10
"SO HAVE I COMPLETELY LOST MY MIND?" I asked as I drove.
Paige gave a tiny smile. "Not yet." She directed me around a corner, following the instructions the Cabal had given. "For your father's sake, I hate to say it, but your reasoning is sound. I just hope you're wrong."
"As do I."
I glanced in the rearview mirror as a dark car pulled in behind us. A flash of its headlights told me it was the guards I'd requested. "Am I wrong to keep my suspicions from Hope and Karl?"
A pause this time. Choosing her words with care, she finally said, "It's...not ideal. But you already know that."
I nodded.
"If you tell Karl the truth, he won't help, but the only way to answer your questions about your brothers is with his tracking abilities and Hope's visions."
"So I'm employing questionable means to achieve a goal I believe is in the best interests of the majority. Sounds like my father."
"It isn't the same."
Isn't it?
AT HECTOR'S HOUSE, the Cabal guards pulled in behind us.
I was about to see family members I'd never met. Family who didn't know I existed.
No matter how sound my justification, Hector would say I was just using a shrewd excuse to undermine his authority. Proof I was becoming a threat.
Paige took my elbow and rubbed her thumb across the back of it, pimpled with goose bumps despite the warm night air.
"Is there any other way we can do this?" she asked.
I shook my head.
Someone had walked into my father's house, bypassing security without raising alarms, someone familiar enough that the door guard not only accepted poisoned take-out coffee from him, but didn't feel it necessary to clear his admittance with my father. Someone Troy would chat with, unperturbed, in his bedroom.
There were four people who could get into Benicio Cortez's home without question: his sons. Only one did I deem capable of orchestrating such a complex, coldhearted and technically brilliant scheme. A plot that required not only intelligence but patience. First, he needed to have Cabal security harass the gang members, causing noticeable friction between the two groups. Then kidnapping and murder, done by employees who probably believed they were working under Cabal auspices. The gang, incited to violent retaliation, would make the perfect scapegoats for murder.
Only Hector could pull it off. But that didn't mean the others weren't involved. This was why I couldn't phone my brothers. They had to be surprised, their whereabouts confirmed by myself or someone whose impartiality I trusted.
I turned to Paige. "Perhaps you should wait--"
"No," she said. "And don't ask again."
CABAL FAMILY SORCERERS are expected to marry human women and keep their supernatural side a secret, which means there is an entire side of their lives--a critical side--they cannot share with their life partner. Yet they rarely challenge the custom. Men like Hector and my father are raised to believe in the archaic tradition of the noble classes, where wives are chosen for political connections and their suitability as gracious hostesses and loving mothers.
A modern wife like Paige might expect to be a full partner, influencing the workings of the business. That is unacceptable. One could blame it on sexism, but it is more a matter of race.
The upper echelon of a Cabal is staffed entirely by sorcerers, who are, by default, male. We rule the Cabals as if by divine decree. To allow a member of another race to have a say in the workings of the business would be dangerous. Ask any Cabal family sorcerer and he'll rationalize the prejudice by saying that sorcerers have always been in charge and have done a fine job so far, and therefore there is no need to appoint a member of another race to the board. The truth, though, is rooted in fear.
Marry a supernatural woman and she will, by necessity, be a race other than sorcerer. If she is truly her husband's partner, she may be equally ambitious, with an eye toward the executive offices and an eventual seat on the board. Most of the time, a supernatural wife would have no such designs, but the Cabal will not take that chance.
So, my brother's wife was human, and that made what I was doing all the more difficult. It did, however, mean that getting access to their house was simple. All security had to be human in origin--it would be difficult to explain away a trigger illusion to a wife who knew nothing of the supernatural. It also had to be as unobtrusive as possible. Even the most trusting wife, if forced to live in an armed camp, will eventually start suspecting her husband's business isn't as legitimate as he claims. That meant there was only common external security, but everyone from the butler to the gardener to the maid was a trained Cabal security officer.
Hector's butler had been expecting us, and had the front door open as soon as we walked up the steps.
"He's in his office," he whispered.
"Has he been in there long?"