Disreputable Allies (Fates of the Bound 1)

She would have known. She would have seen it.

She was Chief Elizabeth Victoria Lemaire-Randolph, for fuck’s sake, in charge of security for the entire Randolph family.

She would have known.

Her mind slipped back to her near-death in the alley, realizing that Peter had never answered her question. He’d never said that Chairwoman Wilson had ordered him to kill her. He’d dodged the question, and she’d assumed.

That was sloppy of her. Very sloppy.

“I know you’re close with his sister,” Shaw said, squeezing her arm. “Don’t let that blind you now.”

Captain O’Bryan yanked open the door to Patrick’s limo and hauled him out. He ducked as Patrick punched, and two militiamen tossed the flailing highborn onto the ground. They pinned him while Captain O’Bryan cuffed his hands behind his back. “Don’t touch me! I’ll ruin all of you for this.” He kicked and groaned at every push and pull that came his way.

Oskar cowered in the car, still squeezing the satchel to his chest.

Once the team had secured Patrick and the driver in the back of a militia cruiser, the captain knelt on the cement beside the car. “Oskar, could you please hand over that bag?” The captain spoke calmly, as though approaching a frightened kitten that might bolt at any moment.

Oskar merely shook. Not his head but his whole body.

Captain O’Bryan did

not reach in and drag him out. He merely talked. Patient and gentle.

It was Bullstow’s way with children.

In the end, it took an hour and a pair of Bullstow social workers before Oskar surrendered the bag and left the limo. Like Captain O’Bryan, they spoke in soothing tones, offering Oskar something to eat if he came out, assuring him that he was not in trouble. The boy cried anyway. Tears streamed down his face as they held his hand and led him away, a boy of fifteen hugging a stuffed blue teddy bear as though it might spirit him from the hangar if he just held on tightly enough.

He cried for a lost dream, for a new life in Germany, promised and stolen away again.

Lila wondered if Patrick had told him about his father.

While the social workers managed Oskar, Captain O’Bryan took the satchel to Tiny. The two chiefs rummaged inside it, digging through the paperwork. As Lila had deduced, the forged visas made it clear what Patrick had planned.

There was no doubt he’d been behind it. The visas belonged to him and Oskar. Lila had given him too much credit, though. Not only had he possessed forged Burgundy visas, but he also had German ones.

Shaw wouldn’t even need a confession.

After a search of the limo turned up nothing more damning than a couple of overnight bags, the group turned toward home.

It was a long trip back to Bullstow. Shaw tried to engage her in conversation, but Lila only half attended it, too focused on Patrick, their history together, and her memory of his always-smiling face.

A smiling face that had ordered her death.

When had the switch been flipped?

She was so engaged with their history that she didn’t even notice or care that Zephyr had broken through another layer of Prolix’s fake identity.

Only one barrier stood between them.

It was almost a blessing when Tiny pulled into a parking spot outside the Bullstow security office. She paced outside of Shaw’s office, drinking cup after cup of hot chocolate, waiting for the officers to process Patrick and wrangle him into an interrogation room.

“We’re not generating a formal report yet. We wouldn’t want to tip off your snoop and give him a chance to run.” Shaw ushered her into a room beside Patrick’s interrogation chamber. From inside, she could peek through the one-sided glass and watch the entire process, participating through a headset. Given the delicate nature of the investigation, Shaw had been reluctant to allow Lila into the room.

At least that was what he claimed. She knew the real reason she was being pushed to the side of the investigation. She couldn’t even blame him for it.

“I have a team discreetly searching Mr. Wilson’s office and personal quarters right now. We’ll hold off searching further for now, but we won’t be able to keep this from the press for long. It’s not like the bombing. We can’t evacuate the whole compound. We don’t have cause.”

“What’s done is done.” Lila slipped on the headset. “We’ll just have to find Zephyr in Patrick’s files. He has to be in there somewhere. There’s no way Patrick has done all this himself. I don’t care what you say. He’s not smart enough for all this.”