by Wren Weston
Lila frowned. After the shock of La Roux’s attack wore off, she had just wanted to be alone, to go to bed, to try for sleep and oblivion. She had never considered seeing a doctor, not even when Sutton suggested it. It was only a few punches and kicks from a madman, after all, a brief moment spent with someone’s hands around her neck.
But it hadn’t just been that, had it?
In a country where violence was an anathema, it had happened to her.
Again.
“Madam?” Shaw asked tentatively.
“One hour.”
Lila hung up, wincing as she got out of bed, her ribs protesting every movement and breath.
After a quick shower, Lia opened her closet to a sea of crimson. She avoided the dresses and chose red trousers and a red sweater, donning her new red leather coat atop it. If she’d been truly free to wear whatever she wished, she would have chosen her militia uniform and blackcoat instead. She would have felt ready for battle, and she needed that feeling again. Someone else was still trying to kill her, after all, and it wasn’t La Roux.
But she wasn’t supposed to even own the coat anymore. It should have been ash.
Lila strapped her harness around her hips, sliding her Colt onto her side. Then she donned her militia boots and thrust her backup knife into her boot.
She’d never be without them again, especially since she’d likely see La Roux at the Bullstow security office. Perhaps it would be through one-way glass, but that didn’t matter much to Lila. She’d be armed this time, and he’d not lay a finger on her.
No one would ever again.
Tristan had been right over the last few years. She needed hand-to-hand lessons. She needed to pay attention this time.
She would pay attention this time.
Before she left, Lila returned to the closet and plucked a red scarf from the sea of crimson, wrapping it around the hard bruises that had formed around her swollen neck. Luckily, a thick layer of makeup had lightened the bruises on her face. Her jaw and right eye bulged slightly, but no one would notice if they didn’t already know what to look for.
At least, that was her hope. She’d gotten good at hiding bruises lately.
Who would believe that someone had hit her, anyway? Things like that didn’t happen in Saxony. Not to heirs. People weren’t violent in the commonwealth.
Lila added a pair of shades to her ensemble, then jogged downstairs. She dodged Alex’s insistence of breakfast with a firm shake of her head and marched down the gravel path to the garage, the door opening with an off-putting, loud grumble.
A lone blackcoat looked up from his perch at the front of the garage. The sergeant had guarded the elevator during the estate’s lockdown.
“Chief?”
Lila gave a stiff nod and stopped before a black Cruz sedan.
“I’m supposed to notify the lieutenant if you want to leave the compound.” He switched on the radio perched on his shoulder and spoke into his mic.
Rather than answer with a hoarse voice, she bent over the bumper of the car, ignoring the answering static and murmuring conversation. She searched the sedan’s exterior and interior thoroughly with her palm. Finding the GPS tracker and audio bug quickly, she tossed them deeper into the garage.
They hit the cement floor with a tiny, bouncing pling and skittered away.
“No one’s messed with it,” the sergeant assured her as she opened the garage door with a grating rumble. “Several of us have been stationed here since the lockdown. The others are taking a look around the garage right now.”
Lila gave him a nod.
The sergeant bowed.
She bundled herself inside the sedan, and the sergeant leaned on her window. “I’ll go—”
Lila pulled from the garage with a squeal.
The sergeant sprinted backward to avoid the wheels.
Lila peeled down Villanueva Lane, waving at Sergeant Nolan, who stood beside the gatehouse, her breath visible in thick white curls. The blackcoat moved to slap a button on the gatehouse control panel, locking her inside, but Lila hit the gas pedal and swerved around the gate’s arm.
Assassin be damned.
Guards be damned.
She was probably safer at Bullstow than on the Randolph estate, anyway.
It only took her a few moments to reach Bullstow and pull through the gate, the area clear of early morning protestors. Chief Shaw met her on the first floor of his security office, his eyes bleary and his uniform wrinkled in the back and around his waist. His hands dwarfed a stainless steel coffee mug, and she wondered how many times he’d refilled it during the night.
Shaw’s eyes wandered to her scarf and shades. Thankfully, he said nothing and led her to his office, filled with a large desk and two comfortable leather chairs. A map of Saxony hung across one whole wall, with little lights that oozed and flowed, detailing the crimes taking place on public lands throughout the state. A little computer whirled on the ceiling, collating the data.
He closed the door and pointed at her scarf. “Can I see it?” he asked gently, the tenor in his voice betraying the fact that he didn’t want to but needed to.
Lila removed the cashmere scarf, triggering a worried hiss from the chief as he bent over his desk, white knuckles pressed into the desk.
“What did the doctor say?”
“I didn’t go,” she confessed.
Shaw cursed and snatched up his palm. “I’ll have Dr. Booth here immediately. I want you checked out before—”
“No. I’ll see my own doctor this morning.”
“No, you’re seeing Dr. Booth now. I should have ordered one of my men to drive you straight to Randolph General. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I’m fine.”
“Your bruises tell a different story. They’re darker than a Bullstow rose. What if your neck had swollen and closed off your windpipe?”
“It didn’t. I’ll see my doctor later, but right now we have a job to do. Stop treating me as if I’m a child,” she said, her words spoiled by her hoarse voice.
“Fine. I’ll get you something hot to drink.” He hesitated at the door, as though worried about leaving her alone.
Eventually, he darted away.
Lila crossed a leg over her knee and watched the map light up, hundreds of little flashes like firecrackers bursting overhead. Hundreds of blackcoats keying in burglaries and car accidents and trespassers…
And assaults and attempted murders.
She’d been a flicker of light on Shaw’s map the night before.
She’d been a flicker of light on Shaw’s map for a very long time, one of the many blackcoats keying in crimes, oblivious to the clock ticking down her own time.
Lila bit her lip and watched the morning’s story unfurl before her eyes.
She didn’t realize that tears had begun running down her cheek until it was too late. She wiped them away with the cuff of her sweater and snatched up the remote from Shaw’s desk, turning the whole map off.
A white wall stared back at her, blank now, with not even a framed picture to adorn it.
Slipping into the bathroom, she fixed her makeup as best she could and returned to her chair. It wouldn’t do for anyone to know that an heir had shed a tear, a judge for the High Council, no less. Such women were supposed to know everything, to point the country in the right direction, to ensure everyone in their care had enough work and that their family made enough money for food, for healthcare, for shelter.
Leaders didn’t cry. They were too busy leading.
Lila stared at the empty wall.
Shaw returned moments later with three lidded cups, all as large as her head. He said nothing about the map; a slight pause in his step was the only evidence he’d even noticed it.
“Tea? Coffee? Hot chocolate?” he asked. “I didn’t know which one yo
u might like, so I just got all of them.”
Lila grabbed one at random and smiled as the warmth spread down her throat. Only milk had been added to the tea, which was how she liked it.
Shaw nodded, clearly pleased that he had done something helpful. “When you’re ready, I should take photos for the report.” His eyes fell upon the camera on his desk.
“Let’s get it over with,” she replied, putting down her cup.
Shaw picked up the camera while Lila took off her coat and backed against the bare wall. He directed her how to turn so that he could get adequate coverage of the bruises on her neck and jaw, not that she needed the instructions. The camera emitted an obnoxious, dead click whenever it captured a shot. She’d done the same as Shaw before, asking someone to pose their broken body for the camera. She’d never thought much about it then. She’d never realized how much an intrusion it was, how much it pained her to know that La Roux’s file would preserve the memory of the attack, long after her bruises had healed.
But the formalities had to be observed.
She knew that.
She even lifted her shirt so that he could photograph the bruises on her ribs and stomach, though the act was almost worse than receiving the blows themselves. At least the chief had not photographed anything above her mouth.
No one would be able to tie the pictures to Elizabeth Victoria Lemaire-Randolph. As always, he had recorded her anonymously, and the report would live in his private records, rather than BullNet.
“I need your account of the evening’s events,” he said, withdrawing his palm. He tapped on the device’s screen, then noted the date and time as well as his name and rank. It was a familiar routine when the pair debriefed after a job. Usually no one but the prime minister would see the report, but this time would be different. This time excerpts would be sent to a few key members of the senate’s disciplinary committee.
The High Council of Judges would confirm their judgment. She’d have to recuse herself from that meeting, wouldn’t she?
Of course she would. It wouldn’t be right to rule on such a case.
Lila picked up her tea and ran through what had happened the night before. She didn’t speak in much detail about La Roux’s web of blackmail because she hadn’t ferreted out all his victims yet. It would take her weeks to finish that. She spoke in broad strokes only, except when it came to the attack.
She was very precise when she got to that.
“You aren’t listening as you usually do,” she chided gently after she had finished her account. Her voice hurt worse than ever, as if scratched by burning embers as she spoke. She sipped her second cup of tea, hoping to ease it.
Shaw tapped on his screen, turning off the recording program. “It’s not your usual story,” he said, tucking his palm into a deep pocket in his blackcoat. “You’re usually in and out, and no one’s the wiser. This time was different. Such violence is usually committed by the mentally ill, by anarchists, by drunks, by people like that hacker or Peter Kruger. My oldest son played with Senator La Roux as a boy. I always believed that he was a moral man. He was a highborn, raised and educated in Bullstow. We all had something to do with it.”
Lila could relate. She’d felt similarly when Patrick Wilson had been picked up for his crimes. She and Alex had taught him how to tie his shoes and ride a bike.
“You feel responsible for his actions?”
“Such behavior reflects on us all. We were his teachers. This was his milieu. We should have seen the defects within him long before he graduated.”
“Do you also blame the citizens of Beaulac? He lived there for years.”
“Only during the legislative session,” he said, turning back to his coffee. “In truth, madam, I don’t know what to think about it all. I don’t know who’s to blame.”
“Perhaps you should blame Senator La Roux. People change. They don’t always change for the better.”
“Sometimes they don’t change at all. Sometimes you never knew them to start with.” He rubbed his eyes, which had turned red without sleep. “We’re lucky that Senator La Roux never told anyone about your extracurricular activities. Your identity is still safe.”
“He could still talk. He probably will talk before the end. Has he requested another deal? He was full of them last night.”
Shaw fiddled with his coffee cup. “I don’t know how to tell you this, and I don’t know if it will make what happened last night better or worse, but Senator La Roux is dead.”
Lila felt the punch in her stomach.
The senator had managed yet another blow.
“I don’t understand. He was in a holding cell. How can he be dead?”
“I was with him when it happened. He wouldn’t admit to any wrongdoing no matter how often I threatened him with truth serum. He did give me a list of those he had caught inside the network, though, several dozen highborn and hackers. He told me the evidence against them was stored on a backup drive in his suite, and since his computer was likely nothing more than ‘an expensive paperweight,’ if you were to be believed, we should start there. He said he’d be damned if he’d be thrown in a holding cell while they got off scot-free.”
He passed her the list, and Lila shook her head. “He blackmailed far more than that.”
“You’ll find them all. I’m quite confident in your abilities.”
“I don’t understand where all the money was going.”
“Favors? Votes? We’ll look over his financials and bring everyone in for interrogation. It won’t take long to see the pattern, to understand what he was trying to do. We already know the goal.”
“Get elected in the Saxony Senate.”
“Then Unity and beyond.” Shaw rubbed at his mustache. “He didn’t hold back with what he did to you. He called it an accident, said that he wasn’t himself, but he admitted it. It’s about the only thing he did admit to. Then he grabbed my gun when my back was turned. It was a rookie mistake.”
Lila didn’t believe it for a moment, especially when Shaw’s eyes slid to the floor. “You carry a gun with bullets?”
“Of course. I’m the chief and ultimate authority on this compound. It is my burden.”
“Bullshit. Senator La Roux asked for a gun, and you gave it to him.”
Chief Shaw licked his lips, and his fingers ran across the supplies on his desk: pens, paperclips, a couple of stray booklets bound in plastic spirals. “You were right before when you asked if he had made a deal. I called the prime minister with the details, and he accepted. It killed your father to do it, madam. He wanted Senator La Roux to pay a steep price for his actions, for what he had done to you, but the needs of Bullstow must come before vengeance.”
“What deal?”
Shaw shifted in his chair. It squeaked in the quiet room. “Senator La Roux told me that he didn’t want his children to suffer for what he had done, and he knew that your father and I would not want Bullstow to suffer for it either. You understand our position, madam. The prime minister would rather this whole affair did not come out. What good would it do if the people of Saxony found out that a senator had tried to bribe his way into a better seat? That’s not how the men of Bullstow are raised. Besides, if the idiots out there knew you were watching BullNet, they’d be harder to catch. It would also put you, me, and your father in danger.”
“I don’t understand.”
Chief Shaw rubbed his mustache. “One of the cooks at Hotel Emeraude prepared a meal for him, and I left him my gun for dessert. One bullet.”
“Just like that?”
“If it makes you feel any better, he needed two. I was slow to help him.”
Lila stretched her hands out on Shaw’s desk, uncomprehending. Her mind didn’t call forth her last images of La Roux, with his face scowling and angry, his hands around her neck. No, her mind pulled deeper. Her mind reached for the La Roux she had
met on the night of the ball, teasing her with his cocky smile.
The La Roux who had lain atop her, naked and hard, thrusting in and out of her body.
The La Roux who had ticked her ribs.
The La Roux who had needed her help.
“It’s not as if this is the first time a deal like this has been struck. The senate interns are told about it by their mentors after they win their first nomination. The senate is not as clean as we’d like for people to believe. We wash away stains of dishonor with blood, just like the families.”
“How often do you wash it with blood?”
“I’ve lost my gun three times in the last fifteen years. Two more senators didn’t have the nerve. They went to trial.”
Lila crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in her seat. “Senators Hardwicke and Jackson.”
“Yes, madam.”
She remembered the two well. Their scandals and trials had been in the media for months, flooring the country.
“What will Saxony know?”
“Senator La Roux suffered a horrible car accident this morning, and Dr. Booth cremated the body soon after. He’s signed off on the official report and classified the autopsy. No one will know the real story. If I’m not very much mistaken, it’s already in the papers.”
“And Commander Sutton?”
“Your father has spoken to her personally, not that she knows the truth. He claimed she’d listen to him.”
“What about his family?”
“Senator Pierre La Roux spoke to his son last night and vowed to keep the secret. He’s a Unity senator, so he knows the score. He won’t tell anyone but Chairwoman Masson. It would bring shame on him, his children, and his son’s children if the secret got out. It would render his son’s sacrifice as pointless in the end.”
“And his mother?”
“The senator promised to break the news if she questioned the report. She won’t, though. Parents tend to know. She won’t look too closely and spoil the fairytale image of her son.”
Lila shook her head in disbelief. “Just like that, you’ve erased everything he’s done.”