by Wren Weston
Tristan cocked an eyebrow. “I figured that happens all the time.”
“It does, and usually they’re easy to ferret out and take to court. Every family militia has at least one person working bribery cases fulltime. Mine has three, and I might add a fourth.”
“It sounds like your family gets up to a great deal of trouble,” he said, glancing behind him. “So I’m assuming that sometimes these people aren’t so easy to find?”
“Impossible if the target has been up to something they shouldn’t have and refuses to come forward. That’s what happened in this case. We know people are being bribed, but none of them will cooperate with the investigation, not even to give us a name or a file. We can’t even use the serum against the victims. They haven’t done anything serious enough to warrant it. My father suspects that the culprit is a hacker who’s turned on her highborn clients. What’s odd is that the hacker managed to find a highborn who had never hired her, someone who should never have been on her radar. If the victim hadn’t gotten greedy and been busted for something else, we never would have known. Chief Shaw was able to use the serum on her, but in the end, it didn’t matter. She simply doesn’t know who is bribing her.”
“What was this highborn doing to get on the hacker’s radar?”
“Breaking into Bullstow and doing a horrible job of it. If my father was less of a prime minister, he might not have known what was going on, just like Governor Lecomte has no idea that his own government networks have been compromised.”
“So you’re saying that someone out there is doing my work for me? I hope you don’t catch them.”
Lila shoved Tristan into the empty road.
“What?” He chuckled. “You shouldn’t put yourself at risk to defend highborn criminals and their lackeys. Whoever is doing this is a patriot.”
“She isn’t a patriot. She’s a vigilante at best. At worst, she’s a bigger criminal than her victims. You can’t go around bribing people, Tristan, just like you can’t go around bombing them. That’s what we have a court system for.”
“A fallible one. It only works against the workborn and the occasional lowborn.”
“And if you had your way, you’d bomb everyone into seeing your viewpoint.”
“Talking is masturbation.”
“Is writing?” she asked.
“Yes, if you don’t back up your words with actions.”
“And damn the casualties?”
Tristan shrugged.
“Change comes slowly. You can’t do it at the point of a sword, Tristan. That’s not a revolution. It’s assault, coercion—”
“Maybe some people need to be coerced.”
“Is that why you’ve been prodding the workborn to protest? I counted four last month on the news.”
“I wouldn’t waste my time.”
Lila studied his face, the way his eyes did not run from her. Perhaps he hadn’t started the protests after all.
“People like your mother will never end up in a holding cell, no matter what they do,” he said. “How is that—”
“Leave my mother out of this. She’d never dream of breaking the law.”
“No, she just dreams of ways to bend it.”
“Of course. All laws bow before a competent chairwoman.”
“Spoken like a highborn. How many times did she make you write out that proverb as a child?”
“Enough times for it to stick. Few highborn break the law, whether you want to believe it or not.”
“And you say I’m naïve.”
“You are. For a highborn, breaking the law is cheating. It’s not sporting, and it’s an admission that you are inept. The highborn have more self-respect than that. So if you have a problem with the laws or how the highborn treat the workborn, change the laws so the matrons can’t bend them. Complain to your senator, and stop buying that family’s products.”
“Yes, because that always works,” Tristan muttered. “By the way, the hacker is a he.”
“A he? How do you know it’s a he?”
“I don’t, but how do you know it’s a she? Must it always be a she?”
“He. She. Who cares?”
“I do. It gets annoying. And I think it’s ridiculous that instead of going after the highborn criminals, you’re going after the one bribing them. That’s part of the—”
“My father is dealing with the highborn and their crimes,” she said, trying to cut him off before he launched into another lecture. “I’m just working the other end.”
“So you compromised BullNet to draw the hacker’s attention?”
“No.” Lila had thought she’d be smarter than that, opting to retrace the guilty highborn’s steps, to dig around in the system and figure out how Zephyr worked. She had only called in Tristan in case things turned bad.
Bad was an understatement.
It might get worse. If Zephyr found her first and leaked her activities to the press, then Shaw would be forced to arrest her. If the senate voted to execute her or tried to take her mark, then Shaw and her father would come forward and explain their part in it. Not only would they lose their careers for allowing a highborn heir to gain access to BullNet, but they might very well be hanged for the scandal. Her life would be exchanged for two, and her actions would cloud the Randolph family’s reputation. She’d not dodge a slave’s term, and even if she did, her militia career would be ruined.
At the very least, her mother would exile her from the family.
No one in Saxony would accept that an heir and chief of security had been given access to the entire Bullstow network, which would be exactly how the media would frame it.
Tristan sighed, spinning back around. “You’ve decided that this is the end of share time. I always think that this time I’ll get a meal, but all you ever toss me is more scraps.”
The sign for Masson’s Vineyard came into view, taller than Tristan, wider than one of his Cruz trucks. A woman’s hand had been painted on one side of it, embracing a cluster of red grapes, the green Masson coat of arms taking up half the sign. Tristan turned down the black-paved road, recently swept and scrubbed, just wide enough for two cars to traverse.
Lila might not have wasted much time on the lake, but she had been to the vineyard dozens of times. Senator Dubois had invited her to tag along with Jewel on countless occasions, no doubt trying to make a match between her and his matron’s relations. The family held exclusive balls at the vineyard during the season, and everyone lucky enough to get an invitation believed the house was worth the trip.
Even her mother.
Luckily, the Massons had never seen fit to wall off the vineyard. They employed a small complement of militia in a little tower adjacent to the house, supplemented only when an heir was in residence or when the family held an event. Few guards would be around at ten o’clock on a Thursday morning, though, and Lila and Tristan weren’t close enough to the house to see it as anything more than a pile of stone and glass in the distance.
It was relaxing to see the vineyard, each row of vines perfectly straight on either side of the road, like lines of soldiers standing at attention before the house. The small-limbed vines wrapped around trellis after trellis as though they had become miniature trees in their pairing. Just two months before, clusters of blue grapes had hung toward the bottom of those limbs like spiders lying in wait, ready to drop from their perches and charge all who came near like eager, poisonous assassins. Though they had been picked in the harvest, she glimpsed a forgotten cluster from time to time, hidden from rushed hands.
“What do you think Simon’s doing now?” Lila asked, wrapping her coat around herself more tightly. Grass and mud coated her black boots, and it would only get worse when she left the road. “Preparing the vineyard and winery for tours? Getting things ready for the season?”
Tristan shrugged. “I don’t care much
about rich people’s things.”
Lila frowned and squinted into the distance. Up ahead, a crew of slaves dressed in jeans and boots stooped over each side of the road. A parked cart had been filled with small crates of flowers, orange pansies and small yellow blooms she could not identify.
A man in a pair of overalls looked up at his people, focusing alternately on his own work and his crew. He had a stern face, yet it was not cruel. Lila wondered if he was a slave or a servant. Perhaps he was just a restless, highborn Masson who had successfully petitioned for freedom from a desk, like Johnny Beaulieu, the Randolph head gardener. Though younger than Lila, he had assumed control of the entire groundskeeping staff for every Randolph compound and constantly traveled among them.
Behind the crew master, she glimpsed Simon, snatching up a container of yellow blooms from the cart. He still looked young and scrawny to Lila’s eyes, but at seventeen, he had begun to acquire the body and height of a man. He would have been scrawnier if he still lived on the Wilson estate. Six months of labor had filled him out somewhat, cut muscles into his arms, given his shoulders a stretch, and tanned his skin.
Alex had visited him over the summer. Happy was how she described him, considering everything that had happened.
“There he is,” she said, pointing at Simon in his jeans and dark brown t-shirt, marred with dirt and sweat and grass.
Tristan slapped her arm down. “I know his face. I’ll bring him to you. Don’t stand in the middle of the road like an idiot.”
Lila whipped her peacoat and turned away, wandering between two rows of vines, absently pulling off leaves as she passed.
Soon, a laugh erupted behind her, and Simon sprinted forward, picked her up, and twirled her around. His frame had indeed filled out, and he was more muscular than he appeared under his work clothes. “Lila, you’ve come to visit.”
“No, she hasn’t come to visit,” Tristan grumbled, leaning against one of the metal trellises. “I told you that.”
Simon put her down gently. “A visit’s a visit.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek.
The contact lasted several seconds too long.
“Alex said that you were doing well here,” she said, pulling away.
“I’m trying. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be at the mines. I know that. Alex does, too. You’re a good friend, Lila. I just wish I could pay you back somehow.”
Tristan raised an eyebrow. “I bet you do.”
Simon’s face fell somewhat at Tristan’s tone. “Who is he? New money?”
“Far from it. Let’s go for a walk. Alone.”
“Bullshit. I paid off the crew master for this. Cost me more than it was worth, too.”
Simon’s gaze passed back and forth between Lila and Tristan. He then thrust his fists into his jean pockets. “You really aren’t here for a visit, are you? What’s this about?”
“The club raid,” Lila replied. “We never really talked about it. You’d already been charged and sentenced by the time I got back from La Porte. It was too late for me to do much but keep you from Chairwoman LeBeau. Tell me what happened.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s over.”
“That’s what you told me last time we spoke, and I let it go. But I’m not going away so easily this morning. Something happened in that club. I want to know what it was.”
“Why? Nothing’s going to change. The courts have ignored my appeal, and I’ve taken up enough of your time.”
“And we just spent another hour on you,” Tristan interrupted. “We’ll spend another hour traveling back to New Bristol. Don’t waste our time, kid.”
“Tristan!”
“It’s the truth.”
Simon shook his head. “I can’t talk about it, Lila. You know that. I can’t discuss family business with outsiders. Not even with you.”
“You’re not a Wilson any longer,” Lila said. “Do you honestly think your mother will take you back into the family? She’ll send someone with your mark the day you finish your slave’s term, and that will be the end of it.”
“My mother will be long dead before I finish here. I’ll be a workborn in the end, anyway. None of it matters.”
“Wrong. If you’re not guilty, then you could finish high school. You could marry into a new—”
“Highborn do not marry. We liaise. Marriage is reserved for the poorer classes.”
“Your brothers married into other highborn families. They can help you do the same.”
“I’m not them.”
“You’ll be one of the poorer classes eventually if you don’t. But if you don’t want to marry, then fine. Take a servant’s contract instead. You could even start a business. You’re not yet eighteen, Simon. You have options. You have plenty of time. But you won’t have either if you stay here.”
Simon frowned and brushed at the dirt on his jeans, fighting a losing battle to keep the muck of the vineyard from his clothes.
Lila grabbed his hands and squeezed, ignoring the grit on his fingers. “Simon, this may feel like some big adventure or a vacation right now, but if you stay here, this might be it for you. If something happened that night, you need to tell me. How far has loyalty gotten you?”
Simon dug his toe into the earth. He did not answer for some time. “I didn’t do it, Lila. You know me. You know my friends. I’ve never even seen heroin before. Still haven’t. I wouldn’t even know what to do with it.”
“What happened in the club that night?”
“I don’t know. It wasn’t like the militia said. There weren’t even that many people in the club. My cousins and I were there to blow off steam and have a few beers after midterms. One minute we were sitting around the table, laughing, the next minute two Bullstow blackcoats entered the club. They didn’t even stop to talk to Mr. Sutherland. They just came in and headed right for our table, like they knew us and knew exactly where we’d be.”
“Did Mr. Sutherland rat you out?” Tristan asked.
“Why would he do a thing like that? We’re kinsman.”
Lila ignored Tristan as he rolled his eyes. “Did they search you?”
“Yeah, they didn’t find anything, though. It didn’t seem to matter to them. They arrested us all anyway, then they took us to the security office on the estate and put us in a holding cell. I’d never even been in there before. There were over a dozen people in the cells already. I heard them talking. Half of them hadn’t even been on the estate when the militia took them, and none of us had any drugs.”
“No one fought back in court?”
“Of course they did, but they were poor workborn. They didn’t have much money for lawyers. I think some of their families were threatened or paid off, because a few just agreed to whatever the blackcoats put in their report.”
“Do you have proof of that?” Tristan asked.
Simon shook his head. “No. The prosecution used those who had been turned as witnesses against the rest of us in exchange for reduced sentences. They said whatever the blackcoats wanted, even when it contradicted the militia report. The ones who spoke the truth weren’t believed.”
“And you?” Lila asked.
“I wasn’t about to admit to something I didn’t do. Some law firm offered to defend us for free, at least those of us who couldn’t afford lawyers, but I guess you get what you pay for. The charges against Dan and Tobias were dropped before my trial, and their parents threatened to take away their dividends if they tried to speak in my defense. I can’t blame them for staying quiet.”
“Why was Bullstow even on the estate?”
“Our security budget has been strained. The chairwoman has called them in before to straighten out the crowds. Bullstow comes in, makes a few busts, and writes the reports. None of us like them, though. They’re both assholes.”
“Both?” Tristan asked. “Is it the same two guys every time?”
<
br /> Simon nodded.
Lila eyed Tristan, who had cocked his head in thought. “How many times have they come out, Simon?”
“Four or five times, at least. That’s what Tobias told me, anyway. He was thinking of joining the militia before we realized how bad off the family was. He still patrols with them sometimes, though. Or did. He always knew who’d been arrested on the compound and who brought them in.”
“The chances of the chairwoman’s call being answered by the same two officers every time is incredibly small,” Lila said.
“It’s pretty much impossible,” Tristan agreed. “Those two men work for your mother, Simon. She’s using them to clear out her estate of undesirables. You are an undesirable. I have to ask myself why a chairwoman would set up her own son.”
Simon eyed the other slaves as they worked along the roadside. “I have to go now. We’ve got to get all the flowers planted before the weekend, and then there’s painting that must be finished. I’ve been gone for too—”
Lila put her hand on his chest. “She set you up, and you know it. Why would your mother do that? Why would she throw away her own son?”
“She didn’t throw me away. She’s going to come back for me. It’s just a misunderstanding. After she gets everything in order, she’ll bring me home. I’ve sent her messages, Lila.”
“Has she replied to them?”
“She will. She’s going to come back for me.”
“What is she getting in order?”
“Nothing.”
Lila grabbed his wrist. “What is she getting in order, Simon?”
“I trust you, Lila,” he said, looking her in the eyes. “Give Alex a message. Tell her she needs to visit Mother. If she waits too long, she’ll always regret it.”
He squeezed Lila’s shoulder and started off toward his crew.
Tristan’s hand shot out, gripped his arm, and held him in place. “We’re not done.”
Simon tried to shake him off, but Tristan held firm. “You idiot child, we’re trying to help you. Senator Craft is dead. Your father can no longer help you get out of this mess. Do you really think your mother is going to save you? She tried to dump you in a mine where you would have come out with black lungs if you ever came out at all. She isn’t coming back for you, no matter how many messages you send. You’re not the only one she threw in the trash, you know. Not everyone was so lucky to end up in a rich man’s vineyard.”