THE FIRST TRUTH
872 Words
Damien
She didn't sleep.
Her light stayed on until four. The sensors read steady and methodical, working through the room in a deliberate pattern. Window seals. Wardrobe backing. Twenty minutes in the bathroom. Back out and standing in the center of the room, not moving, for a long time.
She was building something.
I sat at the kitchen island with cold coffee and let her.
I'd expected tears by now. Not weakness, just the natural response of someone whose entire world had been removed in the space of three hours. Most people cried. Then they asked questions. Then they got angry.
Lila had skipped the first step entirely and I was still adjusting to that.
She appeared at seven-fifteen. Black dress. Hair back. Eyes clear in a way that had nothing to do with being rested and everything to do with having decided something while the rest of the world slept. She sat at the opposite end of the island without being invited and picked up the coffee mug already waiting.
Didn't thank me. Didn't look around the room. Just drank and looked at me across the counter.
"Your father made a deal," I said. "Eleven years ago."
Both hands around the mug. Waiting.
"The empire was failing. He needed capital and protection from someone with the reach to actually stop the collapse." I held her gaze. "He went to Konstantin Reyes."
"I know who Konstantin is."
"Then you understand the kind of arrangements he makes."
She set the mug down. Both hands flat on the counter. "What did my father give him?"
Her jaw tightened. "How old was I."
"Twelve."
She sat very still.
Both hands pressed flat on the dark stone. Eyes dropped to the counter. Five seconds. Six. One slow breath and then she looked up.
Dry eyes. Burning.
"He promised me to Konstantin," she said.
"As a future arrangement. To be activated when Viktor died."
"Which was three days ago."
"Yes."
She sat in the silence. I watched her build the structure of it and set it next to everything else she'd gathered and make it fit.
"You knew," she said. "Before you left."
"Yes."
"The night before you disappeared."
"Yes."
"And you left because of it." She held my gaze. "You found out my father had promised me to someone and your response was to leave."
"I left to build something that could take it apart." I held her gaze. "Staying would have meant watching it happen without the power to stop it. I wasn't willing to do that."
She absorbed that. Filed it and moved forward.
"He was going to be at the wake," I said. "Konstantin. Last night. Expecting to collect."
Her hands pressed harder against the counter.
"And you got there first," she said.
"Yes."
"Marcus was there. He saw everything."
"I know."
"He'll go to the police."
"He won't." I paused. "He's a good man who loves you. Good men who love someone don't make moves that could get that person hurt. He'll look for another way first."
She stared at me. That had landed differently than she'd expected. I could see her recalibrating, the information going somewhere it was going to sit for a while before she decided what to do with it.
Her phone buzzed on the counter between us.
Marcus was calling.
Her hand moved. I reached across, picked it up, silenced it, set it face-down.
"He'll keep calling," she said.
"I know."
"It's handled, Lila."
"How."
"In a way that won't hurt him." I met her eyes. "You have my word."
She stood. Walked to the window and stood with her back to me.
She didn't speak for almost a full minute.
Then… "My father used to bring business problems home and forget I was in the room. I spent a lot of years learning to read the things men said when they thought nobody was listening."
She turned around.
"The bathroom cabinet," she said. "You weren't watching me through cameras. How."
"Someone who knew what to look for," I said.
"Someone in my life. Someone I trusted."
I said nothing.
She turned back to the window. Her shoulders went very straight. "I'm going to figure out who it was."
"Probably. And when you do, you'll understand why it was necessary."
She looked at me for a long time across the room.
"You should know I'm going to find a way out of this," she said.
"I know."
She walked back down the hallway. The door clicked shut.
I picked up my phone.
Three messages from Rafe. Two from my eastern contact. One from a number belonging to one of Konstantin's people…professionally short and communicating everything without saying it.
He knew I had her.
Last night had sent exactly the message I intended.
I typed four responses and looked at the closed door.
She thought someone in her life had been reporting to me.
She was right.
And when she found out who, the question she was going to ask wasn't going to be the one I was prepared for.
That, for the first time in a long time, was something I hadn't fully accounted for.
I sat with that for a moment. Then I got back to work.
- Writer
