“Downtown,” he said. “I didn’t think anything bad could happen to me. I slept on the street, ate at a soup kitchen, and got into a couple of fights with other homeless guys. Then I found people betting on fights under an overpass and beat up a couple of guys for money. I made fifty bucks and got my head bashed in by a guy who could magically harden his fists. A man tried to pick me up with promises of vodka and pizza. I didn’t like the look in his eyes, so I got into his car to see what would happen. Turned out he was fond of strangling. It didn’t end well for him. I never managed to find a cardboard box to sleep in. I slept in the park under some bushes until my father’s security people tasered me, pumped me full of sedatives, and delivered me back to my house.”
I just stared at him. He wasn’t lying.
“So when I woke up in my room, my mother chewed me out. She told me she’d worried. She told me I had no right to scare her like that. It was infinitely worse than sleeping on the street. By the time the party rolled around, we had resolved our family conflicts, so when Rynda asked my mother where I’d been for the past three weeks, my mother told her. Rynda started crying.”
“Why?”
“She picked up some residual traces of stress and fear from my mother. It upset her. She was sitting there, tears rolling down her cheeks, and asked my mother how she could put up with me. My mother told her that I was a gifted child and gifted children do extraordinary things. Rynda said that in that case she didn’t want gifted children. That’s when I knew I couldn’t marry her.”
“Because she didn’t want gifted children?”
Connor leaned closer and smiled again, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “No. Because I didn’t love her. Marriages among Primes are rarely based on love, but Rynda would know that I didn’t love her. It would always hurt her. And, selfishly, I realized that being with Rynda meant being alone. She wanted family, children, and stability. Safety. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, but I knew I didn’t want that. I would take risks and it would crush her. And if I smothered my will and submitted to the marriage, I would always have to be cold to her. I could never let her feel the full extent of my anger, fear, or worry, because it would be cruel.”
Rogan’s personality was like his magic: a powerful typhoon that swept away everything in its path. I had seen the extent of his rage and the intensity of his desire. When he focused on you, he did so completely and you felt privileged to be the object of his attention in spite of yourself. A true relationship required honesty. When he was scared, or raging, or helpless, he would have to calm down and pull his feelings inward before he went home. He would have to lie to her.
Rogan had never lied to me. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Occasionally he worded his replies carefully, but he had never lied to me except for the time on the balcony, right after we watched his people being murdered. He’d lied on purpose, knowing I would react. He could’ve refused to answer my questions. Instead he always told me the truth, even when he knew I wouldn’t like the answers.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“No,” I lied. “Go on with the story.”
“Not much left. I officially broke off the engagement at eighteen. They held on to hope for another year, but when I joined the military, it was clear that all bets were off. Rynda married her now husband within six months. He is uninterested in politics and risky games, and by all indications he loves her.”
“Do you regret it?”
“No. She’s happy and I need somebody else. Someone who doesn’t crack under my pressure.”
True. “That’s a tall order.”
His face turned thoughtful. “Do you remember that big speech I made in your garage?”
“Which one?” I sighed. “You’ve made several. I’m contemplating installing a personal soapbox with your name on it.”
“The one where I said you would beg to climb into my bed?”
“Ah. That one. How could I forget? I kept waiting for you to pound your chest like a silverback gorilla.”
“Forget what I said—”
A speaker came on and Bug’s voice resonated through the room. “Nevada, wake up. Bern says call him back right now. It’s urgent.”
I grabbed my phone from the side table. Someone had turned the ringer off. I dialed Bernard.
“Yes?”
“Montgomery is on a video call in your office,” he said. “He’s pissed off. I tried to tell him you’ll call back, but he’s holding the line open.”
Something bad had happened.
I jumped off the couch and spotted my shoes on the side. I pulled them on. Rogan watched me.
“Trouble?”
“Probably.”
“Do you need help?”
“No.” Augustine knew where I was. He didn’t call here, which meant whatever new emergency had occurred was for me and me alone. I would handle my own affairs.
I looked up at him. He was back to the familiar icy Prime, intense, hard, and lethal.
“If I become a Prime, will you be my enemy, Rogan?”
“No,” he said. “You have nothing to fear from me.”
“I’ll hold you to it.”
I dashed into the warehouse. A blue Honda CR-V was sitting in my parking lot. Bern met me at the door.
I pointed to the Honda. “Do we have a client?”
“No.” Bern’s face took on that collected expression that usually meant he was about to methodically recite a sequence of events that led to the Honda being in the parking spot and would probably start his story right around the Great Flood.
I held up my hand, hoping to stave off the flow of information. “Later. What the hell is Augustine pissed about?”
“This might be it.” Bern held up his tablet. A headline crossed it: “The Question of the Lady in Green: Should Primes Do More?”
Just what I needed. I landed in my office chair, pulled my hair back the best I could, and pushed the key on the keyboard.
“Yes?”
Augustine’s perfect face was so cold it might as well have been carved of a glacier. “Congratulations, Lady in Green.”
Damn it.
“Your altruism bore rotten fruit. I told you so.”
“It’s one lousy article, Augustine.”
“I’m not talking about the article.”
I leaned back and crossed my arms on my chest. “Will you please speed this up?”
“Victoria Tremaine’s people contacted my office. She is on her way to Houston to see me. She’s asking for the identity of the Lady in Green.”
I sat up straighter. Ages ago when I first realized I was a truthseeker, I looked up truthseeker Houses. There were three in the continental United States, and House Tremaine was the smallest and the most feared. It had only one Prime: Victoria Tremaine. She was near seventy and people hid when they heard she was coming. She didn’t just pull the truth out of her victims; she could lobotomize them and frequently did. Rich and feared, she wielded unprecedented power. I remembered looking at her picture—a tall aristocratic woman with vicious eyes—and thought she looked like some evil witch. The kind that had a noble title and ordered you skinned alive if you happened to spill a drink while serving it to her.
“I have no desire to upset Tremaine,” Augustine said. “Neither do I want her anywhere near my office, but I can’t simply not see her. You have this one opportunity to tell me why she would be interested in you.”
“I have no idea.”
“Make sure you figure it out. If you need protection from Tremaine, you must sign the contract I offered you. My House will defend its own. You have . . .” He checked the computer screen. “Twenty-two hours.”
The screen went black. I looked at Bern. He raised his arms.
If Augustine met Victoria Tremaine, she would pull my identity out of his head. I was a baby Prime, and I’d managed to get Baranovsky to admit things to me. Victoria had a lifetime of practice. Why would she be interested?
A terrible suspicion ignited in my head. If Rogan was right, and I was a Prime, my talents had to come from somewhere. Spontaneous manifestations of Primes without anyone in their immediate family possessing a lot of power were extremely rare.