I was watching the status bar showing the upload status for Jasper and Rose when Alex and Leo entered, holding Baldy mostly aloft between them. His legs dragged across the floor, and the two men eventually put him down halfway between us and the terminal. I patted Quess’s shoulder as he continued to work on the download and then moved to meet them.

I gave Leo an encouraging smile as he passed but slowed to a stop in front of my brother, summoning up some courage. He was mad at me—had every right to be, really—and I owed him an apology. All he’d wanted was to be a part of the investigation I was conducting against the people who had killed our mother, and I had cut him out. It hadn’t been entirely intentional on my part, but that didn’t change the fact that I had hurt him.

“Alex, I am truly sorry about not including you in everything,” I said softly. “I promise that from here on out—”

“Never mind all that,” he said excitedly, a hand cutting through the air between us to emphasize the statement. “We finally have a legacy, Liana! We can find out what happened to our mom and what they are doing to Scipio!”

I glanced at Baldy over my brother’s shoulder and then looked back to him, taken aback by his sudden change of tune. Hours ago, he’d been ready to tear me a new one. Now he was practically sparkling at the idea of having answers within reach at last. The rapid shift in his behavior confused me, but maybe Leo had talked to him, or it had hit Alex that there was a way forward with all of this insanity.

Either way, I was all for it. I longed for answers, too—hell, it was the reason I had chosen not to kill Baldy in the first place—but that didn’t mean he was going to speak to us. If anything, he was probably going to keep quiet about what he knew and bide his time until he could make some sort of escape, or signal someone for help.

But we had another way, and I needed to let my brother know about it so he didn’t waste his time with Baldy. “Alex, we have better than that,” I said excitedly, touching his arm. “We stole all of Sadie’s files from her computer. I’m pretty sure that the answers we need are there. Let’s tie Baldy up, do some research, and see if we can’t figure out who, exactly, is to blame for our mom’s death.”

My brother frowned at me. “That’ll be hours,” he said, taking a slow step back. “We have this guy. We should question him now.”

I sighed. “Alex, he’s not going to tell us anything, but we might not need him to!”

“So then why is he here?” my brother retorted, exasperated. “Why risk bringing him here if not to question him?”

I hesitated. I had just been asking myself the same thing. At the time, it had seemed so clear to me, but now that he was here and I had taken a beat to think about it, I realized it had been a really stupid move. Not only was he dangerous, his people were going to come looking for him. And he wouldn’t talk to us—wouldn’t do anything to reveal their plans or tell us who they were. Not to mention, we didn’t really need him if Sadie’s files provided us with the evidence we wanted. If I had really thought it through in Sadie’s apartment, I would’ve killed him and been done with it. But my desire to know the who of it all had been too compelling at the time, and I wasn’t one hundred percent certain that Sadie’s files would yield results.

“It was a spur-of-the moment decision,” I admitted. “And I didn’t think it through. But there’s no point in questioning him. He won’t talk.”

“Well, we have to try.” Alex raked a hand through his long hair, gathering the dark locks together so he could wrap a band around them. “Because as far as I can tell, you have currently done nothing in the search for Mom’s murderer.”

My mouth dropped open at his remark. I was shocked that he would even say that. It wasn’t that I had forgotten about Mom’s death, but I had prioritized retrieving Jasper and Rose when I had to. Not to mention, that was really unfair, given how difficult the legacies were to track down. Still, he was right, in a way. I hadn’t gotten far in finding Mom’s killers. So I closed my mouth, guilty.

The past three days had gotten us a lot, but not exactly an answer to the burning question in both our minds.

I stared at Baldy’s splayed-out form, remembering the look on his face as he pointed the knife at Leo’s chest when he attacked us on the catwalk, and the feel of the knife when he cut my throat.

And even though I knew it wouldn’t do me any good, a deep, dark part of me wanted to confront him for everything he’d done to me and my friends. And Alex seemed to be speaking directly to it, because his words were beginning to make sense. Plus, I found I couldn’t deny him this request, considering how I’d ignored him in the preceding days. He was right that we needed to know what was going on, and maybe if we could get Baldy to talk…

“Fine,” I said, my hesitation still lingering for a few seconds. “I’ll get a chair, and we’ll tie him to it. Quess should have some smelling salts in his bag. We’ll wake him up and ask him.” My brother gave me a satisfied smile, but it froze on his face when I added, “But if he doesn’t talk, we knock him out and then figure out some other way to use him.”

The smile twisted into a scowl. Alex crossed his arms. “We’ll see,” he retorted, and I sighed.

He and I spent the next few minutes getting ready—I summoned a chair using the controls in the column in the middle of the room—and then we heaved him into it. I was already tired from lifting so much dead weight earlier with his five friends, but together, we managed. Alex tied him up, and I went to find Quess’s medical bag to recover a pill of smelling salts.

Before we were finished setting up, Quess announced that the download of Jasper and Rose was completed. Leo gave me a questioning look, his brown eyes alight with indecision, and I knew he didn’t want to leave me with this if I couldn’t handle it. But that was ridiculous; Jasper and Rose needed him. And although I was tired, I felt pretty confident that I could handle this exchange with Baldy, so I told him to help Jasper and Rose and make certain they were all right.

He sat down quickly and began typing, filling the cavernous space with the sound of keys being clicked. I found myself wanting to be standing next to him, trying to help Jasper and Rose, instead of over here, about to come face-to-face with a man who had tried to kill me three times.

Heavy was the head that wore the crown, or some such crap, I thought to myself, mentally preparing for what I had to do.

Still, as I crossed the room, pill in hand, a strange queasiness started to fill my stomach, and my instincts began to scream at me that this was a bad idea. But a look at my brother’s determined face as he waited for me to come over told me that expressing it to him would only make things worse. So instead, I summoned up another deep calm, handed the salts to my brother, and looked at Quess and Maddox.

“I’ll handle the questions,” I announced softly. My brother snorted derisively but didn’t object. He snapped open the pill, then waved it under Baldy’s nose.

The effect was almost instantaneous. Baldy’s eyes snapped open, his head jerking up and back and forth wildly. He glanced at me, my brother, and then all around him, his shoulders straining against the restraints around his wrists. He made a guttural roar that made me shut one eye against the volume of it, and, his panic mounting, he began to rock back and forth in the chair. It tipped, and I quickly planted a boot on the lower rung as he extended past the center of gravity, catching the chair and his weight before he could fall.

He gave a startled yip as I balanced him on the two back legs of the chair, and lifted his neck to look up at me, his blue-green eyes a vicious glare. “You’re dead, bitch,” he spat. “You and your little friends are—”

I lifted my foot and let him fall before he could say any more. I had to admit to myself that as petty as the act was, it definitely went a long way toward making me feel better—especially when I heard his head smack against the floor, followed by his inhalation of pain.

Alex chuckled next to me, and even I couldn’t hide my smile. No, it didn’t make up for him cutting my throat, but there was something very satisfying about inflicting a little bit of pain in exchange for the wrongs he had committed against us. The power and control that I now had over him were alluring, and suddenly I wasn’t as afraid of him as I had been.

We bent over and pulled him back up, setting the chair onto all fours. He glared at us the entire time, but I kept my face impassive and ignored it. I backed away as soon as I was done and folded my arms across my chest.

“So, should I be worried that you’re stalking me?” I asked. “Because it is weird that we would keep running into each other. I mean, three times in a week is pretty excessive, and given that you attacked me two of those three times, my brother thinks that you might be part of a terrorist cell trying to destroy Scipio and trying to kill me because you know I can stop you.”

Baldy shook his head as if I had punched him, and then his face hardened. “I should’ve left you to bleed out on the floor,” he said with a sneer. “Blood spurting out of your neck is a good look for you.”

Beside me, I felt my brother tense, but I couldn’t focus on it. Baldy’s words had forced the awful memory of the event back into my mind, and for a second, the sensation of drowning on my own blood as it spurted through my fingers flooded my senses. I closed my eyes, trying to block the vision, but it didn’t help. The bastard noticed, too, because he gave a sharp, barking laugh.

“That’s right, honey,” he said. “You and I have shared something more powerful than anything you can ever have with anyone else. I held your life in my hands. I left your friends the tools to save it. All I had to do was cut you and walk away, and you’d be dead, just like your stupid bitch mother.”

“Shut up,” my brother growled next to me, and I reached out blindly for him, finding his forearm. It helped ground me, helped remind me that the sensation of blood in my throat wasn’t real, and I opened my eyes and stared at Baldy, a fire burning in my soul.

“Did you kill her?” I demanded. “Did you give the order to the sentinel and send it in there?”

He bared his teeth at me. “Who, me? Nah. Not me. But me and the others looooooved watching the vid file of her falling. We watched it over and over and over again, and we laughed and laughed. The way her legs and arms flailed, and the look on her face…”

He started laughing then, but it was short-lived, as Alex suddenly stepped close and rammed his fist into Baldy’s jaw. There was a sharp, wet snap, and Baldy’s head jerked to one side, blood spurting from his lip. He sat stunned for a second or two, and then gave a surprised, huffing laugh, interrupted only when he spat out a mouthful of blood.

A part of me wanted to stop Alex, but Baldy’s words had set fire to a deep, bitter rage and acrid hatred—and that part of me took pleasure in watching him hurt.

“Gonna have to do better than that, boy,” he chuckled, looking up at my brother and tonguing the area where Alex had split his lip open. His grin broadened, his eyes sparkling with something that looked like madness. “You can’t stop what’s coming, just like you couldn’t stop what happened to your mother.”

Crack. Baldy’s head snapped back as my brother struck him again, this time from the other side. He shook for a second, and then laughter began to erupt from his throat. “Can’t protect Mom… Can’t protect Baby Sister…” he sang tauntingly. “Gonna watch them die, Big Brother. Can promise you that.”

“Shut up!” my brother shouted, and his fist lashed out again, catching Baldy in the nose with a sharp crunch. Blood spurted from the wound, but Baldy continued to chortle, his bound boots slapping the ground. “Tell me who you work for!” Alex shouted.

Smack.

I flinched, the fourth hit feeling like a step too far. “Alex,” I said softly. “Stop.”

But my brother ignored me, driving his fist into Baldy’s stomach again and again. The breath exploded out of him in sharp grunts, and he began to hack and wheeze for air, the laughter dying out.

“Tell me where to find your people!” my brother shouted, his face dark with the promise of violence. I’d never seen him look at anyone like that before, and it was starting to scare me. His arm swung again.

“Alex,” I said more sharply, moving toward him even as another wet crack filled the air. This was spinning out of control. “Stop! I—”

His fist fell again, and then again, and when I put my hand on his shoulder to pull him off, he pushed me back and continued to pummel Baldy, shouting, “Tell me what you did to Scipio! Tell me! Tell me!”

“Quess, Leo!” I yelled, catching my balance from his shove. “Help—”

“LIANA!” came a loud, horrified cry, and it was loud enough to make my brother freeze. My eyes widened as I recognized it, and I whirled to see the youngest member of our makeshift family, Tian, standing there, her blue eyes wide and filled with horror.

But what was worse was the boy standing right next to her, bound up in her lashes. His face was pale, making the freckles on it stand out in stark comparison, and he was staring in abject terror at the man on the chair. I recognized him from my attack in the Attic. I’d been following him, and he’d led me back to his legacy home, where Baldy and at least thirty others lived.

And he’d just seen us beating one of his fellow legacies.