Black Truth, White Lies (Black Hat Bureau 3)

For the first time, the director paid Asa a speck of attention, and I wished he hadn’t.

“You are your father’s heir.” The director’s eyes grew colder. “You understand the weight of responsibility.”

“Rue is her own person.” Asa’s voice came out glacial. “She makes her own choices.”

“The male of the species in fascination is utterly worthless,” the director spat. “They’re guided by one thing, and one thing only.”

“I have obligations back home,” I cut in. “I only came to ask you, to your face, about my grandmother.”

Red mottled his cheeks, and he prepared to bluster at me for the audacity of claiming that relationship.

“You’re practicing white magic.” His nostrils flared. “I smell it on you.” He wet his lips. “The weakness.”

A predatory gleam lit his eyes, and his gaze dipped to my chest, as if imagining where my heart beat.

He could hear mine, drumming away, the same as I could hear his if I listened. I used to all the time. Listen, I mean. I couldn’t convince myself he had one if he treated me the way he did. But that was before I learned the difference between the organ and the metaphor.

“Try me.” I had no hope of winning against him, not without Colby, but I would fight. “Old man.”

“Your attitude hasn’t improved.” His eyes flipped up to mine. “You get that mouth from your mother.”

As much as he blamed her for my faults, every last one, I knew from Megara he was right. For a change.

Mom was a bit wild, a bit sassy, and her taste in men was definitely questionable.

“Why did you want to see me?”

There was no point in asking him if he set up those agents, one who was short a hand thanks to me. The old man would lie through his teeth to avoid admitting any wrongdoing and twist things around until the person grilling him got smoked and gave up. Grandfather was a liar. A manipulator. And a true politician.

Though I suppose I could have just called him a politician and covered the same ground in fewer words.

“You’re my granddaughter.”

Hearing those words fall from his lips in front of another person for a second time was as jaw-dropping as it had been the first.

“That’s not an answer.” I studied him for signs of his intentions. “Why did you bring me here?”

“The terms of our bargain have changed,” he informed me. “You are no longer a consultant.”

Tongue running across the edge of my teeth, I wished I could say I was surprised, but that would be a lie.

“You are to return to active duty,” he continued, blotting his lips. “Effective immediately.”

A tremor in his hand as he reclaimed his cane set me in a mind to bargain, though he was a proven liar.

“There are worse things than Calixta Damaras,” he said, as if to reassure himself, the cane tap, tap, tapping. “A reckoning is coming.”

Had I not been there, standing in the room with him, I would have missed the tells.

Sweaty upper lip. Blot. Trembling hands. Flex, relax. A tic jumping beneath his left eye. Blink.

My grandfather, the director of the Black Hat Bureau, the most powerful black witch alive…was afraid.