Chapter 23
The apartment door jiggled at six, giving Lila just enough time to snatch her hood and slip it over her head. The mesh fabric scratched at her face, and the heat stifled her skin. She’d stripped down to a tank and a pair of Dixon’s shorts after lunch, nearly removing them a dozen times to sit around in her panties and bra. As usual, Dixon had cranked up the heater, all so he could walk around in little else but a pair of pajama pants.
But Dixon wasn’t moving when the door opened. He’d been caught dozing again, fallen asleep in the middle of reading a file. His tablet rocked dangerously on his knee every time he exhaled, his soft snores a restful accompaniment while she worked. As he’d chosen Lila’s shoulder as a pillow, she’d developed a bit of a crick.
Since her father and Max had not messaged her with any updates, she and Dixon had stayed at the shop all day, chasing down more information about Camille in an effort to find the mole’s accomplice, if one existed. She had no intention of returning to the oracle with half the information, for Connell might isolate Camille the moment Lila named her, and that might spook her partner.
So far, Lila had found no new leads.
Dixon had worked the problem in a different way. He’d spent his afternoon scouring the net for information about the Italian military, trying to figure out how Lila might search for one member among the fray. Dixon had attained fluency in all four official languages of the Allied Lands—English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese—therefore, he could make out a great deal more Italian than she could with her French and Spanish. During his research, he’d learned that parents often announced their children’s entrance into the military by taking out ads in their local newspapers. With Dixon’s help, she’d written a program that searched the announcements, pulling out the photos. She then compared them against an age-regressed photo of Camille.
Unfortunately, the approach had been far too fruitful, for Toxic’s computer spat out too many results due to the poor quality of the newspaper photos. Regardless, Dixon had been diligently examining each match, as well as the inside of his own eyelids.
That hadn’t been the only idea he’d had before he fell asleep. He’d scrawled a few brief lines about the Italian healthcare system. All military branches stored their medical records with the same company.
It was the best idea they’d had all afternoon. She’d just pulled up her snoop programs, ready to hack the Alleanza database, when Tristan and Katia entered the apartment.
Katia grinned at Dixon’s sleeping form, specifically at what his form had pressed against.
Tristan did not, especially when his eyes drifted to her wrist. He slammed the door so hard that Shirley likely heard it downstairs.
Dixon bobbled his head and yawned. His arms straightened around Lila in a catlike stretch. He hugged her tightly as though he might use her as a pillow again, and his chin shifted position on her shoulder.
One eye opened, taking in her hood. The other opened, and he squinted at Tristan and Katia, both staring with different expressions.
“I didn’t know you were still here,” Tristan grumbled.
“My father has not yet contacted me, and my source hasn’t learned anything new. I wanted to stay close. If that’s a problem, I can leave. I do have my car.”
“Why would you do that?” Katia asked. “The oracle’s compound is so far away.”
Lila shrugged. Tristan hadn’t told Katia the truth about what had happened between them the night before; that much was plain.
Instead of anger, Lila felt…
Nothing. Seeing the couple together didn’t sting as much as it had the entire week before. It had nothing to do with the argument or ill-advised sex. She’d just finally come to a realization. Tristan would never be at ease unless he took a workborn lover—not because the gulf between the classes was too large to bridge, but because Tristan couldn’t bridge it. He couldn’t meet a highborn halfway, not even his own brother.
Dixon would leave the shop even if he and Blair never became more than whatever they’d become. Tristan had driven him away. He would have driven her away too if she’d let him.
“What have you two been up to all day?” Tristan said, moving to the kitchen. He grabbed a pair of glasses from a cabinet and opened the fridge. Two pizza boxes had been stacked inside, mostly eaten by Dixon after their workout. “Pizza? You got her pizza from Ruby’s?”
Dixon nodded absently and picked up his tablet, yawning as he peered at the screen.
“Of course they’d order from Ruby’s. They make the best pizza.” Katia fiddled with the boxes, looking for leftovers. “Now I have a craving. Let’s order more.”
“Pineapple and ham?”
Lila ignored Tristan’s whining tone. “You’d just finished Rome,” she reminded Dixon.
He scratched at his cheek, checking his watch.
“It was only a short nap,” she assured him. “Twenty minutes, tops.”
“Why’d you get pizza?” Tristan shouted over the kitchen counter.
Lila rubbed at her eyes over the hood, wishing she’d taken a nap too. “Because I’ve enjoyed it in the past whenever you ordered it? There isn’t much left, I’m afraid. We were both hungry after my lesson, and Dixon insisted on ordering pineapple on everything. If you don’t like it, eat it at your own risk.”
Dixon shoved her, nearly unseating her laptop in the process.
“What? It sounded interesting when you suggested it, but it turned out kind of weird.”
“I know! What’s up with that?” Katia giggled. “They both put pineapple on everything.”
Dixon flipped them both off and held up his notepad. Amateurs.
“I suppose that makes him a professional?” Katia asked.
“A professional pizza eater? He sure tried this afternoon. I don’t know where he puts it.”
“I don’t know either, but it looks good on him, doesn’t it?”
“Of course. Men. What can you do?”
Tristan marched around the couch and fell back into the sofa chair. “What did you mean before? What lesson? What is he teaching you?”
“Hand-to-hand. We used one of the training rooms downstairs. I’m getting better. I even managed to knock him over a few times when I wasn’t making an ass out of myself.”
“Those training rooms are for my people, not—”
“What’s the harm if no one is using them?” Katia settled on his armrest.
“Perhaps someone would have used them if they hadn’t been inside. I harp on you for ages about learning to defend yourself, and you ignore me. You spend a few days with Dixon, and now you spend hours in the gym each day?”
“It wasn’t hours, Tristan. I don’t have the time for it right now. Not for training, and not to argue with you. Dixon and I need to work.”
“Work? That was what you were doing when we walked in?”
Katia’s eyes pinged back and forth, quietly watching the fight.
Lila did the only thing she could do when faced with a moody Tristan. She ignored him. Dropping her head, she returned to the Alleanza database. If Camille had been trained by the Italian military, she must be in the database somewhere.
Tristan crossed his arms over his chest. “Your silence speaks volumes.”
“Perhaps we should work back at the oracle’s compound.” She poked Dixon to get his attention. Unfortunately, she hit the same spot that had given him fits the night before.
He offered a little twitch and a chuckle, slapping her hand away.
“Stay. Let us help,” Katia said. “What are you working on now?”
“We’re digging into a few bios, trying to find proof that someone is not who she seems.”
“I like reading people’s bios. I’m incredibly nosy.”
“How nosy?”
“Very,” she replied, her eyes shining.
“Okay, take that tablet.” Lila pointed at one she’d used a few hours before. “Maybe you’ll see something we missed, something weird that doesn’t seem quite right. You might be able to lead us to her friend. Both are up to no good.”
Katia grabbed the tablet and plopped her feet on the coffee table.
Tristan frowned. “We have other things to work on tonight, Katia.”
“We do not. We’re just double-checking that your people have fixed the heat in a few workborn slums. We don’t even have to. Your people have managed their work very well for months without your supervision.”
“You’d rather help them than me?”
“Of course not, dear, I’m just being neighborly.” Katia winked at Lila. “Do you see what I have to put up with?”
“What you have to put up with? I’m making sure that people in the neighborhood are warm this winter, people who appreciate my efforts. You? You’re wasting your time. She’s just humoring you.”
Katia whipped her head around. “At least she’s being polite.”
“Polite? Polite people don’t waste your time. Reading a bio? Seriously?”
Lila nodded. “Another pair of eyes is always helpful. I’m not sure what else either of you can do at the moment. Unless you can speak Portuguese, Spanish, or French, then—”
“I speak and write perfect French,” Tristan snapped. “I’m not completely ignorant.”
A false smile spread across Katia’s face. “I guess that makes me completely ignorant, then.”
Tristan turned his head, guilt sparking in his eyes. “Ignorant doesn’t mean idiot. You’re studying Spanish and French, just like every workborn who wants to get ahead.”
Lila poked at Dixon again, careful not to hit the same spot as before. “We should return to the oracle’s compound,” she whispered.
Dixon nodded reluctantly.
Her laptop beeped as she powered it down. She slipped it and Dixon’s tablet into her satchel before striding to his room. She changed quickly into trousers, boots, and her gray coat. Dixon dressed while she slipped her tranq gun into her pocket.
When they reentered the living room, Katia was very interested in the tablet on her lap. Lila hitched her satchel higher on her shoulder and started for the door.
Tristan blocked her path. “I know my brother’s moods,” he hissed under his breath. “There’s been a light in his eyes that hasn’t been there in a long time. I know what that means.”
“What does it mean?”
“I don’t want to see him get hurt.”
“Not that it’s any business of yours, but there is nothing going on between Dixon and I. There never has been.”
“Are you sure?” His nose lingered a centimeter from her face, and his voice grew cold. “That’s a nice bracelet. I’ve never seen him take it off before.”
“He gave it to me.”
“I’m sure he did. Whatever you’re doing to him, stop. I don’t want you screwing with his mind. Find someone else to play with instead, or I swear to the gods, you’ll regret it.”
Her fingers strayed to her tranq. It wasn’t his words that had pushed her to reach for her gun. It was the intention behind them, the tenseness in his shoulders, the clenched fists at his sides.
“Your brother can make his own decisions.”
Dixon eyed her hand. He worked his body between them, and Tristan backed away.
You and Katia should order that pizza now, Dixon wrote on his notepad, flashing it to his brother.
“Don’t tell us what to do.”
Dixon held his hands up.
Lila didn’t take her hand off her tranq. The cold metal comforted her. “We’re not telling you what to do. We’re just busy.”
“And leaving, apparently. I can’t believe you’re picking a woman over your own brother, Dixon. Not just a woman. One of them.”
One of me, Dixon reminded him.
“Not you. You’re different. I’ve told you that a thousand times.”
Dixon stuffed his notepad into his back pocket.
“Are you really leaving with her and going back there?”
Dixon put his hand up, stopping Tristan from moving closer. His fingers grazed his brother’s chest.
Tristan frowned at the contact and shoved Dixon back several steps. “Don’t touch me.”
In response, Dixon drew himself up to his full height. Lila had seen such displays in workborn bars, the bass booming over clinking mugs of beer and loud guffaws. She’d spied it in urine-drenched alleys, filled with empty crates and makeshift weapons. She’d witnessed it in padded rings in abandoned warehouses, a chorus of shouting workborn surrounding the mats, fists raised as they cheered on their favorite fighter.
Katia stood up, wringing her hands. “Stop it.”
Dixon ignored her. He stepped forward and shoved his brother back.
Tristan didn’t want to retreat. He swung out, but Dixon dodged. Too much time sparring with one another had left them practiced in the other’s habits, and Lila soon realized why Dixon stressed the things he did with her, why he kept prodding her to quickness.
This wasn’t a sparring session. It might have started slow, but it quickly developed into something altogether different. It was a real street fight, with pumping fists and turned-off brains, with hot blood and anger coursing throughout both men’s bodies.
Dixon’s punches snapped back and forth, like a striking snake. They had to, for Tristan outweighed him slightly.
Tristan planted a fist into Dixon’s jaw.
Or at least he tried. Dixon ducked to avoid it, and punched his brother in the gut.
Tristan turned his abdomen at the last moment, his brother’s blow glancing off his belly. He grabbed Dixon’s neck, throwing Dixon off balance.
But Dixon didn’t fall.
Tristan did. The tranq rode on a puff of air, landing on his cheek due to her shaking hands, a little speck of black near his jaw. He grimaced, his eyes widening at Lila’s drawn gun, betrayal etched in every crinkle and line on his face.
Dixon lunged, guiding his brother to the ground.
Katia’s mouth hung open, and she knelt upon the floor beside her lover.
Tristan’s hands slapped against the wood, his lips trying to form a few slurred words before they stopped altogether.
Lila holstered her tranq. “I can’t do this anymore,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She hitched the strap of her satchel higher on her shoulder, turned quickly, and threw open the apartment door, fleeing quickly down the corridor.
Dixon shouted her name, the word scrambled and pronounced without a tongue. It was a call, a moan that barely resolved in her ears.
It did not reach her.