Chapter 1 #2
He knew a great deal about her, and at the same time very little.
They’d met on three occasions prior to today, and his longest interaction with Diana had happened when they signed the pact of friendship between their two Houses.
The alliance was initiated by Cornelius, who had become convinced that having powerful connections was the best way to keep his daughter safe.
As the head of her House, Diana was the only one with the authority to sign off on it, so they had met to negotiate.
Entering a pact of friendship was a no-brainer.
While most Houses viewed animal mages as having limited power with few practical applications, to an illusion House there was no greater threat.
He’d been delighted to neutralize it. His people had done a deep dive into House Harrison and found nothing of concern.
On all three occasions he’d interacted with Diana, her demeanor was neutral, pleasant, and opaque.
She had negotiated in good faith. This manipulation was delightfully new.
“Whether or not we come to an agreement, anything and everything you tell me is confidential,” he said.
“Something has been stolen from us,” she said.
“And you need me to find the culprit and recover it?”
Diana nodded.
“Why MII? Pardon me for stating the obvious, but you have access to House Baylor through your brother.”
Cornelius worked with the Baylors as a private investigator. The two families connected after the Baylors helped him discover who murdered his wife.
“The Baylors specialize in outside-the-box investigations,” Augustine continued. “Considering how close your families are, they would give your problem first priority.”
“The Baylors can’t be involved in this matter,” she said.
Curiouser and curiouser.
His own relationship with House Baylor was complicated.
At one point, before the Baylors became a House and had just been a small PI agency, he owned the mortgage on their business.
Prior to his death, his father had made a habit of offering financing to small PI firms who needed an influx of cash, a practice Augustine had since ended.
The Baylors had been one of those mortgaged subcontractors, and he paid them no attention until a difficult client forced him to reach for a creative solution.
In retrospect, it had been a negligent decision at best and morally bankrupt one at worst, and it temporarily put his House and the Baylor family into adversarial positions.
Later, House Montgomery and House Baylor came to regard each other as allies, especially once Connor Rogan, the closest person he had to a friend, married Nevada Baylor.
The Baylors and he signed an alliance pact, an agreement that obligated them to respond if either House was threatened.
So far, they had kept their word, and as long as he kept his, their loyalty and support were assured.
He always thought that the Harrisons and Baylors had an even deeper connection. The Baylors thought of Cornelius and his daughter, Matilda, as their family, but now Diana was implying that they couldn’t be trusted.
Either way, he had to draw the line now. As much as he valued the Harrisons, his House’s relationship with the Rogans and the Baylors mattered more. It wasn’t an alliance he was willing to endanger.
“Are the Baylors suspects?”
“No. They had nothing to do with this.”
“And they don’t know anything about it?”
Diana shook her head.
He saw it now. She baited the hook, offering him just enough information to ignite his curiosity, and waited for him to bite. Diana Harrison, a patient and careful fisherwoman.
In strict terms, their friendship pact was a non-aggression alliance, meaning that both Houses agreed to refrain from acting against each other.
Mutual favors were not included but were customary in such arrangements.
The disparity in their wealth, connections, and resources was significant, and yet House Harrison had asked for his help only once, when they needed him to pick up Matilda and secure her safety until Diana came to retrieve her.
Very well. Why not? He could play a knight in shining armor, if the compensation was significant enough and Diana offered payment in the right kind of currency.
Most investigative work was profitable and boring.
This promised to be interesting. He liked knowing secrets, and any secret hidden from the Baylors was worth knowing.
“Shall we discuss the details in my office?” he asked.
She offered him a beautiful smile.
Augustine’s office lay on the seventeenth floor.
He’d chosen that location precisely because it satisfied his requirements for being high up but lacked the ostentatious statement of a top-floor office.
During his tenure as the CEO of MII, his father had occupied the penthouse business suite.
When Augustine officially took the reins of MII, he resolved to never enter it again, and he hadn’t set foot there in years.
The elevator doors whispered open, and he invited Diana forward with a sweep of his hand. They walked across the spotless dark blue floor through his kingdom of tall white walls and cobalt-tinted light streaming through the sheath of blue windows that wrapped around the building.
He watched Diana’s expression covertly. Her face was relaxed and pleasant, her eyes calm.
Prime Harrison moved with smooth grace, almost gliding across the floor, and the Doberman at her side matched her stride.
The dog’s natural ears were down, her mouth half-open in a canine smile.
He had seen enough Dobermans in his line of work.
They were cautious dogs, alert and restrained in a new environment.
This one was doing a fine impression of a golden retriever.
There was an odd synergy between the woman and the dog—both sleek, assured, and pretending to be harmless.
They reached his office, where Lina sat at a pristine desk, presenting the last line of defense to the visitors.
The desk was crafted from polished metal, with a single white orchid growing from a simple pot.
His secretary chose to match the orchid today.
A white dress hugged her body, perfectly tailored and form-fitting, yet elegant.
Her deep emerald hair, wrapped in a trendy twist, shimmered with peridot highlights.
Her eyebrows were black and shaped with laser precision, and she had selected green and black eye shadow to accent her eyes and mauve to tint her lips. As always, the effect was stunning.
Unfortunately, his newest intern had referred to that precise shade of mauve as “hot dog lips,” and now he could not divorce himself from it. Mentoring the youngest Baylor child came with its own annoyances.
He nodded to Lina and led his visitor to the right, where a translucent wall of frosted glass hid his office space.
A nearly seamless door swung open, and Augustine paused on the side, letting Diana enter.
She walked in and sat in a chair, smoothing the skirt of her elegant grey business suit with a practiced gesture.
The Doberman dropped on the floor to her right. Not a concern in the world.
Augustine sat behind his desk. His office was located in the corner where two walls of blue glass met at an angle, and from his vantage point, he had a wide view of Downtown Houston. Unlike most people, he loved heights.
Diana glanced at a sign on the right wall, a quote without attribution. Trust Not Too Much in Appearances.
“Virgil,” she said.
It appeared that House Harrison believed in a classical education. “It’s a reminder,” he said.
“To you or to your visitors?”
“To me. We do our best to convince our visitors that we are trustworthy.”
“Is that why you chose a modern aesthetic for the building?”
He nodded. “Most people who want to hire an illusion mage come to us unsure what they might find. Consciously or subconsciously, they expect to be deceived. Our business requires trust, so we keep the interior simple, almost austere. Long unbroken walls, concrete floors, and transparent glass leave little room for illusions. People find it reassuring.”
“I see.”
She wasn’t giving him very much to work with.
“Are you truly trustworthy, Prime Montgomery?”
Augustine leaned back in his chair. “That depends on your definition of trust. Will I keep everything you tell me confidential, and will I do everything in my ability to help you if we reach an agreement? Yes.”
“In that case, would you mind answering a question before we begin?”
His guess was proving accurate. Nothing about this visit would be boring. “That depends on the question.”
Diana gave him a small smile, but her eyes remained watchful.
“I know that Arabella Baylor visits this office twice a week, and she hasn’t told her mother or her sister, Catalina, about it.”
Diana’s gaze turned direct and unblinking.
She likely felt protective toward the Baylors.
He wasn’t obligated to explain, but good business relationships relied on trust. And it was a reasonable question.
Catalina, Arabella’s sister, was the Head of the House.
Anything hidden from the Head of the House usually wasn’t good.
Augustine reached into his desk, took out a folder, and offered it to her.
Diana glanced at the contents. “Internship agreement signed by Nevada Rogan? Arabella’s oldest sister gave her permission for this?”
“My sister graduated from Donovan High.” Normally he had a knee-jerk reaction to avoid speaking about his family, but for some reason it didn’t trigger in her presence.
Diana’s eyebrows rose. “Donovan? Not Heritage?”
Of the two high schools catering to the magically gifted, Heritage was far more prestigious. If you were a scion of a House, you went to Heritage, while Donovan took the rest.
“Yes. She attended under an assumed name.”