White Hot

by Ilona Andrews

Augustine grimaced. “I’m tired of odd things happening. I don’t want excitement, I want boredom. Boredom is good for business.”

  Him and me both.

  Augustine glanced at me. “I understand Rogan’s involvement. But what about you? You do realize the full danger of this mess?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Then why?”

  “I’m here because I want to help Cornelius. But mostly because of Nari Harrison.”

  Augustine’s eyebrows rose.

  “When we talk about the deceased, we usually mention whom they left behind,” I explained. “We say, ‘She was a wife and a mother’ or ‘He leaves behind two children and three grandchildren.’ It’s almost as if the dead have no value unless we know that someone they are related to is still alive and mourning them. I feel terrible for Cornelius and Matilda. But I feel even worse for Nari. She expected to have a long life ahead of her. She had dreams. She won’t see them come true now. She won’t see Matilda grow up. She’ll never grow old with Cornelius. She’ll never experience anything again, because some scum decided to kill her. Someone should care that this happened. Someone should fight for her and make sure that her murderer never takes another life and that he or she pays for what they did. If I die, I want someone to care. So, I’m that someone for her.”

  A short figure walked down the hallway toward us. I fell silent.

  Matilda stopped in the doorway of my office. She was carrying the huge Himalayan cat and a little plastic bag. The cat hung limp in her arms, perfectly content to be dragged around like a stuffed teddy bear.

  Matilda looked at the three of us, walked up to Rogan, and held out the cat to him.

  “I need to clean his eyes.” Her voice was so cute. “His tears are brown because of his smushed nose and he gets infected. He won’t hold still. He can’t help it.”

  Rogan stared at her, stunned. I’d never seen that expression on his face before. It was almost funny.

  “Will you hold my cat?”

  Rogan blinked, reached out, and carefully took the cat from her arms. The cat purred like a runaway bulldozer.

  Matilda opened her little Ziploc bag, took out cotton pads and a small plastic bottle, her tiny eyebrows furrowed in concentration. She wet the cotton and reached out to the cat. He tried to turn away, but Rogan held him tight.

  “Hold still. Be a good kitty.” Matilda stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth, held up her cotton ball, and carefully wiped the cat’s left eye with it.

  It was such an odd thing. Rogan—big, frightening, all coiled violence and icy logic—gently holding a fluffy cat for a tiny child a fraction of his size. I should take a picture, but I didn’t want to ruin it. I wanted to remember it just like this, serious Matilda and shocked Rogan, his eyes soft.

  Matilda finished. I held out the trashcan to her. She threw away the cotton pads stained with brown, packed away her bottle, and took the cat from Rogan, settling his front paws over her shoulder. She petted the fur. “There, there. It wasn’t bad. You’re okay.”

  The cat purred.

  Catalina ran down the hallway, her face flustered. “There you are. I went to the bathroom for a second and you disappeared. Come on, we’ll make some cookies.”

  Matilda held out her hand to her. My sister took it.

  “Thank you!” Matilda said to Rogan.

  “You’re welcome,” he said with all of the formality of a man accepting knighthood.

  Augustine was smiling.

  Rogan looked back at me. “Why me? Why not you?”

  “Cornelius is a stay-at-home dad,” I said. “She views men as caretakers. Usually he probably holds the cat, but he wasn’t available.”

  Rogan leaned back in his seat.

  “It’s terrible when he’s reminded he is human,” Augustine said to me. “He doesn’t know how to deal with it. Just think, Connor, one day you might be a father and get one of your own.”

  Rogan stared at him as if someone had dumped a bucket of cold water on his head.

  Payback time. “I doubt it. He’ll never marry. He’ll stay in his house and brood in solitude being cynical and bitter.”

  “And entertain himself with his piles of money and high-tech toys,” Augustine said. “Like a broody superhero.”

  Augustine had a sense of humor. Who knew? “Maybe we should invest in one of those searchlights with a Rogan symbol on it . . .”

  Rogan reached into his wallet, pulled out two dollar bills, pushed one toward me and the other toward Augustine. “I hate to see comedians starve. Our only lead is Gabriel Baranovsky, who was Elena’s lover, according to her douchebag of a husband. Are you going to help me with Baranovsky, Augustine?”

  “I wasn’t planning on attending,” Augustine said. “But I might now. I want in. Not because I have some altruistic motives, but because when this thing finally bursts out in the open, it will be like an earthquake. It will shake the House politics not only in Houston, but probably in the entire country, and I can’t afford not to know where the pieces land.”

  “Attending what?” I asked.

  “How much do you know about Baranovsky?” Augustine said.

  “Nothing,” I told him. “I haven’t had a chance to do any research. I was busy trying not to die.”

  “Gabriel Baranovsky is an oneiromancer,” Rogan said.

  Oneiromancers predicted the future by dreaming. Since the beginning of time, people have been trying to catch a glimpse of things to come by any means they could, from casting bones to examining cheese. Dreaming about it proved to be one of the more commonly used methods.

  “He’s a very accurate short-term precog,” Rogan continued. “He dreams specifically about the stock market.”

  “Dreams during the night, trades during the day,” Augustine said. “He made his first billion before he turned thirty.”

  “His first billion?”

  “He’s worth more than the two of us combined,” Rogan said. “He stopped at three billion because he got bored.”

  “Wife?” I asked.

  “He never married,” Rogan said.

  “But he’s a Prime.” That was extremely odd. Finding the right person to marry and producing a gifted child dominated everything Primes did. In our world, magic equaled power, and the Primes feared losing power more than anything. “If there is no wife, then there is no heir and his family will lose the House designation.”

  A family had to have at least two living Primes in three generations to be considered a House and to qualify for a seat in the Assembly.

  “He doesn’t care,” Rogan said. “He never attends Assembly or socializes.”

  “Much like someone else we know,” Augustine said. “Rumor has it, there is a bastard child. But nobody’s ever seen him or her.”

  “So what does he do with all that money?”

  “Whatever the hell he wants.” Rogan shrugged.

  “Baranovsky is a collector,” Augustine said. “Rare cars, rare wine, rare jewels, rare art.”

  “Rare women,” Rogan said. “He was likely Elena’s only lover, but for him she was one of many. It’s a compulsion. He can’t help himself. The more unusual and unique a thing is, the more he wants it. What he wants very, very badly is the 1594 Fortune Teller by Caravaggio.”

  “Caravaggio was a rebel,” Augustine explained. “In the 1590s most of the Italian art scene consisted of Mannerist works—posed, stilted arrangements of people with unnaturally long limbs painted in jarring colors. Caravaggio painted from life. His works showed ordinary people and they were hyper-realistic for the time, funny and sly. Later on he would become massively influential.”

  That made sense. “Baranovsky identifies with Caravaggio,” I said. “They both rejected the established artificial status quo and did what they thought was real and important.”

  “Precisely,” Rogan said.

  “Fortune Teller was Caravaggio’s first work in his style,” Augustine said. “It was the genesis of everything he created. The painti
ng exists in two versions, and Baranovsky already bought the later version from the French for an outrageous amount of money.”

  “But he doesn’t have the 1594 version,” I guessed. “And it’s killing him. It’s the original. He has to have it.”

  “You should come work for me,” Augustine said.

  “I do work for you, by proxy.”

  “Long story short,” Rogan said, “the Museum of Fine Arts here in Houston owns the original Fortune Teller. Baranovsky tried everything to buy it, but MFAH refuses to sell. When the painting was donated, the owner stipulated that it could never be sold or leased for monetary compensation. And yet, MFAH wants Baranovsky’s money.”

  “So they are letting him display it,” Augustine finished. “In return—because they can’t take money—once a year he organizes a huge charity gala. Minimum ticket price is two hundred thousand per family.”

  I choked on the last of my coffee.

  “Baranovsky won’t talk to me,” Augustine said. “I’m not flashy enough as Primes go. I’m very much in line with the status quo. He might talk to Rogan, since he’s the most dangerous man in Houston.”

  “Is that the official title?” I asked.

  “No,” Rogan said. “It’s a statement of fact.”

  I couldn’t resist. “It’s so refreshing to meet a Prime with such humility.”

  “Anyway,” Augustine cut in. “Even if Baranovsky talked to Rogan, it wouldn’t do us any good. We all know that Rogan has the interrogative subtlety of a howitzer.”

  “I can be subtle.” He actually managed to look offended.

  “Let’s ask her.” Augustine looked at me. “How do you think Rogan would try to get information from Baranovsky?”

  I said the first thing that popped into my head. “He’d hold him by his throat from some really tall balcony.”

  “I rest my case.”

  “Holding people by their throat is effective and rapidly produces results,” Rogan said, completely matter-of-fact.

  Augustine shook his head. “Two of the people in this room are private detectives who routinely extract information from people. You’re not one of those two. We need better bait.”

  They both looked at me.

  “What makes you think he would be interested?” I asked.

  “Because Rogan will show up,” Augustine said. “He never shows up, but this time he will and he’ll pay very obvious attention to you. You will also be in my company. You’re beautiful and new, and you will seem to command the attention of two Primes. Baranovsky will want to know what’s so special about you.”

  “When is it?”

  “Friday.”

  “I’ll need a dress,” I said. “And money.”

  Rogan leaned forward, a warning in his eyes. “Right now the only two Primes that know about you are Augustine and me. If you walk into that benefit dinner, this will change.”

  Augustine’s eyes narrowed. He was watching Rogan very carefully. “You want to get to Baranovsky. This is the best and most efficient way.”

  Rogan ignored him. “Nevada, I know that you’re keeping your talent quiet. There will be no turning back after this.”

  Either he genuinely worried about me, which was really touching, or he had some clandestine reason to keep the fact of my existence quiet so he could continue utilizing my power. I wish I knew which.

  “Don’t be dramatic,” Augustine said. “As long as she doesn’t stand in the middle of the floor and announce that she is a truthseeker, nobody has to know she has any magic at all.”

  “There will be consequences,” Rogan said. “It will be difficult to fade into obscurity after this. At worst, people will realize what you do. At best, you will be dismissed as a woman Augustine or I are using. I know your reputation is important to you. Think about it.”

  I waited until both of them stopped talking.

  “Augustine, are you attending in your professional capacity?”

  “Of course. I’ll be using MII’s corporate account. The charitable contribution is tax deductible.”

  “Then I’ll attend as your employee.” I looked at Rogan. “If he introduces me as his employee, it’ll explain why I’m there. Your kind of people don’t look too closely at hired help. It will look like I’m one of Augustine’s investigators and you’re trying to get into my pants to aggravate him. If the two of you act the way you’ve been acting every time I’ve seen you together, nobody will doubt it.”

  “What do you mean, the way we’ve been acting?” Augustine leaned back.

  “Have you ever seen a betta fish?” I asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Well, when you and Rogan come into each other’s view, you act like two male betta fishes. You puff your fins out and swim around trying to intimidate each other. Just keep doing what you’re doing, and everyone will realize that it’s really about the two of you and I’m just collateral damage. Everything will be fine.”

  “I take offense at that,” Augustine said.

  “You’re giving Augustine too much credit,” Rogan said. “His fins don’t impress me.”

  He’d delivered that reply on autopilot. His eyes were distant. He was probably still thinking about the gala and he didn’t like it.

  “I still need a dress.”

  “I’ll handle the dress,” Rogan said.

  “No,” I told him firmly. “You’ll give me money and I’ll buy my own dress. Also Cornelius will likely want to attend. He’ll need financial assistance as well.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Rogan said.

  “It’s decided then,” Augustine said. “Why do I have this nagging feeling this won’t end well?”

  “Never fear quarrels, but seek hazardous adventures,” Rogan said, obviously quoting. He still didn’t seem enthusiastic about it.

  “Where is that from?” I asked.

  “The Three Musketeers.” Augustine shook his head. “Rogan, everything about you is hazardous. It’s late and I have things to take care of. You can have your broody Athos all to yourself, milady. I’ll let myself out.”

  He left the room. A quick check of my computer monitor confirmed he’d exited the building, gotten into his car, and driven away.

  A speculative light played in Rogan’s eyes. “I always liked Milady more than Constance.”

  “I’m not Milady or Constance,” I told him, getting up. “I’m Captain de Treville. I’m the voice of reason that’s trying to keep you two from doings criminal things without any regard for the law or the lives of others.”

  He smiled. A potent, heated mix of need and lust warmed his eyes. It should’ve banished the darkness that had made its nest there, but it didn’t. He was eyeing me from the back of his dragon cave, tired, haggard, dangerous, but willing to throw it all aside for my sake. It made me want to run my hands down the hard, corded strength of his shoulders. I could slide my legs over his, straddle him right there in the chair, and make him forget everything. Let him make me forget everything, if only for a few minutes. He would smell like sandalwood. His skin would be hot under my tongue. He would grip me and the strength of those arms and the feel of his fingers on my body would carry me away, into the place where only pleasure existed.

  Some men seduced by words, others with gifts. Connor Rogan seduced by simply looking. The sad thing was he wasn’t even trying. He was just looking at me and wishing we were naked together.

  And if I didn’t stop fantasizing, he would pluck the impressions from my mind and run with them.

  “Go home, Rogan.”

  “You stopped calling me Mad a while ago,” he observed.

  “I called you Mad mostly to remind myself who I was dealing with.” I leaned my butt against the desk.

  “And who would that be?”

  “A possibly psychopathic mass murderer who can’t be trusted.”

  No reaction.

  “And now you call me Rogan. What are you reminding yourself of now?”

  “That you’re mortal.”
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br />   “Planning on killing me?” An amused light flashed in his eyes.

  “Not unless you become a direct threat. Are you planning on becoming a direct threat?” I winked at him.

  He laughed quietly. There, that was better.

  “Are you going home?”

  “No.” Steel tinted his voice.

  I sighed.

  “Is this about the overpass?”

  “Yes.”

  “I handled it.”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “Troy survived because you were in that car.”

  If I hadn’t been in the car, Troy wouldn’t have been attacked in the first place, but now didn’t seem like a good time to discuss that. “Then why do you want to stay?”

  “Because Cornelius, Matilda, and you are now here under one roof. This is what we call a target-rich environment.”

  “The bad guys could take care of their problems with one well-timed explosion,” I said.

  He nodded. “My presence might be a deterrent. If not, I’m good in explosions.”

  “I remember.”

  I could argue but what would be the point? He wouldn’t hurt me or my family, and I felt better when he was here. I was responsible for my family’s safety and for Cornelius and Matilda, and I needed all the backup I could get. I just had to deal with the fact that when I climbed into my bed tonight, he would be sleeping somewhere downstairs. Probably on the air mattress, since Cornelius and Matilda had the guest rooms.

  “Won’t Bug miss you?”

  “Bug’s never far away.” Rogan showed me his phone.

  “I’ll have to sell it to my mother,” I said.

  “I discussed it with her before waking you up,” he said, matter-of-fact. “She thinks it would be prudent.”

  Wow. My mother was so concerned about our safety she’d invited Mad Rogan to stay at the house. That knocked me back a bit.

  “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep knowing that you’re prowling in my house while I’m in my loft.”

  He rose, his face serious and harsh. “You will. You’ll fall asleep fast and sleep soundly until morning, and then you’ll get up and have breakfast with your family because I’ll be prowling in your house tonight. And if anyone tries to interrupt your sleep and end your life, you have my word that they’ll sleep forever.”