22. Chapter 22
22
S he couldn’t believe it. Rebecca had drawn him aside to tell him exactly what she meant to do. She’d untied their attackers, for crying out loud, and Rowan had decided all on his own to deliberately ignore her decisions before killing the messengers right here in front of her.
What in the Blue Hells was he thinking ?
Rowan merely blinked at her, as if he hadn’t understood her perfectly clear question, then shrugged. “See? I’m a way better bodyguard than that stuck-up shifter. Really, it was no big deal.”
“Why did you do that?” Rebecca seethed, calling on every inch of willpower to not attack him where he stood and rip him apart. She knew she could.
“What do you mean?” he asked with a goofy smile. “I did what you said.”
“I didn’t tell you to break their necks!”
“Yeah, but you said it was time to end this.”
She widened her eyes at him and glanced at the bodies one more time. “Rowan, I meant to end this interrogation and let them go with a message. Not that it was time to literally end them .”
“Ah…” The corners of his mouth turned down in contemplation before he shrugged again. “Easy mistake.”
“No, it’s not! Why would I tell them to deliver a message to their boss if I was just gonna kill them first anyway?”
“Hey, I just thought you were trying to go easy on them. You know they don’t struggle so much when they think everything’s gonna work out.”
She couldn’t believe this. This was insane. He was insane.
It was unequivocally against both Shade’s best interests and her own to intercept old partners and allies of Aldous, no matter how much he might have screwed them over, and literally kill the messenger.
If this unnamed Big Boss was anything like the other magicals Rebecca had already dealt with in Chicago, Shade was in for one massive battle of retribution, and Rowan had just handed the enemy a golden key to start a gang war across the city.
Whoever the Big Boss was, he wouldn’t just sit back and ignore two of his guys being permanently taken out of the game, no matter lacking they were in common sense. He’d want to make those responsible pay, and Shade was already in too many pickles already.
Namely the still unidentified gang that had attacked Nyx’s transport team to hold them hostage in the abandoned park. Plus Eduardo was out there somewhere, still pissed about having his illegal weapons stolen, and now Rebecca was certain Harkennr was on her trail.
Rowan had just dug an even deeper grave for all of them.
Because he still hadn’t learned to listen.
“I can’t believe you did that,” she said, glaring at him.
“Why? It’s not that unbelievable.”
“Because I was trying to play things safe here, not make a bigger mess with another crime boss in Chicago! Not to mention someone Aldous was already working with and hadn’t paid his debts to. We could’ve squeezed some other information out of them. Maybe. Or they might’ve tried to set up a meeting with their boss. Literally anything else other than what you just did would have been a smarter way to handle this!”
Rowan watched her without expression, apathetic to the whole thing.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” she barked, unsure if the boiling heat inside her came from her magic threatening to lash out at him the way she wanted or from her rage.
They glowered at each other a moment longer, then Rowan’s features softened.
His eyes widened as he studied every inch of her face, then he cocked his head, as if some life-changing epiphany had just hit him.
Rebecca wished it would have hit him a little harder.
“You’re really pissed, aren’t you?”
“What insight.” She folded her arms. “How could you tell?”
“All right, let’s just pause for a second.” Frowning, Rowan studied the circular room before his gaze fell on the corpses lying at his feet in the golden circle. “I’m actually really confused, here. Because I can tell you’re serious right now, but you’ve never had an issue taking out the trash before…”
“Not when that trash might’ve brought us useful information or kept us from all-out war with another gang!”
Though he still showed no sign of remorse or recognition that anything was wrong with this picture, his frown darkened as he studied Rebecca again. “You’ve changed…”
“No shit,” she growled, fighting to keep her voice level, as if talking to a child. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time. I’ve changed. The world has changed. Everything is different now.”
“Yes. I’m starting to see that now.”
“Great. It’s about time you opened your fucking eyes.” With a frustrated sigh, Rebecca spun away from him, mostly because she didn’t want to lose control and seriously injure him as a result. But she spared a final glance at the orc corpses on the floor and shook her head.
There was nothing she could do about it now. Rowan had made his choice and taken action, and it couldn’t be undone.
Now, these dead orcs’ boss would eventually come gunning for Shade and its new Roth-Da’al who’d taken over after Aldous.
Even without receiving her message, anyone smart enough to make himself boss of any gang was smart enough to draw a connection between the two orcs he’d sent to capture Aldous and the fact that they never came back. He’d most likely come looking for Aldous because he’d never receive the right information.
Rebecca would have to explain the fault lay with an errant Blackmoon Elf with no concept of how these things worked in this world or how to follow orders.
Like that would go over well.
Now more than ever, Rebecca wished Rowan wasn’t around so she could hear herself think and come up with a decent plan in solitude. She could hear him standing across the room, watching her, waiting for her to decide what came next.
He’d been a major annoyance since his arrival at Shade. True, he’d been playing games and driving Rebecca nuts the whole time, but never deliberately endangering what she’d attempted to do, even if his methods were unorthodox.
But now?
This little stunt of his—a misinterpretation or not—had just bumped him up from a pain in her ass to a legitimately dangerous liability.
She’d managed to ignore him before, but this would have to be officially addressed and in a way that forced Rowan to take her seriously.
Later. Right now, Rebecca had two bodies on the floor and a key in her hand.
She’d come here to open Aldous’s private storage in Nexus, and nothing would stop her from achieving that now.
Not even Rowan.
Without a word, she spun to face the door to Aldous’s vault. The blue glow had faded after her recent distraction, but when she approached it now, both the door and the key brightened again with the growing illumination that proved she was in the right place.
Ignoring Rowan somewhere behind her, she slid the key into the lock like a knife through butter for a perfect fit, then turned it in her hand.
Time to see what was so damn important that Aldous had to lock it away at a Nexus storage facility and keep it secret from the rest of Shade.
She just hoped it wasn’t something rigged to blow in the face of anyone who wasn’t Aldous.
Only when her hand slipped a little on the doorknob did she realize they’d grown clammy with the thought of what waited on the other side.
There was always a chance Aldous had emptied out his private storage vault or never used it in the first place, but more than the disappointment of finding nothing, Rebecca was more worried about whatever traps a changeling might have laid in a place like this. Aldous had never been a careful changeling, but he’d certainly been paranoid enough to put something in place.
She couldn’t help holding her breath as she turned the knob all the way and the glowing blue door swung inward to reveal the vault’s contents.
At first, after a few seconds of processing what she saw and noting a lack of explosions or other booby traps, she didn’t know what to think.
By the Blood. Aldous Corriger had been one busy son of a bitch. And here was the evidence of it, right in front of her, now in her possession. Just like everything else he’d inadvertently left her.
Bor hadn’t been lying the day he’d shared his suspicions that Aldous had been siphoning far more than a little off the top from Shade’s profits and resources during his time in command. Rebecca had had no problem believing it was possible, but now she’d found an entire room of proof.
The enormous vault behind the door was filled nearly to overflowing with valuables.
Stacks of bound cash littered the old desk against the left-hand wall, while several other piles of hundred-dollar bills covered the floor beneath the desk. Sacks bulging with coins. Mountains of gold bars along every wall. And that was just the beginning.
Against the righthand wall stood two display cases, each of their shelves laden down with so many pounds of gaudy jewelry dripping with gemstones and precious metals, it was a miracle the glass hadn’t already broken beneath the combined weight. An antique armoire in the corner, both its doors thrown open, revealed a scattered and disorganized array of expensive bespoke suits, fur coats, and black-tie attire, including ballgowns.
Rebecca was positive the changeling had never worn those .
Everywhere she looked, priceless goods and glimmering valuables littered the floor, every item with its own inherent worth in dollar signs and practically screaming at her from every direction.
Thick Turkish rugs. Two grizzly pelts with claws and heads still intact. Original paintings of nearly every era of human art propped up against the walls or pieces of furniture, without anyone having bothered to hang them. He’d even installed a glimmering chandelier, its thousands of pieces cut from flawless crystal and casting shimmering flecks across every surface beneath the light that had switched on automatically as soon as Rebecca opened the door.
All that in the first few seconds of her exploration, and she hadn’t even taken more than two steps into the vault.
A low whistle rose behind her, and she stepped aside, unable to take her eyes off the literal treasure trove spreading out before her.
“Well I’d call this outing a success,” Rowan muttered. “Our earlier little mix-up notwithstanding.”
“Worth it.” Rebecca blinked, wondering when the illusion would fail and she’d find what existed in this room, but it never did.
This was all real. Everything Aldous had taken, either as payment from clients who’d contracted Shade’s expertise acquired during missions, all piled up in this vault. All abandoned, most likely to rot, because the bastard clearly had a hoarding problem.
And Shade hadn’t seen a penny of it.
Fucking changeling.
A screech of laughter ripped her from her stunned disbelief before Rowan darted past into the vault, tossing both hands in the air and leaping over haphazard stacks of valuables. “And they say this world lacks for any real riches!”
Another cackle echoed through the room.
Rebecca blinked again, looked over her shoulder, and saw only two dead orcs in the level-five lobby, both lying where they’d dropped in the golden circle on the floor. Still, it seemed a good idea to shut the door before moving on to investigate.
“What’s that saying humans have?” Rowan asked with another laughter as he rummaged through a jumbled pile of all the expensive jewelry that hadn’t made it into the display case. “You hit the fucking jackpot.”
“That is a very Earthside phrase,” Rebecca replied blankly, still not quite able to believe what she saw. “This is…way more than I expected.”
“Honestly, I didn’t expect shit from this guy. Everybody else made him sound like such a waste of space.”
“He was .”
“But look at all his stuff!” Rowan spread his arms wide and spun in a tight circle. His boot knocked against a stack of small, intricately carved wooden boxes and sent them toppling to the floor. The lid of the top box popped open to spill a cascade of perfectly cut gemstones in every color imaginable across one of the Turkish rugs.
He turned around again to investigate the spill, then burst out laughing. “Rich as hell!”
“And that’s because he never paid anything back into Shade.” Rebecca headed across the room, scanning every larger piece of furniture and smaller items sprawled across them to trail onto the floor. “He certainly didn’t pay anyone what they’re worth.”
“Except himself, obviously. Hey, check this out.” He crammed a solid gold crown encrusted with diamonds and sapphires onto his head, then turned toward Rebecca and set his fists on his hips, lifting his chin. “Payment fit for a prince, don’t you think?”
She almost choked on the thought. “Aldous was no prince. Trust me.”
“But how does it look on me ?”
“Ridiculous.”
Rowan whipped the crown off his head, turned it back and forth in his hands, then planted a noisy kiss on one of the gems before tossing it aside. The crown clanged onto a hidden pile of something else that scattered under its weight with the sound of heavy coins bouncing and rolling across hardwood.
Rebecca couldn’t begrudge Rowan his enthusiasm. This was likely the largest, gaudiest collection of riches he’d seen on Earth. It was for her. Hell, the total combined value of everything in this single room was far more than Rebecca had ever seen gathered together all at once. Even in Agn’a Tha’ros, and that was an entirely different world.
Still, she couldn’t join Rowan in his giddy, childlike excitement. Half of her wanted to celebrate with him, because with Aldous out of the picture and Rebecca’s full access to everything he’d left behind, the contents of this room could change everything for Shade.
Their quality of living, their gear, supplies, ammo, security systems, updates, technology. Not just for active missions, either, but for everyone. They could update the entire compound itself. Buy the next hundred years’ worth of supplies for the infirmary. Order nothing but gourmet ingredients for the kitchen.
There was enough here to fund whatever they wanted, though Zida was more likely to reject it all out of sheer principle. And Bor would probably have a heart attack.
The thought almost made Rebecca laugh, but she just couldn’t let herself get there.
The other part of her was so unbelievably furious with Aldous for what he’d done, and that fury warred with her relief, making it impossible to give in to either response.
He had actually done this. He’d put all Shade’s operatives in harm’s way countless times. He’d compromised their missions and imperiled every team and operation simply by being there with them in the field. Somehow, through all of it, he’d squirreled away all this wealth and all these treasures to lock them up in a fucking Nexus vault downtown, where no one else could get their hands on any of it.
Where no one else even knew it existed.
“What’s the matter with you?” Rowan asked, still laughing and scurrying about the room, his attention flittering from one item to the next like a blinded moth.
“I’m…processing,” Rebecca murmured.
“Well process faster. This is fantastic for us!” His hip glanced against one of the framed art pieces propped against a second antique desk and leaped to keep the whole thing from toppling over before stopping to investigate the crate on top.
“I mean it,” he continued, his eyes glinting when he cracked open the lid and peered inside at the contents. His eyes widened, and his grin sharpened before he slammed the lid shut with a harsh snap. “We take the money, as much of it as we can carry, and use it to really go all out, you know?”
“All out?”
What was he talking about?
“Yeah, really travel in style. No more sneaking around and sticking to the shadows, looking for underground places to hide us magical types. We can stay at the best hotels in every city. Eat the best Earthside food…
“Well, not that it’s all that amazing to begin with, but they don’t know that. Hell, we could even rent a car and drive ourselves back to the Gateway that much faster. Maybe even bring a few extra gifts back home with us to… Wait a minute. Is that a fucking treasure chest ?”
As he bounded away toward another perceived treasure, Rebecca had to pull herself back to the present. She ripped her gaze away from the stack of large, shiny silver briefcases she’d been eyeing and searched for Rowan among the other mounds of valuables. “Gifts?”
“Yeah. You know what I mean,” he said over the creak of a heavy wooden chest’s hinged lid being hauled open. “Hey, a little brown-nosing never actually hurt anyone. And I’m certainly not above it.”
No. Absolutely not.
She had to stop this line of thinking in him, and she had to stop it now.
“First of all,” she said, her eyes widening as she stared at him, “if it’s across state lines, I’m not going anywhere with you. And second, none of this belongs to us, Rowan. Everything in this room is Shade’s.”
The clinking of individual coins and other metallic tidbits falling between his fingers stopped abruptly, then he rose from where he’d hunkered over the wooden chest to gaze around the room, his haughty superiority restored. “Pretty sure it belonged to that Aldous guy, actually.”
“None of which he actually earned on his own or ever deserved to keep,” she snapped. “He was stockpiling all the profits from every single mission, by the looks of it. Anything we acquired. Payment from Shade contracts… He took it all. And he’s just been dumping it in here, stockpiling his own little fucked-up nest egg. He could never have spent all of this on his own.”
“I don’t disagree with you. I’m just saying. Now would be the perfect time to take it all back with—”
“No. You haven’t been listening to me. We can’t take anything back. This doesn’t belong to us. This is everything Shade should have been benefiting from all along. For years. Decades.”
“I mean, if that’s how you wanna look at it. I guess…” Rowan returned to sifting through the coins in the alleged treasure chest, and Rebecca had another moment to think about what this meant.
A moment to fully realize just how insanely outraged she was by the discovery.
Now that she’d said it all out loud, she’d made it even more real. Standing here in the proof of Aldous’s deception made it clear there was no guarantee it stopped with this vault.
If he wasn’t already dead, she would have killed the motherfucker all over again, just for this.
“All right, fine. We don’t have to take it all back with us. Not even as much as we can carry. I’ll concede there.” Rowan laughed again and left the wooden chest open to go dig through something else. “But you have to admit this is some pretty perfect timing. So we just take a small portion for ourselves. We won’t even make a dent in what he’s got here, but it’ll sure keep us happy and healthy and comfortable on our way back. Just think about it.”
He barked out another laugh and moved on to a different pile. “By the time anyone even realized we were gone, we’d be halfway across the country again, and no one would know where to look because no one would even know where we went.”
Rebecca fought to hold herself in check, or she wouldn’t be able to stop from exploding on him. “I am so serious. If you try to shove that brainless plan down my throat again, I’ll rip out your tongue just so I don’t have to listen to you.”
The threat burst out of her so quickly and so easily, she surprised herself with the ferocity of it. Threatening Rowan for real with real bodily harm wasn’t something she’d generally made a habit of doing, but now that it was out, she realized she absolutely meant it.
She also realized she did not want him here with her. Not just inside Aldous’s secret vault filled with mind-numbing wealth but with her at headquarters, with her as part of Shade, with her in Chicago or even on Earth.
Even relenting to his demand that they went out to find Mr. Kaplan the key-maker on their own, just the two of them, hadn’t stopped him from acting up. He wasn’t listening to her. He didn’t take her decisions seriously. He’d killed two orcs she’d already released, and now he was making plans to steal from the stockpile of goods Aldous had stolen from his own task force, just to fund a trip back to the Gateway and Xahar’áhsh beyond.
A trip Rebecca had told him repeatedly she didn’t want to make and never would.
He’d grown far too reckless, betting on their friendship from hundreds of years ago and gambling away any other bit of trust she might have still had in him.
Rowan had to go.
Great. Just one more thing to add to her never-ending to-do list.
She tried to put the new realization out of her mind and focus instead on what could be done right now. So she headed toward the pile of enormous silver briefcases propped against the end of one display case, marginally pleased to find the one on top clasped but not locked.
Rebecca opened the case’s heavy lid, and a small smile flickered across her lips only to disappear a second later. Somehow, smiling in this room just felt wrong.
But the suitcase itself was still a valuable discovery.
It was filled with more stacks of cash—perfectly straight, newly minted bills from the looks of them—bound and piled neatly into a presentation seen in movies about drug dealers and corrupt government officials.
Honestly, she wouldn’t have put that kind of transaction past Aldous, either—drugs, or illegal trafficking, or corruption. Hell, even all three combined.
But she had what she wanted.
Rebecca closed the suitcase, secured the clasps with two quick, sharp snips, then hauled the briefcase off the top of the stack by its equally sturdy handle. “This is all we’re taking back with us now. Back to Shade, to be clear.”
“What?” Rowan’s head popped out from behind the overflowing armoire. When he found her, his excitement visibly faded. “Oh, come on… One dinky little suitcase? There’s gotta be a few others in here. We should take back as many as we can.”
“ We aren’t taking shit. If anything else leaves this vault, you’re paying for it.”
“Well that’s certainly one way to balance the checkbook.”
Rebecca ignored him and headed for the door.
He must have realized she wouldn’t budge, because with a groan, Rowan extricated himself from the piles of treasure and scattered masses of valuables before making his stumbling way after her.
Whatever complaints he gave her after that, Rebecca ignored entirely. These days, she only had enough room in her brain to deeply contemplate one thing at a time. Currently, that was what happened next with Shade and this single surprisingly heavy briefcase of cash in her hand.
She couldn’t keep this Nexus vault a secret like Aldous had. That was out of the question. She couldn’t just announce it to the entire task force all at once, either. Not if she wanted to maintain any order and use Aldous’s stockpile to Shade’s maximum benefit.
What she needed first was to sit down with her newly formed official council again and tell them about it. Then, together, they could decide on the best way to move forward.
Rebecca might have been the new Roth-Da’al of Shade, but she didn’t intend to run the place like a dictator.
She also knew exactly what she wanted to suggest they use the cash in this suitcase for first.
Aldous owed them all that much, at the very least, and so much more.
But that wouldn’t be the end of all her troubles.
Sooner or later, Rebecca would also have to face the backlash of what Aldous Corriger owed everyone else too. She just hoped she could get a few things done first before all the changeling’s old debts came crashing down on her head.