by Wren Weston
La Roux shook his head. “I didn’t even return from Beaulac until yesterday morning.”
“Oh, that’s right, isn’t it? I know this might surprise you, being from Bullstow yourself, but not all men from Bullstow are ethical. The militia lied to my face. Sometimes men betray their calling when they think they can get away with it.”
“Women, too.”
“Yes, of course. Don’t look so upset, senator. I’m not that worried about it. I’m rather good at reading people. I suppose it’s a gift from the prime minister or my mother.”
“What did you learn from the militia?”
“That they had no idea why they’d been sent. Someone used them to prod a hornets’ nest and see what might come out.”
La Roux’s lips twitched just a fraction.
It was that split second of pride that did it, the proof of how much he was enjoying himself, the idea that he considered it a game. She no longer cared how far he fell. In fact, she wanted to be the one who pushed him.
“Who sent them, Lila?” La Roux asked, putting down his wine glass. When she did not immediately respond, he crossed his arms over his chest and studied her face.
“You know, senator, I really don’t like it when people play on my computer without permission. Your first night in my bedroom? Really? How crass can you be?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Liar,” she said lazily.
La Roux considered her, and all at once, as if a string had been cut away from the top of his head, his entire demeanor relaxed. “I wanted confirmation of some suspicions that I had. I wasn’t sure that I’d get another night with you, so I acted while you slept.”
“While I slept off the drugs you slipped me. Was it worth it? Did you get the confirmation you wanted?”
The senator drained his glass. “You bet your sweet ass I did. You’ve been a naughty girl. I had no idea Wolf Industries was so corrupt, and I’ve barely read through one percent of the files I pulled from your computer. It doesn’t matter that you’ve deleted them. I have copies.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Your snoop programs show promise, but they’re quite crude. It only took me two hours to crack the password with my own programs. You should know better than to use simple encryption. I suppose you got lazy.”
“You’ve been running the files? Studying them?”
“Of course I have. All day.” He poured himself another glass of wine, then stood up and moved to the window, gazing out at his new kingdom. “We should talk after dinner about my future in the Saxony Senate. We’re going to have a very busy season together.”
“Is that so?”
“It’s just the start, President Randolph. We’ll talk more after I seed your heir, after I see if we are as good together as I believe. Do you know how rare we are, madam? Technologically advanced above the highborn masses? Willing and capable of playing them like a drum and fife? You even share certain sympathies with the poorer classes that I do. I’ve reviewed your votes in the High Council, and I must say that I agreed with most of your judgments. I just never thought you’d be so eager in bed.”
“What if I say no to the season?”
“You won’t,” he said, turning away from the window. “If you say no, I turn everything I have over to Bullstow. I should warn you that I lifted quite a bit from your computer.”
The corner of his mouth twisted into a lecherous grin. “It’s all worked out much better than I dreamed. You’re an intelligent, ambitious woman. Quite my match, I’d say, and for more than just the season. We’re going to do wonderful things together, Lila.”
He strolled to the desk and kissed her cheek.
Chapter 24
Lila rubbed the wetness away, then crossed her boots on top of her desk. “That’s your plan?”
“Yes.” La Roux rescued the bottle of Sangre, which threatened to fall onto the floor, and set it on her bedside table.
“You know, senator, I’m surprised that you’d stoop to coupling with such a corrupt family and that you’d force me to take you for the season.”
“You weren’t complaining about the pairing last night. And as for your family’s corruption, I shall make up for it with every piece of legislation that crosses my desk. But I cannot do that unless I am at the capitol. The Saxon Senate needs me. None of those men will do what is just. They’re too busy bowing and preening for the heirs.”
“So you posit that caring about your job will make up for the manner in which you obtained it? You’ve stained the honor of Bullstow, but you believe that everything washes in the end?”
“I have been a force for good in the senate. I have passed fair and just laws that benefited everyone, not just the rich, and I’ve taken no bribes that favored them.”
“Is that so, Baron?”
He stiffened. His eyes shot to hers. “What did you call me?”
“Baron,” she said, drawing out each syllable. “You shouldn’t use childhood nicknames when creating fake IDs, senator, certainly not if you’re going to snoop in BullNet. Can you believe I thought someone had set you up because it was such a stupid mistake? I was prepared to rush in and save you from some corrupt matron or heir. Perhaps you should have gone with something bland, like sexysenator or isuckathis69. It’s disappointing, really.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You keep silent, and yet you want to be partners?” Lila tsked. “You know, I still don’t understand how Reaper hacked my Prolix ID so quickly. It’s bugged me for weeks.”
“Reaper?” La Roux scoffed, his annoyance overcoming his wariness. “Reaper couldn’t have found his dick in the dark. I figured out who you were a few hours after the BIRD break-in. It wasn’t the login that did you in. It was a camera outside a lowborn shop near the senate.”
“There was no footage that day. All the cameras had been taken out.”
“I didn’t need that day’s footage. I needed a few days before. Senator Dubois has a picture of your family on his desk. I know your face, and you weren’t window shopping.”
“So you put me and Prolix together.”
“I tasked Reaper with hacking your fake ID. I needed the proof, but other work kept me busy. Of course, Reaper bugged me every few hours when he got stuck, but I helped him get there in the end.”
“He posted the article to let you know he was done. That’s how he communicated with you. Clever. Then you asked me for one hundred thousand credits in exchange for your silence. Why?”
La Roux leaned into her face. She smelled the wine on his breath. “An unexpected expense came up.”
“You sent my matron the information anyway.”
“I was always going to do that no matter what. I needed you in a position to be useful. How could I win you if you were still wasting your life in the security office? I know what your mother did for Prime Minister Lemaire. I want the same done for me. I had a much more involved plan for getting into your trousers. Apparently, I didn’t need it.”
He cocked his head and tugged at her fly.
Lila batted his hand away. “Every senator would spit in your face if he knew what you’ve done. Every heir, too.”
“That’s big talk coming from a thief. You’re the worst sort of hypocrite. I’m surrounded by them. Hypocrites and useless men. Has Senator Serrano done as much as I have for Saxony?”
“We’re not talking about Senator Serrano. We’re talking about you.”
“We’re not talking. We’re negotiating terms.”
Lila’s stomach turned. The man was enjoying himself. “Why should I help you? Why shouldn’t I call Chief Shaw right now and tell him what’s in BullNet? The whole network is filled with your little traps.”
“Because you don’t want to go to the auction house. I have everything, Prolix, all your naugh
ty little truths.”
“So you’ve said. What is your end game? The senate?”
“Prime minister.”
“What if I say no?”
“Then I will secure my place with another woman. It might take a little longer, but you weren’t the only woman I had in play for this season. You heirs and primes aren’t as rare and special as you think. If you say no to this arrangement, then I’ll hand over my evidence to the media and find another. If you aren’t hanged within the month, then you’ll spend the rest of your life working as a slave in the mines. What will the chairwoman do without you to produce an heir? My cousin told me of his troubles this morning. What will your mother do when she learns that she’ll have to produce another daughter so late in life or lose everything to her sisters after she retires? Which company does your Aunt Georgina run, again?”
“Spring. The wedding planning boutique. It brings in nine figures a year,” Lila replied, feeling strangely protective of Georgina’s record.
The senator chuckled and sat on the edge of her desk. “Well, I’m sure that she works very hard. I’m also sure that her work hasn’t prepared her for running a monstrosity like Wolf Industries, though I’ve heard how tricky brides and grooms can be.” He put down his glass and pushed Lila’s hair back from her face. “Would you be so tricky on our day?”
Lila knocked his hand away.
“Come on, let’s avoid any unpleasantness. The best deal for me is to seed an heir for the Randolph family. I’ll be elevated to New Bristol next session, and I’ll have a respected highborn family behind me. It’s what you had planned before we had this conversation, isn’t it? Retain me for the season and many seasons thereafter. I know I’ve impressed you. What do you think the last few weeks have been about? I’ve shown you that I’m more than a worthy match. We could be good together.”
“You don’t know me well enough to make that call. Besides, this morning I respected you more than I do now. I thought you knew how to play your hand. I have to say, I’m a little disappointed.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. For starters, I don’t think you have any of my files at all.”
“They’re on my personal computer.”
“What you took, Dorian, was a folder claiming to be from the security office. You weren’t even on my private login, and you didn’t have access to anything remotely important. I made it just difficult enough for someone to believe they’d bested my security. Someone impatient and impulsive. Trust me, little boy, I secure my information much better than that.”
“You’re lying.”
“Those doctored files can easily be proven false with the simplest of searches, which you obviously neglected to perform. You must not have gotten too far into them, either, otherwise you would have had the pleasure of reading quite a number of badly written erotica novels I pulled off the net years ago. Hot sex scenes, but fairly sparse in the plot. Kind of like you, come to think of it. It’s a test I devised a very long time ago for those who have access to my room and my computer. I haven’t even updated the files since last year. I suppose you didn’t notice.”
His superior grin faded.
“I’d tell you to go back and look at the files more carefully, but you also downloaded a handful of my very favorite viruses, including a Trojan horse inside my snoop programs.” She snickered at his face, frozen and pale. “I can’t believe you were dumb enough to run the damn thing before you tested it, much less fail to see its purpose. Not only do you not have any incriminating files left, Dorian, but you won’t even have a computer the next time you boot up, just a very expensive paperweight.”
“You’re lying.”
“No, I’m not. Again, I’m disappointed.”
“I don’t need what was on your computer. I have your trail, Prolix.”
“Where? On your extra-crispy computer?”
“I can find it in the logs again.”
“Can you? Are you sure the proof is there any longer?”
“You were with me all last night, and you didn’t move from your compound all day. You didn’t return to Bullstow.”
“I wiped the trail that night, senator. There’s nothing to find. You have nothing.”
“I have plenty. You just confirmed that you broke into a government network and more.” La Roux retreated into the center of the room. “Your entire room is bugged. I’m backing up—”
“Which bug in particular? The one behind my bedside table, the one under my desk, or the one on the coat of arms? Or perhaps the one in my palm? I crushed them all under my heel while you were waiting for me downstairs. By the way, the one you planted in the bathroom was just poor form, Dorian. It’s creepy. I’ve had to go across the hall all day. It’s a good thing my brother has been at Randolph General, or I would have had to explain myself.”
La Roux spun around Lila’s room, his breaths coming in labored pants. After a long moment of silence, the disgraced senator spoke again. “I still know what you did. We have plenty of computer geniuses at Bullstow. Any number of them could find the data.”
“Unlikely, but that’s not the point. You don’t get it, do you? You’re talking to one now. Who do you think Prolix is? Some highborn hacker who uses the data she finds to get ahead? I wasn’t a liar when I spoke to you the other night. I never wanted to be an heir. I’ve always felt a very different sort of responsibility to those who work and live on this estate, to those who live in New Bristol and Saxony. My father has been nurturing those feelings since I was a child, and when he became prime minister, he recognized me as a resource and used me. I never sought out information for myself or for my family, I’ve only ever worked for Prime Minister Lemaire, and before that, Governor Lemaire. I’m good at what I do, which is why he hired me a month ago to find out who has been blackmailing hackers and the highborn.”
“You say that as if they aren’t criminals.”
“Oh, they are deeply flawed,” Lila agreed. “Just like you, netting highborn in your traps so you can blackmail them for cash and favors, just as you did with Celeste Wilson and her son. It angered the prime minister when he found evidence that highborns had broken into government databases, but what pissed him off the most was that someone was watching it happen and using that knowledge to profit.”
“I was cleaning house.”
“If you were cleaning house, then you would have turned those people into Bullstow immediately. You would have turned me into Chief Shaw the moment you caught me, but you didn’t, did you? You wanted to play with me. You wanted to use me. Did you order Peter Kruger to kill me, too?”
La Roux shook his head. “Reaper ordered that without my knowledge, thinking he’d get rid of a loose end. The fool hacker almost cost me the greatest prize of all.”
Lila drained her glass of wine. At least she hadn’t slept with her potential assassin. “Aren’t you noble?”
“I can’t be held responsible for every decision my subordinates make.”
“You didn’t turn him in after he made that decision, did you?”
“You don’t throw out a hammer because you smashed your thumb. He was too valuable for that. I’m not a killer, Lila.”
“No, you just steal from dead children.”
La Roux looked away.
“What about Senator Dubois? What’s his part in all this?”
“Louis? You think I need his help? How do you think he’s kept his place for so many years? Because he’s your sister’s pet? You heirs are so arrogant, so blind to Bullstow’s games. I kept him there. Me.”
“I bet he’s been oh so accommodating.”
“He doesn’t even know. You give him too much credit. He never would have made it to the Saxony High House without seeding an heir for your sister. That’s the problem with the entire system. Men like Senator Serrano are promoted to places they are ill-equipped to handle, whereas men like
me get stuck in the city senates.”
“You faked his fertility results, then?”
“I didn’t know he had a need.”
“They said my morality was flexible.” She kicked her feet off the desk. “Thanks for admitting you controlled Reaper, by the way.”
“It doesn’t matter what I admit. If you try to get the militia involved, then I’ll go to the press. Everyone will demand your father’s neck in a noose. Allowing an heir to infiltrate BullNet? Giving her a free pass into its systems? A hacker who will soon be prime to a major family? He’ll be a disgrace! He’ll be brought up on—”
“Charges? I suppose it’s likely, but he’s been prepared for that, as were all of us. You won’t get out of your guilt by exposing us.”
“I don’t care. If I go down, everyone else goes down with me. Everyone!” He slammed his empty wine glass on her desk, nearly shattering it. “I knew I should never have touched you. You disgusted me, you know. Every moment last night when I—”
“Came?”
“I faked it. You meant nothing to me.”
“Now, that’s no way to talk. I’ll be honest, I thought you were a beautiful man when I saw you at the Closing Ball. You’re obviously intelligent, though ambitious and cocky and naïve to a fault. Misguided, certainly, but I was attracted to you before I knew who you were. That’s where you erred, you know. You didn’t bother to find out who you would be blackmailing when you targeted me. You found out a little information, like my wine preference and that I like to dance, but you learned nothing of importance, just enough to get me into bed. You certainly didn’t learn enough about who I was to pull this off.”
“Who are you, then?”
“Someone who cares about her family. Can I say the same about you? Do you love your children, Senator La Roux?”
“Of course I do.”
“Did you ever stop to think about them?”
“Of course. I’m making the world better for them. Do you know how many votes I control in Beaulac? In Saxony? It’s enough to pass whatever I like, as long as I don’t get too greedy too often. The slave bills will pass, both of them, and I will be remembered forever as the one who brought freedom to the Allied Lands. Think of what else I’ll pass by the end.”