Nervosa followed. My heart hammered and I thought I might be sick as I shoved my way back outside and stomped to the Rover. Nervosa caught up and grabbed my wrist, stopping me before I could climb inside.
“What was that back there?” he asked, leaning close. “You know what he did?”
“It’s nothing.” I stared at him, angry as hell. “Thanks for your help. I couldn’t have done that without you.”
His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t take the bait. “What happened to your grandfather?”
“He was an asshole that died very suddenly. You can probably figure out the rest.” I pulled my wrist away. “Now take me home. I’ve had enough of my family for one day.”
He studied me carefully without speaking for several seconds, and I wilted under his gaze. Nervosa could be so intense sometimes, and no matter how enraged I felt, I couldn’t seem to stand up to him.
But he pulled open the Range Rover’s door and let me climb inside.
I leaned back, sighing with relief as the car turned around and left my uncle’s home.
Chapter 11
Melanie
The smell of hot coffee, baking muffins, and bay breeze drifted through the crowded cafe. I sat in the far corner in a small booth, my laptop on the table, my shoulders hunched forward, trying to make myself as invisible as possible.
The espresso machine puffed and groaned. Baristas moved with practiced efficiency as customers came and went. A few others sat at tables with their headphones, their books and computers, ignoring each other. I breathed deep, knee jostling, as I did another search for Oparid.
There wasn’t much about the drug online. A few scant press releases with vague corporate-speak promises and not much else. From what I could tell, Oparid was a long-acting pain relief medication in a special class of opiate that I didn’t understand. It was synesthetic, and apparently very strong, but not addictive according to a couple tweets sent from a defunct account in 2014. Apparently, Oparid had been in the works for years, but hadn’t been manufactured on a large scale.
Until recently. There was another press release that had some vague articles on websites that closely tracked the pharma industry announcing a partnership between Uncle Cedric’s drug company and a manufacturing conglomerate I’d never heard of. The FDA had approved Oparid, and now there were plans in place for it to hit the shelves in the next year or two.
I couldn’t tell what any of it meant. Uncle Cedric’s company hadn’t released very many products in the last decade and survived on the strength of its original portfolio spearheaded by my grandfather in the seventies. Based on my research, most market analysts expected IM to go out of business in the next twenty years unless it managed to bring new product to market without ruining its underlying portfolio.
It was a huge mess. But it seemed Oparid was my uncle’s gamble: he was getting into the opiate trade to drag his flailing company out of murky waters.
It couldn’t be a coincidence. The western Oligarchs wanted to flood the eastern half the United States with opiates in order to distract the eastern Oligarchs, and my uncle happened to be manufacturing a brand-new designer drug on a massive scale. I’d bet anything that Uncle Cedric was involved with Silvano Tense and Liam Quest in some way, only I didn’t know how much he understood about what his product would be used for.
The door opened and a bell dinged. I looked up and my heart skipped a beat as Laurel breeze into the cafe, greeting a couple regulars, and shuffling into the back and behind the counter. I’d come to Boost Coffee because I saw her name under Employee of the Month on their website while doing some cursory googling of my cousin, and now there she was, apron on, hair tied back, looking happy and friendly and about twenty feet away.
This was a terrible idea.
I should get up and walk out. I hadn’t thought this through before showing up. I never imagined I’d actually run into her, although I had no clue what I expected. I knew she worked here and there was a real chance she’d be around when I showed up.
I couldn’t make myself leave. She had a nice laugh, loud but infectious, and I could tell her coworkers liked her. They drifted closer, one guy making a joke as she worked on a drink for a customer. She took over up front, taking orders, making drinks, running the register. She had and ease and a way about her that was magnetic, and I kept staring, even though I really should’ve been hiding instead.
That was my cousin, a girl I hadn’t known existed until Nervosa introduced me to her. There was so much about my family that I didn’t know, and even with all my obsessive research and hard work, I still hadn’t gotten any closer to knowing anything at all.