21. Clara
Chapter 21
Clara
C harlie may never forgive me for knocking on his door at two in the morning on the night of his wedding. Gwen had answered, wrapped in a sheet and with a look that could kill on her face.
After Emily and I explained the situation—with Deniz standing as far back in the hallway as possible—the newlyweds took a few minutes to make themselves presentable.
My plan wasn’t a particularly complex or elegant one: find Bea, and force her to explain her movements in Japan. I swallow down the knowledge that I might have to kill someone I love tonight. The thought turns my stomach, but I’ll take the responsibility if it comes to that. I can’t ask that of Charlie.
When Gwen and Charlie emerge from their room, looking slightly more put together, I realize none of us actually know where to find Bea. I’ve known this wedding was coming for months; I should have planned to confront her and looped in Charlie, Gwen, and Emily. Instead, we’re all standing in the hallway, half of us with hickeys on our necks, staring at each other like idiots.
“Where would we find Bea?” I ask Charlie. He was closest to her when we were kids, spending the time between our schooling and training wandering this old house. Out of anyone, he would know her hiding places.
“If she’s not in her room, she might be in the cellar,” he says, looking down the hallway into the darkness. “Or maybe the staff kitchens.”
“She was there earlier,” Deniz says from behind me, closer than I expected him. I’m steadied by his warmth, the scent of his cologne. A few months ago, I would have found the sentiment pathetic, but now it makes me feel stronger. Maybe my mother was right about partnerships.
“She likes talking to the staff. It helps her ensure no one is letting secrets slip, or selling them,” Charlie confirms. “But she likes the quiet of the cellars, too. And the fact that there are multiple exits.”
I let Charlie think it through. This is his call. We rely on each other’s areas of expertise, and if we were talking about Emily, this would be my responsibility.
“Kitchens,” he decides, shifting to walk on my right-hand side as we turn down the hall. He keeps Gwen tucked behind him, but I notice she slides a gun into her waistband. I’m relieved she hasn’t adopted her husband’s affinity for knives—too messy and unpredictable.
It’s uncanny how quiet five people can be as they make their way through a house. The wedding decorations have long since been cleared, with rented tables and chairs stacked against the far wall of the ballroom. The lights to the staff kitchen are still on, the swinging door letting a sliver of gold seep into the ballroom.
Gwen and I both pull our weapons, aiming them at the door as Emily prepares to open it. Deniz and Charlie are both hovering nearby, ready to pull us out of the way at a moment’s notice. The maybe-pathetic feeling crawls back up my spine and warms my chest because Deniz is doing for me exactly what Charlie does for Gwen. And I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, how my brother feels about his wife.
I shake the feeling, nodding at Emily before she pushes the door wide.
Bea sits on the prep counter, chatting with two of the servers from the wedding. Their conversation immediately ceases as soon as we enter, the servers’ faces going ghostly pale. The only shock that Bea shows is a slight raise of her eyebrows.
“Excuse me, ladies. We need some family time.” Both the servers lower their eyes and rush out of the room as Bea slips off the counter, heading to the fridge.
“Is this the after party?” she asks blandly, her expression and tone as guarded as always as she pulls out a bottle of champagne.
“Unfortunately not,” I reply, sinking into the cold, calculated, manipulative version of myself I’ve built over the last thirty years. Bea is a target. It doesn’t matter that she taught me to braid my hair, or that I never questioned her motives until the day I realized the mole was someone on Gia’s team.
“We have some things to discuss, Bea,” Charlie says calmly, a hint of apology in his voice. I steel myself further. If there’s even a chance Charlie will hesitate to handle Bea, I have to be ready.
“It seems so. And you brought the whole gang to do it. Even the special guest stars.” Bea turns to Gwen and shoots her a wink with the barest hint of a smile. “Being a Costa fits you.”
Gwen doesn’t blink, keeping her pistol leveled at my cousin. I can tell Charlie tries not to, but he shifts in front of his wife, not to block her shot, but to keep her and Bea separated. Emily and Deniz stand behind us, both tense enough to set everyone’s teeth on edge.
“Gwen’s already making an excellent sister-in-law,” I reply on her behalf, dropping my gun and holstering it at my side. “She understands loyalty.”
The dig isn’t subtle, but it passes over Bea like everything does. Her dark eyes show no emotion, no reaction, as she drops the unopened bottle of bubbly on the counter with a loud thunk.
“You had a question?” she asks, sliding back up onto the counter and crossing her legs beneath her. There’s no reason to beat around the bush.
“Tell us what you’ve been up to in Kobe.”
There it is. It’s so small, I wouldn’t notice it if I didn’t know Bea so well. But she flinches, a barely perceptible twitch of a muscle in her cheek. There is something in Kobe.
“I live in Japan, Clara. I frequent a lot of cities, often at your behest,” Beatrice replies smoothly. A non-answer. Gwen must recognize the evasion, because the distinct sound of a safety unlocking rings through the kitchen.
“You avoid the cameras on the train and in the stations,” Deniz interjects from behind, and Bea’s eyes lock on him, her head tilting to the side. “You take different routes into Kobe each time, sometimes flying overseas just to take a boat back to the island. No one does that without reason.”
The corners of Bea’s mouth tip up, stretching into an unsettling grin.
“Well, good to see the newest member of the family joining in the fun. It must make you feel so safe, Clara, to have a partner who sees everything.”
The words crawl over my skin like insects. There’s no way she could know about Deniz and the surveillance. She would have come to me if she thought I was in danger. Unless…
The smallest seed of doubt plants itself in my mind again. I still don’t know why Deniz was stalking me to begin with. Could he and Bea have been working together?
I stop the train of thought, keeping my posture relaxed. Neither Deniz nor Beatrice has a weapon. It would be suicide for either of them to allow Gwen, Charlie, Emily, and me to surround them while unarmed.
And something in my gut tells me to believe Deniz. That he sought me out because he has a personal matter he needs solved. It doesn’t mean he won’t kill me. But I’m certain he’d do it on his own terms, not under the direction of another.
“It’s pretty helpful,” I reply, shrugging like it’ll prove my indifference to her comments. “But I’m much more concerned with your answer to our question.”
“You’ve never questioned me before,” she replies, finally meeting my gaze again.
“I’ve never had a reason to. You’ve been given a lot of discretion to keep a lot of secrets, and some of them are catching up to you.”
“Just tell us, Bea,” Charlie pleads, stepping toward our cousin. “I’m sure this is a misunderstanding. Clear it up, and we can all move on.”
“I think I deserve to know why my movements are being questioned,” Bea retorts, raising her eyebrows at Charlie. It’s meant to make him feel guilty, and it’s working. Thank god his wife is less emotionally pliable.
“You’ve been seen entering hotels and meeting spaces controlled by our enemies. Multiple times,” Gwen tells her. We watch her process the words, waiting for a signal that she feels caught.
“The Yakuza may not be allies, but they’re not?—”
“We’re not talking about the Yakuza,” Emily says quietly.
There’s a beat, and then her jaw drops.
“You think I’m working with him.” Bea’s guard slips, distress lancing through her eyes before she can cover it back up. “You think I fed Konstantin the information about Lucia.”
The kitchen is silent, no one daring to even breathe. We’re all waiting to see how Bea will react, but she knows better than to show her cards to us.
“Someone on your mother’s team has been turning Syndicate resources to Konstantin. Someone with an insignia,” I say. Bea’s tattoo is on the inside of her wrist, but it’s a common location for high-ranking Syndicate members. Kayden, Charlie’s informant, had simply said it was on her arm . Helpful.
“And you think that person is me?” she asks in disbelief, looking at Emily and Charlie, too.
“You’ve been seen at locations where Konstantin’s team operates multiple times, and you would have the information needed to coordinate the attack,” I reply, redirecting her anger toward me.
“Did he put this in your head?” she asks, nodding behind me toward Deniz. The question is so shocking I actually turn over my shoulder, thankful that Gwen’s hold on her weapon doesn’t waver.
Deniz looks as confused as I am, shaking his head at me with a shrug. A small thread of worry pulls low in my stomach, but I push it aside to deal with later. One problem at a time.
“This has been a consideration for much longer than I’ve known Deniz,” I say, gesturing for Charlie to share what he learned from his informant.
Bea’s eyes grow sharp, staring off into the distance as Charlie reviews the information extracted from Kayden, a low-level Syndicate employee on Gia’s team. When he’s done, Bea sighs, scrubbing her scalp with her fingernails.
“I wish you would have come to me sooner,” she says, shifting to dangle her legs off the edge of the counter. “I could have helped dig through my mother’s team.”
“You still haven’t answered about Kobe…” I start, but she cuts me off.
“It’s Diya,” she says, looking at Charlie and Emily. Both of them furrow their brows, expressions surprised and confused.
“Who is Diya?” I ask.
“She’s the daughter of the first person we ever killed,” Emily whispers, tilting her head at Bea before turning to me. “You had a solo mission for your first, but we went together. Lucia sent us to Karnataka to pick up kids who were performing forced labor on rice fields. We were told to execute the man running the operation as a warning to others in the area.”
“When we got to the house, we found the man. And his daughter.” Charlie adds, unable to break his gaze with Bea. “She was only eight.”
I vaguely remember this. The three of them had provided a report during an in-person council meeting in Trani.
“We relocated the girl in New Delhi with extended family, right?” I confirm. My words seem to infuriate Bea, because she turns to me with the most clear emotion I’ve ever seen from her.
“We killed her father in front of her, Clara. Our actions have consequences.” She takes a steadying breath, closing her eyes and letting that calm, unbothered facade settle over her once again. “I checked in on her for a few months, but she wasn’t doing well with her family. So I found her a boarding school in Kobe. She’s been there ever since. She’s a painter now.”
I blink at Bea, noticing Gwen finally lower her weapon out of the corner of my eye.
“You’ve checked in on one family member of a trafficker for more than a decade?” I ask, unable to tell if I’m incredulous or impressed.
“I…” she stumbles, gripping her hands in her lap. “I check in on all of them. Not to this extent. I focus most on the ones who were ki ds when they lost their families, but I make sure they know The Syndicate is not their enemy.”
We all sit in stunned silence, staring at Bea. The time and effort it must take to track all of these people down, to ensure they’re not left struggling after our operations shatter the life they knew.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Charlie asks, his voice wounded. Bea grimaces slightly, her eyes still guarded.
“I thought you might find it weak,” she admits, refusing to make eye contact with any of us. “My mother found out about one family a few years ago and told me it was a waste of Syndicate assets. Threatened to bring me to council.”
I understood where Gia was coming from, even if I disagreed. There is a lot of evil in the world, and spending time checking in on the past took resources away from our future work. But if she had brought Bea to the council for this, no one would have condemned her.
I gesture for Gwen to holster her weapon, moving closer to Bea. She stiffens imperceptibly, and I hope she doesn’t expect violence from me. From any of us. Not now.
“Compassion is only a weakness if you let it blind you instead of feed you,” I say, calling on the words my mother told me when I was a child. There’s a spark in my cousin’s eye; maybe Lucia has said this to her, too.
Everyone relaxes and breathes more easily, and Bea’s features soften, a new, more heart wrenching dullness in her eyes. I can’t say it here, but I hope she knows how much I wanted to be wrong about her involvement, and how relieved I am that I no longer have to keep her at arm’s length. The worry masked it for a long time, but I realize I missed her.
“We’ve got a mole to find,” I say to Bea, but also to the room of Costas. I gesture for Deniz to step forward, wrapping my hand around his arm. “You two will work together to combine your knowledge,” I nod to Bea, “and your surveillance systems,” a nod to Deniz.
Bea’s emotionless front is back in place as she assesses my fiancé. Gwen, Emily, and Charlie chat a few paces away, but the sound is muted as a string of tension is pulled between Bea and Deniz.
“Sure,” she answers casually, shrugging a shoulder. “I’m sure Deniz will be quite helpful in smoking them out, won’t you?”
The muscles of Deniz’s shoulders tighten, like he’s anticipating an attack. But Bea only grabs the bottle of champagne, popping the top as she exits the kitchen, leaving Deniz staring at her with a blank expression. And me staring at him.