Disreputable Allies (Fates of the Bound Book 1)

by Wren Weston

  Perhaps he was still like that little boy sometimes, even now, even when they shared a bed.

  Perhaps it was also why Tristan had argued in favor of intercepting Oskar before he arrived at the auction house. He’d wanted to spare the boy the same trauma he’d been through years before.

  He just hadn’t said it.

  Perhaps he didn’t even know the reason himself.

  Lila hadn’t understood then, but she understood now.

  Oskar looked back at her, probably because it seemed like the closest thing to comfort he’d receive in the room, not that he likely expected any. His father had run away to Germany, hadn’t he? His sister Maria had gone missing as well, perhaps never to be seen again. They’d both run away and left him behind. Patrick had done the same, promising to take him away to a far-off land where he wouldn’t be a slave. But even Patrick had left him in the end. Tristan and Fry had done the same.

  No one would ever come for him. She saw the lesson tattooed in his eyes.

  This was the price of Tristan’s failure, of their failure. She’d not understood that Tristan’s emotions had been far too heavily involved.

  A group of senators hopped on stage at last, obscuring her vision. As was their way with children, they surrounded him, speaking to him softly, rubbing his back to comfort him. One gave up on that approach altogether and just took the boy into his arms, holding on to him fiercely.

  Oskar collapsed into the senator, his tears rising and swelling, his shoulders shaking.

  Lila turned back to the gunman and began chest compressions. She worked, annoyed at Tristan, annoyed at herself, annoyed by her stupid dress and coat as they got in the way. Her knees ached on the oak floor, and she wanted to stop.

  But she didn’t.

  Her father bit his thumb as his entire security detail pounded into the room, a LeBeau militia captain trailing after them. Luckily, Lila didn’t have to worry about closing off the auction house and searching for conspirators, for her father’s security took over immediately.

  Taking over also meant trying to get a defiant prime minister to safety. “I’ll leave when my daughter leaves,” her father told the group.

  The man in charge glanced down at Lila, the wrinkles in his face signaling his intentions.

  “Do it, and you’ll never work again,” Lila threatened as she pumped the gunman’s chest. “I’ll find all the things you don’t want anyone to know, all the things you thought you’d buried years ago, and I’ll show them to the world. You and anyone else who lays a finger on me.”

  The man had been around Lemaire long enough to know his daughter’s reputation. “You six, stay and guard the prime minister.”

  Half the security detail surrounded Lila, her father, and her mother. Their faces turned toward the crowd as they laid their hands on their tranqs.

  “See what I mean?” her mother whispered to Lemaire. “Lila needs a vacation. May I suggest St. Kitts?”

  The chairwoman clasped her father’s hand.

  Lila ignored her. She had bigger problems. Her father’s people would soon go through every frame of security footage from every camera in the auction house. If she’d missed one, they’d find it. They’d also likely notice her preoccupation with her palm and her hushed whispers to no one in particular.

  She wouldn’t be charged with freeing a slave.

  She’d be charged with attempted murder.

  Sweat broke out as she worked on the gunman, and her arms flagged long before a finely dressed woman knelt on his other side.

  “I’m the LeBeaus’ private physician.” The doctor removed her blazer. She popped open the dead man’s mouth to check his airway, something Lila had forgotten to do. Or perhaps she’d been too disgusted by the foam pouring from his mouth.

  Lila saw the broken capsule as soon as the doctor did.

  “Poison,” the doctor said, her brown eyes flitting to Lila’s before she took over chest compressions.

  They said nothing to one another about the futility of it.

  Sweat beaded down the side of Lila’s face as they switched back and forth. It was important to save the man, even though she understood now she probably hadn’t killed him after all.

  It still felt like she had.

  Lila and the doctor worked until the ambulance arrived. The EMTs’ boots squeaked as they lugged a clattering stretcher across the ballroom, the wheels marking the wooden floor with black streaks. Their simple Randolph General polos and black trousers looked out of place among the highborn finery around them.

  The EMTs only continued chest compressions because their boss had begun them. They connected sticky pads to the man’s chest and shocked him with a tiny electrical box. Lila jerked at the noise, the sound seeming louder than the gunshot moments before.

  They lifted him onto the stretcher and continued their work.

  “Do you want to come with us?” one of the EMTs asked, a man who likely regretted not shaving that morning. He skimmed her face then stared at the floor, not meeting her eyes.

  Lila shook her head, and the LeBeaus’ doctor volunteered to go in her place.

  A second ambulance arrived a few moments later for Olivia. She’d wake up with the worst hangover she’d ever have in her life, as well as the full force of her matron’s wrath.

  An hour before, Lila might have found Olivia’s situation funny.

  The EMTs also checked Lila’s hands before they left, confirming that she didn’t need more stitches. Lila watched them go and looked around for something useful to do. Since the gunman had been taken away and her father’s security had already been handled, she had nothing to occupy her mind. Instead, she waved off her parents, collected her Colt and clutch, then retreated to the ladies’ room on the top floor. It looked much like the lobby of the auction house, except it contained a few couches and dressing tables.

  Underneath a painting of sunset, Lila took off her gloves and shoved her fingers under the faucet, splashing cool water on her arms where the gunman’s spit had landed. A bruise had already formed across her jaw, and Lila winced every time she brushed the bone.

  She didn’t want to look at her stomach. The gunman’s kick still throbbed.

  Patting her arms dry, she slipped in her earpiece, listening to the militia while she carefully added more concealer to her jaw. Toxic must have cracked their new signal.

  It appeared that her father’s security personnel had ordered a thorough search of the auction house. It didn’t take them long to find the body, some man found in a ground-floor closet, strangled, his clothes stolen. His wallet had been tossed onto his naked chest as though the killer thought himself above petty theft.

  It made the death seem worse somehow, a man killed only for his clothes.

  A DNA stick had established the lowborn’s identity: some proxy for a foreign bidder.

  Lila took out her palm and nearly typed Tristan a message, but she had no idea what to say. She felt as if she’d just relived Reaper’s death all over again.

  Except this time she had held the gun, rather than Tristan.

  Her palm vibrated before she could put it back in her clutch. She opened it immediately, expecting little more than a message from the Randolph security office.

  Good evening, Prolix. I trust you’ve had a few days’ rest? Interesting stuff on the news lately. Fallen highborn are so very entertaining, don’t you think?

  Lila swallowed. Reaper had been the only one who knew about her fake Prolix account, and he was dead. She’d suspected that he had a partner, though, for Reaper’s tech had been wiped the day he died, including all evidence of his misdeeds.

  Hers too. He’d written an article about her activities in BullNet and hosted it on his private server. The only saving grace was that it had been unconnected to any other webpage.

  Lila could only assume it had been a message to h
is partner, a way of passing information back and forth without the pair meeting. If that were true, then his partner had finally gotten bored. If he grew bored enough to release the article, then she’d be arrested and hanged for treason. She’d only dodge the noose if her father and Chief Shaw admitted the truth. They’d been the ones who’d given her permission to infiltrate BullNet and find Reaper in the first place.

  Searching for Reaper had put Lila on his radar.

  The public wouldn’t care about any of that, though. They’d only see the scandal. They’d only hear that a highborn heir had been given unfettered access to BullNet and all the sensitive government data inside. They’d demand arrests. They’d likely demand executions.

  Two lives traded for hers.

  If she didn’t join them, she’d lose her career, her reputation, her family, and her home, for her mother would exile Lila from the family when the public turned against them.

  It was what any matron would do.

  Lila tried to put it all out of her mind. She quickly configured her snoop programs to do a cursory search of the sender’s ID, cross-referenced against a master list of all official logins.

  She found no hits.

  The ID was a fake.

  Sitting down on a couch, Lila turned her back on the mirror, glad no one had barged into the bathroom yet. She’d been too busy with Oskar and Tristan all week to plug the last hole in her father’s job. This was the price. Some asshole now taunted her from afar.

  Rubbing her jaw, she stood up, knowing she couldn’t stay locked away in the bathroom forever. She put on her gloves, jammed her earpiece into her clutch, and finger-combed her curls. She was a Randolph heir as well as the chief of her mother’s militia. Chiefs and Randolphs and heirs didn’t hide, and they certainly didn’t wallow.

  As she padded downstairs, her father peeked his head around the ballroom door. His security watched her every step, obviously unhappy that the prime minister still insisted on remaining in the auction house.

  “I was worried,” he said. “You were gone for quite a while.”

  “I had to fix my makeup.”

  “That man hurt you. I’m calling Dr. Booth to—”

  “Father, I’m fine. I just needed a few moments to collect myself.”

  Her father grabbed her chin, carefully avoiding her bruise. “I’m proud of you, Lila. You showed everyone today why you’re chief. You showed everyone what the Lemaires and Randolphs are made of.”

  “You also managed to make the LeBeau militia look like incompetent fools,” her mother added. The chairwoman hadn’t even bothered to modulate her tone, causing a few LeBeau militia nearby to frown. “Come inside. People are starting to talk.”

  “We can’t have that.” Lila sighed.

  “Not when a rumor has spread that someone shot you again. It’s getting tedious.”

  Lemaire took her arm and escorted her into the ballroom. Her mother stood on the other side, obviously intent on meeting the crowd as a united family. Half the crowd quieted when they entered. The other half trailed off in broken conversation. Even the LeBeau and Bullstow militias lowered their palms, enjoying the welcome break from recording witness statements.

  Lila wasn’t sure who started it. A member of the Bullstow militia, if she had to guess. One clap turned into two, and the militia and senators broke into applause.

  The heirs joined in out of politeness.

  Lila fought the urge to stare at the floor. Gracefully, she inclined her head.

  The applause petered out.

  The militia turned back to their unhelpful witnesses, and the heirs resumed their endless shuffling around the ballroom, still gossiping, perhaps gossiping more now that Lila had returned.

  Lila was grateful not to be in charge. The highborn were annoying enough when their events hadn’t been spoiled by the militia and the poorer classes.

  “No telling who might have gotten shot if you hadn’t taken down the gunman,” her father grumbled. “The heirs should be more grateful.”

  “I saved Oskar, Father. He was the only target.” A worry nagged at her, though. What if the gunman had planned on a second target? Everyone knew what the white coat and breeches meant in the Allied Lands. Most knew what it meant outside of the Allied Lands too, especially in the empire. The German and Italian kings would never dare attack the prime minister of a commonwealth nation, would they?

  She held on to her father a little tighter. She couldn’t lose him. Not today. Not ever.

  “One lone assassin sent for a slave,” her mother mused. “Odd that. He didn’t seem that professional. Even Lila managed to pin him.”

  “Thanks, Mother.” Lila stared at the spot where the stranger had died, now mopped and cleared of blood and foam. “I’ve never seen someone last so long after being hit by a tranq. He must have taken a suppresser before the auction. That’s neither cheap nor easy to come by.”

  “Loyalists?” her father asked.

  “Loyalists wouldn’t want Oskar to return to Germany. King Lucas himself might have given the order. I can’t think of anyone else who would go after him.”

  Her mother took a glass of wine, offered by the frantic auction house staff. A LeBeau heir had finally taken charge in Olivia’s absence, intent on soothing the crowd with booze and food. Little sandwiches and pastries now circled the room.

  Beatrice handed Lila a glass, inclining her head at Lila’s hands. Her fingers had begun to shake.

  Randolphs didn’t tremble before other heirs.

  Lila took a long sip of the wine. She needed to get out of the building. She needed to get back home and trace the snoop’s message. She had to find Reaper’s partner and figure out the game before another message appeared on her palm.

  “This is exactly why I didn’t advertise Oskar’s sale and why I wanted to get rid of him so quickly,” her mother said. “One slave is not worth the increased security costs, no matter the bragging rights. The others are fools if they bid at all.”

  Lemaire cocked a brow. “Just say the word, and my people will take Oskar.”

  “Have you told your security detail that?” Lila asked.

  “They’ll adjust.”

  “How can it be that no one’s shot you yet?”

  “Henri, I’ll not give you the boy. I’d never have another successful auction again. You can’t promise to sell things and not sell them.”

  Six LeBeau blackcoats brought Oskar back to the stage, for the LeBeau now running the show must have been eager to conclude the auction. The blackcoats stood on either side of him, covering the ragged bullet holes in the stage, their stern gazes panning the crowd.

  The auctioneer walked to the podium, weaving a tad on his feet. He carried a glass of amber liquid with him, and the militia eyed it knowingly. Perhaps they’d taken a drink or two as well. The people of the Allied Lands weren’t used to bullets, not unless you’d taken a tour in the infantry, and few among the highborn joined the military.

  The auctioneer tapped on the microphone. After a brief speech about the LeBeaus’ commitment to security, he opened a folder and began to read quickly, giving them a brief outline of Oskar’s medical history, his parentage, and his skills. Oskar stared at the floor, reddening as the auctioneer mentioned he suffered from anxiety and stomach problems.

  Tristan must have endured the same as a child, listening as some stranger read details of his personal life to a bored crowd.

  Had he gone red, too?

  Lila tried to catch the boy’s eye again, but he refused to look up. He just kept his hands in his pockets, fidgeting as fifteen-year-old boys tended to do.

  “Of course, as a German citizen, Oskar Kruger will never be allowed to purchase his mark,” the auctioneer concluded.

  Onstage, Oskar frowned.

  “I’ll start the bidding at ten thousand.”

  Chairw
oman Hardwicke raised her paddle.

  A man beside them countered it, another proxy for a foreign bidder, by the look of his coat. “The boy doesn’t belong here,” he hissed, his desperation overriding his propriety.

  “He doesn’t belong in Germany either,” Lila said. “I suppose you’ll help shuffle him along if your patron wins the bid.”

  “Of course not. It would be illegal for me to conduct business on behalf of a Roman citizen. The laws are strict—too strict, if you ask me.”

  “That’s almost treason.”

  The laws weren’t too strict, and they both knew it. Only citizens of the Allied Lands had the right to bid on slaves. If a non-American won the auction, Chief Shaw would have to verify everything before allowing Oskar out of the country. Papers would be signed, contracts would be validated by both governments, and many promises and assurances would be made on both sides.

  None of that set Lila’s mind at ease. Some of the less scrupulous matrons likely had a plan for smuggling Oskar out of the country, right under Bullstow’s nose.

  The lowborn ignored her parting shot. He turned on his heel, stalking closer to the stage.

  Lila wondered whom he represented.

  She could find out. It wouldn’t be that hard.

  “Fifty thousand to Chairwoman Hardwicke,” the auctioneer said, offering a slightly inebriated chuckle. “I bet that flawless opal around her neck cost more.”

  After his comment, so many bids came in that he could hardly keep track. But as the amount pushed higher and higher, fewer paddles flashed throughout the room. Oskar’s price had quickly soared above what most were willing to spend. The winner would still have to pay for the boy’s education, medical fees, and security. Oskar Kruger would cost a great deal in upkeep.

  That lesson had been burned into the heirs less than an hour before.

  It didn’t take long for the bids to dwindle away. Soon only Chairwoman Hardwicke and Chairwoman Holguín flashed their paddles.

  “Six point five million to Chairwoman Hardwicke.”