Disreputable Allies (Fates of the Bound Book 1) Read online

  Most of the data was public knowledge, but secrets abounded within. Sometimes mothers, usually highborn or wealthy lowborn, kept the father of their heir or subsequent children private. Bullstow sealed the records but allowed citizens of any class to query the database for their own records by their fourteenth birthday, inputting the name of anyone they had intentions of bedding. Submitting a potential lover’s name to the BIRD ensured that the pairing would provide a good genetic match in the case of non-private births, but it also ensured that an individual did not inadvertently bed one’s own half-sibling. Of course, Bullstow might visit if too many requests occurred in too short a time, for it was illegal to use the feature as a means of ascertaining a hidden father’s identity.

  Blackmail was always an option for anyone who could hack the BIRD. Not that Lila needed the money. She wasn’t interested in blackmail, and neither was her client.

  She put the star drive into her computer’s port and, for the next hour, reviewed the data captured by her snoop programs. It did not take her long to untangle the code and figure out how Zephyr had hidden within it. The trap had been woven into the BIRD itself, the strands of code suspended like crude spider webs, waiting for a juicy fly to walk inside.

  Lila had activated the program, and likely alerted the snoop, the moment she logged into the BIRD with a fraudulent ID. Zephyr knew exactly what files she had taken, knew when she had been inside the network, and knew when she had gotten back out again. What would the snoop do with that information? What had the snoop already done with it?

  When Lila attempted a trace on the snoop’s counterfeit ID, she didn’t get far. Although she was somewhat mollified by the fact that she found so many telltale signs of fraudulence, the ID was good enough that she couldn’t penetrate the identity behind it. Not quickly, anyway.

  Lila cocked her head, and was considering another way of tracing the snoop when her computer beeped. A window popped up on her screen flashing from red to green and back again.

  Her client.

  Lila cursed. She pulled on her VR spectacles, flipped the switch on the earpiece, and clicked Initiate on the browser window before hopping up from her chair. The bug-eyed lenses curved around her nose and cheek and forehead, making it difficult to see anything around their edges, not even her body. Her room disappeared slowly, devoured by smoke until nothing remained.

  “Lila, girl.” A deep voice rumbled into the void.

  The fog cleared. Lila found herself standing in the middle of an office, not unlike Senator Serrano’s in style, though this office had been carved from cherry rather than mahogany. A man sat at the desk, surface covered with papers, pens, stacks of documents thicker than novels, color-coded folders, hastily scribbled notes, paperclips, and star drives. He dwarfed it all, though not with his size. His mere presence and keen stare were enough, as though he were a prizefighter only a week from his last fight.

  His body resembled it as well.

  Lila knew he worked hard for it.

  Prime Minister Lemaire reclined in his expensive leather chair and scratched his salt-and-pepper stubble, coat and breeches cut in white, eyes red and tired. He motioned for her to sit. The gesture and his voice occurred slightly out of sync. Lag. The bane of VR transmissions. It was not a good start to the conversation.

  Lila flopped down, hoping she would not miss her real chair in her bedroom, for the chair in her client’s office and her own were not remotely in the same place. The software corrected with a brief sizzle and flicker as soon as she sat down.

  “Father, how’s your chair?”

  “Comfortable.”

  The question and reply was a constant joke between them. Right after Lila’s twelfth birthday, her father had moved to Unity as one of the newest members of the national High House, America’s senate. Lila had been distressed about the change, for she had spent a lot of time visiting her father at Bullstow, sneaking around the compound, and seeking out her younger brother Shiloh in places she had no permission to be. In an effort to placate Lila, her father had told her that he would come back if his chair was not as comfortable as the one in Saxony’s High House. Before he arrived in Unity, Lila had already bribed a slave to swap out his expensive leather office chair for a wooden stool.

  Prime Minister Lemaire did not ask for a replacement. He stubbornly used it, even during meetings, for an entire legislative session. Predictably, Lila realized that she could survive without her father while he tended to the business of the country. She bought him a new chair for the next session, the most expensive and lavish one she could find, but he did not throw out the old stool. Even now, it lived in the corner of his office, chipped and beaten, a splash of blue paint on one of the legs. A little plaque had been bolted to the edge of the seat. Remember Your Sacrifice had been etched into the metal.

  Lemaire had added it himself.

  Lila spied a plate on his desk, captured by the cameras inside his office. “Is that bacon and sausage, Father?”

  Frowning, he picked up his breakfast and hid it behind a stack of papers. “Things have been busy in New Bristol. I’ve already spoken to Governor LeComte and Chief Shaw twice this morning. What do you know?”

  Lila settled into her chair. “I know your doctors told you to stop eating bacon and sausage.”

  “Lila.”

  “I know that the heart-clogging capabilities of your breakfast do not suddenly disappear just because you’ve hidden them away. What are you, five?”

  He fixed her with a stern gaze and hunkered over his desk. A loud creak cut across the transmission, delayed by half a second. “This gas explosion at Bullstow has your friend written all over it.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said, keeping her answers vague and free of names in case the line had been bugged.

  “Lila, was he involved?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do. Or at least you have your suspicions. I know that face. I’ve seen it on your mother too much.” He sighed tiredly. “Lila, you cannot… We cannot afford to be in league with his sort.”

  “His sort?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yes, I do, but keep in mind that I could only trust his sort, not unless you’d rather face an endless drain on your bank account every week for the gift of silence.”

  “I’d rather have that to deal with than a governor who believes the Almstakers have resurfaced under a different name. Cut ties. Immediately. It’s too risky.”

  “No, I’ve invested too much time and energy. I’ll not have my contact burned. Besides, he’s the best option for our work in the region.”

  Lemaire stroked his chin, considering her face. “You have your orders. Report.”

  “You want a report? Fine. Bullstow is a lovely place to walk in the middle of the night, especially when you have business.”

  “Last night?”

  “Of course.”

  Lemaire’s shoulders fell. “I was afraid of that. Did you finish your walk successfully?”

  “Yes, but as you can see, there were complications. I’m not yet aware of the details.”

  The prime minister leaned back in his chair. “I don’t like being kept in the dark. I don’t like how you’re handling this mess, either. What of the information?”

  “I’m reviewing it now.”

  “What have you found?”

  “It’s early, but I found our spider and its web. Unfortunately, I don’t know who the spider is or where it lives. I need a bit more time with the details.”

  “I need that information soon, Lila. The situation has become more desperate.”

  “Another woman?”

  The prime minster winced. “Yes.”

  “Send me what you have, then. I’m going to figure it out, Father. Soon.”

  “Good,” he answered, tapping his leather armrest. “Lila,
I’m going to be blunt. If Chief Shaw hasn’t had a break in the bombing case by Saturday morning, then I’m turning in your friend’s name as a suspect. You’re to do the same the moment you believe he’s involved.”

  Lila’s eyes widened.

  “Don’t look at me like that. There’s a big difference between ignoring a stolen car here and there and ignoring an act of terrorism. If he’s innocent, Chief Shaw will clear him. Quietly.”

  “Give me until Monday. I’ll solve it myself,” she said, wanting to buy a few extra days for Tristan to leave Saxony. Maybe she owed it to him. Maybe she didn’t.

  “Lila, you don’t have the time, the resources, or the jurisdiction to work on the case. If Chief Shaw requests your assistance, then I’ll certainly approve it, but—”

  “You know that he’ll ask for my help anyway. It’s the natural consequence of training every boy who attends Bullstow as some silly—”

  “Senator. Bullstow trains senators. From birth. It’s tradition.”

  “It’s a stupid tradition that has resulted in a militia who can’t even investigate the most basic online attack, much less—”

  “They aren’t inept. You’re just much better than they are. Besides, you have other work right now with the BIRD investigation.”

  “If you want to keep me doing that important work, then you’ll give me until Monday.”

  He fixed her with a stern eye. “Chief Shaw will treat him fairly, Elizabeth. We can’t cover for someone like him.”

  “I need him for this case. What I don’t need is the threat of our friend’s capture being held over my head.”

  “It’s not a threat.” His eyes cut to her face and held her gaze. “Fine. You have until Monday morning.”

  Lila inclined her head.

  “On a more pleasant note, I’m meeting with the oracles next week.”

  Lila stifled a groan. She could scarcely hear the word oracle or see their symbol—an eye with wings attached—without wanting to vomit.

  “Don’t give me that look. Those women are the spiritual backbone of the alliance.”

  “Those women are the spiritual claw prying open the treasury.”

  “Well, as long as the meeting goes smoothly and nothing delays my flight, I should be in New Bristol in time for Father’s Week. Should.”

  “Should?”

  “I think there’s something the oracles aren’t telling me.”

  “They’re oracles, Father. There’s always something they aren’t telling you.”

  “More so than usual. The oracles are disappearing, Lila, but the infernal women won’t discuss it with me.”

  “You were just talking to me about jurisdiction? The oracles are sovereign, Father. You have absolutely no recourse if they don’t want you involved. They’ve been taking care of their own for over a thousand years, with the exception of demanding their yearly allowance.”

  “It’s not an allowance.”

  “My point is that you can’t expect them to let outsiders get involved now. Besides, it’s not exactly a secret that their numbers are declining.”

  “No. It’s a fear. It’s a hypothesis. It’s a rumor. We don’t know for sure. Only the oracles do, and I can’t help them if they refuse to discuss the matter.” Lemaire sat back into his chair like a striking cobra. She knew that look. She’d seen it on her father’s face, mid-speech before the senate and mid-fight with her mother.

  “I’m sorry, Lila. I’m bringing other issues into our time together. We’ll have dinner when I come into town, just the pair of us. Perhaps we’ll dig up Shiloh after we’re done talking business. I’m the prime minister. They should be able to rustle up an evening pass so that a boy can see his father.” He winked, knowing Bullstow would lift the entire boys’ dormitory if he snapped his fingers and asked for it.

  “I’m sure he’d like that.”

  “I hope you will as well. This unpleasantness should be over by then.”

  “Unpleasantness? Is that what our friend would call it?”

  “I know you’re upset, but I won’t apologize for trying to keep my family safe. I never should have dragged you into this business, Lila. I’m sorry for that.”

  “Asking me for help is exactly what you should have done. I’ll always do what I can, for you and for Saxony. It’s how you raised me.”

  Lila mused on her father’s face, so tired and old this morning, upset that he had brought her into his troubles. While at the same time, her mother demanded that Lila become involved in hers and called it a birthright.

  Chapter 6

  Lila rubbed her eyes. They’d begun to lose focus after straining at her monitor for so many hours. Lunch had long since come and gone, consisting of a quickly eaten sandwich at her desk. She hadn’t made any further breaks in Zephyr’s identity, and dinner loomed. Given how poorly breakfast had gone, Lila had no desire to share a table with her mother.

  She twirled her sapphire ring and checked the messages on her palm, scrolling through a few updates from Commander Sutton and Captain McKinley, as well as a reminder from Commander Fitzgibbons about her upcoming visit to the New Orleans compound.

  Lila propped her boots upon her desk and sighed. The season would begin in a month, and her mother would begin a new round of arguments. She’d want Lila to join in the season: to attend the balls and dinner parties, to find an eligible senator, to reverse her birth control, to bed a new beau and bear a daughter. A daydream popped into her head, a lovely daydream of her sneaking from one Randolph compound to another, too busy to attend a single event for the entire season.

  But Beatrice Randolph would never accept such a ruse.

  The chairwoman had been right about one thing. Very few matrons would have allowed a prime to skip her birthright, not unless the prime was deficient in some way. It had only been a moment’s lapse on her mother’s part that had allowed Lila to duck the responsibility at all.

  After Lila had caught a hacker in WolfNet at the age of seventeen, a hacker who had nearly made off with a third of the family’s capital, her mother had thrown a party in her honor. It had been one of the most lavish, expensive affairs that Lila had ever witnessed. The entire Randolph ballroom had been packed with every highborn on the compound. As a crystal chandelier sparkled above them, slaves dressed in immaculate tuxes brought tray after tray of wine and champagne; guests feasted on endless platters of delicate sandwiches, sliced fruits, and sweetened pastries; and everyone danced to lively waltzes, played by a group of white-gloved musicians.

  Her mother was shrewd in her opulence. The party showed the family what they could expect after Lila took up the heir’s whitecoat, for hadn’t Lila been given Our Lady of the Light for her fourteenth birthday? Hadn’t she renamed the hospital for the glory of the Randolph family? Hadn’t she built it up and made it the most successful medical facility in all of Saxony?

  It didn’t matter that Lila told everyone that the hospital’s success lay mainly with those she had hired to advise her. She hadn’t come up with any ideas of her own; she’d merely sifted through their ideas and picked the direction she liked the most.

  They thought Lila modest for such confessions. It made them fawn over her more.

  At the end of the night, the chairwoman gathered the crowd and toasted Lila for her business sense, for her computer skills, for her watchfulness. She had promised to give Lila a reward. Did she want the rarest of antique cars? A large-eyed puppy with a champion’s pedigree? A month-long vacation to an island paradise? A closet full of new clothes designed by Madame Thayer? Did she dream of a new heir’s mansion built for her and her alone?

  Her mother raised her glass, her silvercoat and crimson dress flowing about her, her diamond necklace twinkling in the dim light, waiting. So beautiful. So happy.

  So proud.

  “No, madam,” Lila answered, her voice as bold as she could make it.
“I wish to abdicate my position as prime and join the militia.”

  Half the musicians stopped playing at once due to surprise. The others hadn’t heard Lila’s words and continued on, falling out of time when they realized something had gone horribly wrong.

  Silence soon devoured the ballroom.

  No one breathed, least of all Beatrice Randolph. The pair stared at one another, poker hands clutched to their breasts, the chairwoman’s eyes burning with rage that Lila would dare ask such a thing before the entire family.

  Lila refused to take back her wish. She’d never get such an opportunity again, and she’d be damned if she would waste it.

  The chairwoman had been forced to grant her request, signing a contract later that evening after a long battle between two sets of shouting lawyers.

  “Such a waste, such a loss,” her mother had despaired at every opportunity during her first year, usually at meals and in front of guests. Eventually, it had devolved into prim sighs and frowns.

  Arguments followed. So many arguments.

  The same argument they’d had that morning.

  Lila laid her head upon her desk and tried not slam it into the ebony.

  One thing was clear. Her mother was getting antsy about the contract, and if she didn’t want the chairwoman to toss it out, then she’d have to pick a few events during the season and attend, appeasing and teasing the woman.

  Three really busy, really crowded events.

  Perhaps she’d take a lover this season as well, a senator who wanted a season’s break from the heir carousel. Though Bullstow was home, school, and work to all firstborn sons of Saxon heirs, they only chose the most beautiful, the most pleasant, and the most charming men amongst themselves to serve as senators. Despite their annoying tendency to talk too often about their children—and the promise of them—she had occasionally paired off with one out of season. Some of them could be quite fun, not to mention attractive in their tailored Bullstow coats and breeches.