Chapter 21
“We should get under cover,” Aleks said. “Do you think there will be more?”
Portia stared down at the drone and shrugged. “Probably. They’re all over the place.” Everywhere. All the time.
She was so damn tired of being in the newsies’ crosshairs. They’d ruined what had been a perfectly nice morning, the first one in a very long time. She’d forgotten what it was like to just be . Or maybe she’d never even known.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what? Saving you from a drone?”
Portia pursed her lips. He was frowning again and she wanted to make it go away. “Well, yes. No one has ever done that for me.”
He blinked at her. Like he wasn’t quite sure what to say. Was that because he was still processing it? Or because she had stymied him? She really wanted to know how his brain worked. He seemed to think that it was some kind of terrible curse, but the whole time they had spent together, it had never appeared to be a problem.
“Uh, you’re welcome.”
“I’ve always wanted to do that,” Portia admitted. Not doing anything to turn the newsies against them had been drilled into her since she was a child. With Tommy at her side, she’d been able to resign herself to their presence. With Aleks at her side... Well, that opened up a world of new possibilities.
“My father expected me to just deal with them. ‘You’re a goddamn Tremaine,’ he’d say.” She dropped her voice to emulate him. “He’d say, ‘If you want them to stop, make them.’”
Aleks shifted closer to her side. She soaked in the warmth that his proximity brought. “How were you supposed to do that?” he asked.
“No idea. I used to dream about buying them and making them stop.”
His laugh made her smile. “And your husband?”
Oh, Tommy. She’d loved every reckless, charming, wild inch of him with all her heart. But every once in a while, she’d wished he was the steady, serious one and she... wasn’t. “He loved the attention and could never understand why I didn’t,” she admitted, although it almost felt like a betrayal to say the words out loud.
The words hung between them and Portia held her breath. When he didn’t respond, she said, “We should get out of here. If the drone got any clear shots of us, more newsies will swarm the area.”
Aleks grabbed her hand and let her to the nearest alley. She wrinkled her nose—hiding in an alley wasn’t her first choice—but the dark, narrow spaces were probably more difficult for the drones to maneuver.
“How did you do that?” She wanted to keep the conversation going. This place was creepy. Her hand tightened around Aleks’s.
“Basic training.” He didn’t add anything more. That must have been when he was still intended to work for security.
Something skittered in the darkness and she leaned closer to Aleks. Dark places had never bothered her until she’d been trapped after the bombing. Thankfully, Killian had been with her. She would have lost her mind if she’d been all alone, but the fear and pain of that night had imprinted on her soul.
“You okay?” Aleks asked.
She pondered whether to answer honestly. He’d been open with her, so she decided to respond in kind. “No. I developed a... dislike... of dark closed spaces after the bombing.”
“Dammit! I didn’t think about that and I should have.” He looked back the direction that they’d had come. “Do you want to go back?”
She shook her head vigorously. “No. Who knows whether they’ve sent another drone—or worse, an actual newsie—to that location. We should keep moving.”
Staying close to Aleks’s side, Portia drained the last of her coffee and dropped the empty cup into the nearest dumpster. She shuddered and snatched her hand back.
Aleks didn’t say much as they traversed the length of the alley. Glass crackled and crunched under their feet.
Portia stepped on something small and round and almost turned her ankle. She grabbed onto Aleks for balance. When she set her foot more firmly, whatever it was she’d stepped on broke with a small crunch.
She paused and peered into the weakly lit space. “Where is all this glass from?” She looked up. “It doesn’t look like broken windows.” Then looked back down. “It doesn’t look like broken bottles either.”
Keeping one hand on Aleks, she bent slightly for a closer look. No way was she getting too close to the ground. She pulled her phone out and aimed the flashlight at the ground.
All around them, the ground sparkled like little gems. “What the?—”
She snapped a couple pictures then straightened. Aleks hadn’t said a word. She looked up at him curiously, unable to read his expression. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“That didn’t sound like nothing.” Why was she picking a fight in this nasty, glass-filled alley? Something told her this was important.
“Portia... ” He sighed her name.
“Aleks,” she echoed.
“You really don’t know?”
That sounded ominous. “Really don’t know what?” His words and the seriousness of his tone had her taking a second look around them. And a third.
Broken glass everywhere. An alley. Aleks sounded like he thought it should be obvious, but it really wasn’t.
Hating what she was about to do, Portia took a deep breath and squatted low to the ground. It didn’t look all that different from this angle, but it smelled worse, if that was even possible.
Aleks put his hand under her shoulder. “Stand up. You could cut yourself.”
“Just a minute.” She didn’t brush his hand away, but used him as a steadying force as she panned her flashlight over the ground again.
Tiny bits of broken glass sparkled back at her, just like before. Except... what was that?
She dug into her jacket pocket and pulled out the napkin that had held her breakfast. She shook the last few crumbs loose and prayed they didn’t draw any critters. Then she used Aleks’s grip as a counterbalance and leaned forward.
“Portia! Don’t—you might cut yourself.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said absently as she focused on the little curve of glass that had caught her attention. She folded the napkin in half and carefully, so carefully, reached for the fragment. Mindful of the sharp edges, she cautiously picked it up with the napkin.
“Can you help me up?” She really didn’t want to wobble and fall onto all this glass.
With a curse it was probably best she didn’t understand, Aleks grabbed her under both arms and hauled her to her feet.
She kept her focus on the napkin and her open palm the whole time.
“Steady?” Aleks asked, his breath a warm tickle by her ear. Even as his hands dropped away, she leaned into his warmth.
“It looks almost like a piece of a little bottle, don’t you think?” The fragment was small, maybe half an inch, and curved on the sides. She could easily see it as a teeny-tiny little bottle or a?—
“Probably a vial,” Aleks said at the same time that word popped into her head.
She looked at the glass then tilted her head to look back at him. “A vial for what?”
He stepped away from her back and circled so she could see him. “For drugs, Portia. Probably Vyne.”
“Vyne?” she gasped. The delicate glass fragment in her hand suddenly transformed into a terrifying monster. She almost dropped it back onto the ground, but Aleks plucked the napkin from her hand and put the whole bundle into the bakery bag.
She shook her hand violently, appalled at how close she’d gotten to the dangerous drug. If she’d cut her hand, would there have been enough of the compound on the glass to addict her?
“You don’t seem surprised,” she said after her initial shock wore off.
His sigh practically echoed in the alley. “I’m not,” he said finally. “Vyne use is growing in Seattle.”
“I’ve heard a little about it, but I’ve been too busy dealing with the mess my father left to pay much attention to the news.”
His sudden bark of laughter felt inappropriate for the situation.
“What’s so funny? What am I missing?” She frowned at him, not liking the feeling that he was laughing at her.
He studied her for a long moment. “I’m not sure we should have this conversation here.”
Portia looked around the alley. While it was creepy and dirty, it was also empty. She was pretty sure. “This is possibly the most private place we can talk. No meetings, no phone calls, no drones. And we certainly aren’t going to get carried away doing anything else.” Her skin crawled at the thought. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He looked at her long and hard. She thought she saw resignation in his gaze as well as... was that pity? She didn’t need anyone’s pity.
Portia drew herself to her full height and stared back.
“All this?” Aleks gestured at the glass on the ground. “Vyne? It’s Tremaine Corporation’s fault. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
The words struck like blows. Before she could ask any questions, like why was he blaming her company for this, he continued.
“You talk about cleaning up your father’s messes—well, this is another one. The Tremaine Corporation created Vyne. Congratulations. Good job.” He gave a mocking little clap.
Portia was going to be sick. This was another Tremaine-caused problem? Her stomach turned. “How do you know?” How she managed to keep her tone steady, she had no idea.
“I did my research. Followed the whispers and the rumors. Maybe if you came down from your penthouse office and paid attention to the people in ‘your’ city, this wouldn’t be such a surprise.”
Every accusation he flung at her hurt, but she still needed more information. “Why were you looking into this? Is this another method of destroying my company?”
“It’s better than you being destroyed!” His impassioned answer rang out in the narrow space.
Both of them froze. Aleks winced and looked away from her.
“Is that a threat?” Portia asked carefully.
Aleks ran his free hand through his hair, leaving the blond strands mussed. “The Solveigs want you out of the picture.”
“They want me dead? That seems a little extreme.”
Aleks ignored her question. “I thought if I gave them another option, they might be satisfied with just destroying the company. Not you.” The look he gave her pleaded with her to understand.
Understand? No way in hell. “So, you were what? Going to give them the Vyne info? Or were you going to leak it yourself?”
Ignoring the crunch of glass under her boots, she stalked toward him. “You can tell your employers that they’re not getting their hands on my company. And they sure as hell aren’t getting rid of me.”
With that she snatched the bakery bag out of his hands and stomped toward the other end of the alley. Glass crunched with each step, amping up her anger. He called out after her and she ignored him.
Damn her father for leaving her yet another mess to clean up. And damn Aleks for trying to use it against her.