else even knew she needed to be fought for. She felt tears slipping from her eyes, and she made no effort to wipe them away.
“Don’t bother coming to visit,” she said hoarsely, knowing that someday she was going to regret the words. “I never want to see either of you again.” She turned to the two prison matrons in their navy blue uniforms and their faux-sympathetic smiles. “Let’s go.”
Turning her back on her parents, she followed her new keepers to the key-carded door she’d noticed when they’d stepped in. One woman opened the door and gestured Nadia inside, while the other stayed behind her, as if ready to stop her if she tried to bolt.
Without another look at her parents, she stepped through the door.
* * *
Just like at Tranquility, the first step of checking in to the Preston Sanctuary was for Nadia to change out of her street clothes and into a retreat uniform, this one a medium-blue belted tunic and pants. At least the color was more flattering to Nadia’s fair skin, she thought as she changed in a curtained alcove while the matrons—who had now introduced themselves a second time without Nadia paying enough attention to remember their names—waited.
Only there was one crucial difference between the Preston Sanctuary and Tranquility, one Nadia had not anticipated or she wouldn’t have gone as quietly as she had, would have pitched a screaming, hysterical fit and not cared who heard her or how embarrassed her family would be.
When the matrons guided Nadia through the back door of the changing room into the heart of the retreat, there was the distinctive beep of a metal detector going off. She froze in the doorway, feeling as if she’d just been kicked in the ribs.
One of the matrons gave her a smile that was both sheepish and sympathetic. “I’m afraid it’s not uncommon for our new guests to try to smuggle things in. Please step back into the changing room and remove anything that is not part of the uniform.”
Nadia shook her head, her lip quivering. The phone was the only link she had to the outside world, the only chance she had to warn Gerri not to attempt the blackmail.
“I-I don’t have anything,” she said, but it was a lame denial, and the matron just looked at her knowingly.
The second matron was less sympathetic. “Whatever you’re hiding, we’ll search you and confiscate it if we have to. You wouldn’t be the first or the last rule breaker we’ve ever had to deal with. Make it easier on yourself.”
Fighting it made no sense. But then, Nadia’s life had stopped making sense a few weeks ago, and she had nothing else left to lose.
She didn’t make it easy on anyone. But in the end, the matrons took the phone anyway.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Nate couldn’t get away from the Preston Sanctuary fast enough. The place felt gloomy and oppressive, especially with all the black-clad Executives milling about, always keeping their voices low and somber in respect for the sad occasion. People he didn’t like, and who didn’t like him, kept up a steady stream of insincere condolences, and he made only the barest effort to accept them graciously. Hell, sometimes he didn’t make the effort at all, like when the Terrible Trio fought their way through to him and started cooing and batting their eyelashes. Their leader, Jewel, had always thought she was runner-up to Nadia, that if somehow he ended up not marrying Nadia, she would be the logical choice to step into the role.
Ordinarily, Nate tolerated, or sometimes even encouraged, Jewel’s flirtation. The girl was stunningly beautiful, and if he didn’t want people questioning his sexual orientation, he figured it was best to act dazzled by her. No matter how much he loathed her. Today, he just couldn’t be bothered, so when Jewel put her hand on his shoulder and leaned forward, inviting him to look down her dress, he gave her his coldest stare.
“Surely even you have more class than to try to flirt with me at my mother’s funeral,” he said, and Jewel recoiled as if he’d slapped her. The other members of the Trio—Jewel’s younger sister Cherry, and her best friend, Blair—both looked similarly shocked, although he thought he detected a hint of malicious amusement in their eyes.
“I wasn’t—” Jewel stammered, her eyes wide with exaggerated innocence.
“Yes, you were,” Nate said. “And for your information, I wouldn’t marry you if I had a gun to my head, so why don’t you just give up on flirting with me altogether.”
His voice was rising dangerously, and the Trio were all gaping at him, pale and frightened-looking. This was a side of him they’d never seen. Not that he’d never been rude to people in public before—he was well known for ignoring the usual rules of propriety. But this was a whole different level. And if he wanted his father to disinherit him as soon as possible, acting like an asshole to girls from such highly ranked Executive families, in public where just about anyone could overhear, was a step in the right direction.
Nate couldn’t bring himself to apologize for the harsh words, but he did manage to keep himself from spewing any more of them. He shook his head at the Trio, then moved away from them as briskly as he could manage with the crowd.
People tried to stop him to talk, but he ignored them all. He had to get out of here, no matter how bad an impression leaving now would make. If he stayed, he’d make an even worse one.
He looked for Nadia but couldn’t find her. He wanted to say good-bye to her before he left, but he wanted to get the hell out even more. He spotted Agnes, standing alone with her back practically against the wall, and he made his way over to her. She looked alarmed at his approach, but she didn’t try to avoid him, just stood there and waited placidly.
“Have you seen Nadia?” he asked as soon as he was within hearing range.
“Not for a while,” she answered. “She went off to talk with her parents, and I haven’t seen her since.”
Nate grunted in frustration. He wanted to at least give Nadia a hug before they were separated once again, but who knew how long she’d spend closeted up with her parents, no doubt discussing their strategies for the future?
He couldn’t wait for her. Not when his nerves were so sharply honed, not when just having someone look at him the wrong way could trigger him into an explosion. He’d made enough of a spectacle of himself already today by not showing up for the service, and if he had any hope of convincing his father that he could be a responsible heir, he had to avoid making any more waves than absolutely necessary.
He nodded at Agnes and turned to leave. He took one step away, eying the door across the room, then brought himself to a halt and turned back to Agnes. She’d done nothing to deserve the horrible way he’d treated her, and he suspected she was at least as anxious to get out of here as he was.
“I’m going to head back to the city,” he said, hoping Nadia would be proud of him. “You want to get out of here?”
Agnes bit her lip nervously, but it was impossible to miss the hope that flared in her eyes. “My father wouldn’t like it.”
Nate leaned forward and dropped his voice so that no one but Agnes could hear him. “But you would. Besides, our fathers have been shoving us together with both hands. Surely yours won’t mind if you catch a ride back to the city with me.”
Agnes raised an eyebrow. “When this reception is likely to go on for another hour, at least?”
Nate shrugged. “I’m the one you’re supposed to be getting to know, right?” Though perhaps that would no longer be true, once the existence of the Chairman’s “long-lost daughter” became public knowledge. Nate assumed his father hadn’t dropped that particular bombshell yet, or the tone of the gossip and chatter in the room would have been quite different.
Nate held out his elbow to Agnes. Her lips curved into the tiniest hint of a grateful smile, and
she slipped her hand through his elbow, her touch so light he could barely feel it. Then, he guided her out of the room toward the exit, ignoring everyone who tried to talk to him along the way.
He basked in the glow of his “good deed,” right up until the door of the limo closed, leaving him alone in the back with Agnes. A privacy screen blocked the driver and Nate’s bodyguard from view. The drive back to his apartment was going to take about four hours. Agnes might have more redeeming qualities than Nate had previously allowed himself to acknowledge, but that didn’t mean he wanted to spend four hours shut up in a car with her.
What had he been thinking?
Agnes let out a soft sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes. “If you don’t mind,” she said in her timid little-girl voice, “I’d like to close my eyes for a while. My head’s been pounding ever since I had to come inside after the service.”
Nate wondered if she really had a headache, or if she was just trying to give them both a graceful way out of trying to make conversation.
“Go ahead,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound too eager. “My head isn’t feeling that great, either, to tell you the truth.”
She opened her eyes briefly to give him a sympathetic smile, but she didn’t try to console him with any empty platitudes. He gave her credit for that. When she closed her eyes once more, he patted his pockets until he found the secure phone Kurt had given him, which he carried with him at all times just in case.
Obviously, he couldn’t phone Kurt, not with Agnes in the car. Or even without her in the car, because the barrier that separated him from the driver and his bodyguard wasn’t soundproof. But he could send a text. Kurt wasn’t exactly an expert reader yet—the murder of the original Nate Hayes had put a stop to their reading and writing lessons—but Nate was sure his skills were up to deciphering the simple message he sent: need to see u. come 2nite?
If ever there was a time he needed to see Kurt, it was tonight. Not just because he needed the comfort of a lover’s touch, though he did. But because the introduction of Dorothy meant his own lofty goals to make Paxco a better place someday might never come to pass. If Nate was going to make a difference in the world, it seemed it would not be as Chairman of Paxco after all. Which meant it was time to have a long talk with Kurt about this resistance movement of his, and whether it was something Nate might want to get involved with.
* * *
Kurt didn’t answer Nate’s text, but Nate wasn’t alarmed. Kurt’s answer would be showing up at the apartment tonight. Or not showing up.
Thinking that the chances Kurt wouldn’t show up were pretty slim, Nate decided to wait up for him. With a thermos of coffee by his side, he flopped on his bed in his pajamas and resolutely started reading up on the laws of succession, something he had never paid much attention to when he’d known he was the undisputed heir.
The laws themselves were impenetrable, of course. Nate suspected lawyers had been making up their own language from the beginning of time and would continue to do so for the foreseeable future. He read through the laws, just to be thorough, but then he went searching for a layman’s explanation. Realistically, he didn’t expect to find any convenient clauses that would prevent his father from naming Dorothy the Chairman Heir, but it wouldn’t hurt to look. He wasn’t going to sit idly by and watch his father hand their state over to some impostor. Especially not to one he’d handpicked to follow in his footsteps.
Nate had the best of intentions, trying to be more like Nadia and thinking about the future, planning for the challenges and hurdles that might present themselves. Unfortunately, he didn’t have Nadia’s single-mindedness or determination. His eyes glazed over almost instantly, and he had to read everything about three times before his mind would grasp even the simplest concepts. Not because he was an idiot, but because the layman’s explanations of the laws of succession seemed all to have been written by lawyers, who had a different definition of layman than Nate did. And the reading was so dry and boring it made him want to scream.
He chugged coffee, but though he felt its buzz in his veins, it didn’t make the reading any more interesting. His eyes dried out so that he had to blink all the time, and his head started aching. He laid his reading aside, telling himself he would just close his eyes for a few minutes …
… and woke up who knew how much later to find Kurt sitting on the bed beside him, squinting at his handheld as if he were trying to decipher hieroglyphics. Of course, the lawyer-speak had gotten the better of Nate, so it probably did look like hieroglyphics to someone like Kurt, who was barely literate.
“If you can make sense of any of that crap,” Nate said in his sleep-roughened voice, “please enlighten me.” He yawned hugely and rubbed his eyes.
Kurt grinned and tossed the handheld onto the nightstand. “I was looking for the pictures. What’s the point of a book without pictures?”
Nate tried to grin back, but there was too much pressure weighing him down. His mother was dead. He’d met his father’s “daughter,” who just happened to be older than he and therefore a potential heir. And he’d been so distraught at the news that he’d managed to miss the funeral. Even a small smile was beyond him at the moment.
Kurt pried off the heavy black boots he was wearing and climbed onto the bed beside Nate, gathering him into his arms. Nate didn’t think a hug had ever felt so good, and for a moment he allowed himself to bask in it.
“I’m sorry about your mother,” Kurt said gently. “I know you had mixed feelings about her, but it’s still hard.”
“Yeah,” was all Nate could manage to choke out.
There was a long silence, and when Kurt broke it, his voice was even softer and more gentle. “My ma used to beat the shit out of me when I was a kid.”
Nate’s whole body went on alert, and he practically held his breath. Kurt never talked about his family. In fact, he’d been so resolute about not talking about them that Nate had wondered if he even had any.
“I was maybe around eight when she introduced me to the family business.”
Nate winced, but he bit his tongue to keep himself from saying anything sympathetic. He knew what Kurt meant by “family business,” and the thought that Kurt had been subjected to it at such a young age turned his stomach. However, he doubted Kurt would appreciate the sympathy. And worse, it might cause him to clam up.
“Didn’t like it at first,” Kurt continued, his voice matter-of-fact. “I was little, and it hurt. So sometimes I’d try to say no. Some of the johns liked that, some didn’t. But Ma punished me every time, said I didn’t have to like it, I just had to do it.”
Nate wanted to go back in time to kick the woman’s ass. What kind of a mother would do that to her own kid? Suddenly, his own mom sounded almost saintly. Kurt’s arms tightened around him.
“Relax. It was a long time ago, and she was trying to do her best for me, in her own way.”
Nate couldn’t take it anymore. He extricated himself from Kurt’s arms and looked him straight in the face. “Doing her best for you? Are you out of your mind?”
“I grew up in Debasement, Nate. My career choices were drug running, smuggling, or whoring. Ma pointed me toward the one where I didn’t have to join a gang so I was less likely to get killed. I didn’t get it at the time, but I do now. You think I’m such a hard-luck case, but by Debasement standards, I was always one of the lucky ones. Even before you came along.”
Nate knew he was right, but that didn’t make it any easier to bear. Actually, it made it harder. It was unconscionable that anyone should live in the conditions Kurt was describing, much less innocent children. And it was unconscionable that the government of Paxco didn’t give a damn, the attitude being, “We give them free food and shelter, what else could they possibly need?” Nate had always told himself he would fix it someday, but by introducing Dorothy, his father had neatly snatched his good intentions away.
“My point is, mothers are complicated. I didn’t get along with mine, but
I bawled my eyes out when she died. And sometimes I still miss her.”
Nate reeled in his righteous indignation, remembering why Kurt had started this conversation in the first place. His throat hurt suddenly, and his chest ached.
“I must have had more than a hundred people tell me how sorry they were today,” he said. “And you’re the only one who has any idea what I’m feeling.”
Nate was touched beyond words that Kurt had told him all this, had opened up to him about a past that he didn’t like to talk about. They came from such different worlds, and yet Kurt understood him better than he had any right to. And Nate understood Kurt, too.
Kurt might have infiltrated his household as a spy for the resistance, but he did it because he thought it was the right thing to do. He had a heart of gold, and he’d never shown any sign that he resented Nate for his privileged upbringing. He’d never belittled Nate’s problems, and he was always there when Nate needed him.
Nate didn’t have the best track record when going with his gut, but that didn’t mean he should forever ignore what it was telling him. There were two people in the whole world that he trusted with his life: Nadia and Kurt. Kurt and his resistance might have an agenda, but with Dorothy looming on the horizon, it was time for Nate to learn what that agenda was.
He blew out a deep breath, hoping he wasn’t being the biggest sap in the universe. Then he met Kurt’s eyes.
“If I tell you what really happened on the day Nadia was arrested, will you promise me not to tell your resistance about it without my go-ahead?”
Kurt sat back and thought about it instead of volunteering a quick agreement. Nate gave him credit for that, and hoped it meant that he would be as good as his word, whatever he decided.
“You believed in me even when everyone around you was convinced I offed your original,” Kurt said slowly. “Even when I tried to make you believe it myself. You risked your life to try to help me. I think I owe you a promise or two.”