Epilogue One
Clara
“Why don’t we pick her up and implement some tried and true methods to get the information out of her?” Gwen asks, holding her hand up to block the glare of the sun on her phone. It’s just the girls—me, Emily, Bea, and Gwen—on this call. Deniz is at work, and Charlie is taking Ana on a tour of one of her backup colleges.
“Ilya’s still looking for her, too,” Emily argues, biting her bottom lip as she stares at an open file in front of her. “Making ourselves known could cause unnecessary bias.” She blinks rapidly, shaking her head. “Chaos. Unnecessary chaos.”
“Despite recent evidence to the contrary, we do have the ability to be stealthy, Emily,” I reply, trying to read my cousin’s expression. This isn’t how she usually acts about targets. Over the past few weeks she’s treated Alisa like a research subject, like a poison or venom or weird biological weapon. A puzzle to solve, not a mark to exploit.
“I’ve got a feeling…” she trails off, not looking up. Gwen’s barely paying attention; I’m pretty sure her phone is laying on her chest as she sunbathes on her back porch. Bea’s expression is pr edictably guarded, but she’s looking at Emily as intently as I am.
“Bea and Gwen, drop off the line,” I command. Gwen doesn’t argue, her little square disappearing instantly, while Bea hesitates. I think she’s still a little wounded that we suspected her of being The Syndicate’s mole. I give her a small nod before her face vanishes from the call, reminding myself to set up a separate meeting with her to discuss our top suspects in her mom’s team. She needs to know we trust her.
“What’s going on?” I ask Emily. She finally looks up from her paperwork, blinking in surprise that we’re the only two left on the call. Was she so absorbed in researching Alisa she didn’t hear us?
“I just…” she stumbles again, clearly forcing herself not to look down at the pages. “There’s two options here. Alisa is still her father’s pawn, and therefore would be well-trained to withstand any sort of torment. Or she escaped him, and by torturing her for information, we’d be sacrificing someone innocent. Maybe even a victim.”
I consider Emily’s perspective. Alisa hasn’t been seen in public, much less in her father’s presence, in almost four years. Her very public, very dramatic engagement to Ilya Andreeva was the last anyone heard from her. Until a few weeks ago, I would have put money on her death, either by the hand of her father or her new fiancé. But if she really is hiding somewhere in western Oregon, Emily could be right. Who else would she be hiding from except her father?
“Do you have an alternative plan?”
One corner of her mouth tilts up in a reluctant smile at my question. “Actually, I was thinking about taking a page out of your fiancé’s book for that one.”
Like we’re in a sitcom, the elevator doors open at her words, and Deniz enters the apartment. I don’t turn, because in this little game we continue playing, that would be letting him win. I do, however, watch him walk up behind me on the computer screen. He pushes my hair over one shoulder so he can knead at the tight spot in my neck with his thumb.
“How so?” I ask, determined to keep my focus. While we don’t know exactly where Alisa is now, we’re confident we can find her soon, even if she’s adopted a new identity. But not capturing her immediately would pose a significant risk.
“I’d like to ingratiate myself with her. See if I can befriend her and figure out how much she might know before we pick her up,” Emily explains. Her hands are tucked below the table, but I can tell she’s wringing them by the way her arms flex.
“Won’t that be suspicious? A new person showing up, especially if she’s hiding in a small town?” I ask. We’ve come to the conclusion Alisa probably isn't in a big city. Her father’s work, and by extension, her face, is too recognizable for a major metropolitan area.
“I have that covered,” Emily preens. She squints at her computer, and then a secure message pops up on my screen. “MIT’s biological science program received funding to study rockfish venom. Do you know what the Pacific Northwest has a lot of?”
“Rain,” Deniz deadpans, staring intently at the notice of funding approval on the screen.
“Hilarious,” she drawls. “It’ll give me a good cover to move from town to town, and I can make something up about rockfish eggs to keep me in one place once I find her.”
“How fortunate that the institute you're a research fellow of just happened to receive this benevolent private funding,” I say, my voice flat. Emily doesn’t look ashamed at all. The Costas have a lot of money, a product of well-paid work and lucky investments. We often use it to create opportunities where they didn’t exist.
“What’s so special about her?” Deniz asks, and it’s the question I’ve wanted an answer to as well. Emily’s never been particularly emotional about the relative guilt of our targets. And by any standard, a direct member of Konstantin’s family deserves a close look.
On the screen, Emily swallows hard, barely concealing her emotions. She’s the worst of us at it, always has been. Charlie’s a close second.
“It’s a gut feeling,” she admits, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. “I think we’ll get more out of her this way, I don’t know why.”
Deniz’s hand is warm on my shoulder, reminding me how much of this—our jobs, this life—is instinct. Emily rarely asks for this much rope, and I trust her not to hang herself with it.
“You have until the end of the year to find her and determine her utility. If you don’t, we’ll go back to the original plan. Understood?”
She clenches her jaw, hiding a grimace behind pressed lips, but nods all the same.
“You sure this is what you want?” Deniz asks. We’ve been sitting at the dining table for twenty minutes, side by side, going over our plan. I twist the ring on my finger absentmindedly, the little rivers of stones comforting under my thumb.
“I’m sure if you are.”
Once plans for Emily fell into place and the rest of the Costas settled into our respective roles for this phase of our investigation, Deniz and I had a lot to discuss. Most of the time, those conversations happened in our now-shared bed, naked and sated, wrapped in blankets as we clarified our shared history. How did he figure out the Costas were involved in the attack in Istanbul? What lies did we tell each other in the beginning? Was my family involved in the Kennedy assassination?
But I made sure this conversation, about our roles and responsibilities as the next in line to The Syndicate of Fate’s throne, was held at this table. Not only what our day-to-day lives would look like as we managed a network of informants and victims and spies and villains, but also what would be expected of us.
Namely, marriage and an heir.
It had been a relief to discover he didn’t want children either. His grief over the loss of Kerem had turned a baseline indifference to starting a family into something he wanted to avoid at all costs.
Despite us being personally on the same page about child rearing, it had taken a lot longer to brainstorm how to fulfill our professional obligation. The bylaws regarding children had been amended in the past. As the science of infertility had become better understood, the message had changed. Raise your child to take over , my mother had commanded me when I was fourteen.
Now, we’re going to bend those rules again. Instead of raising our child , we were going to propose to train a Costa . And we needed someone else on our side for this.
Deniz laces his fingers through mine as we start the video call. I wanted to do this in person, but Ana had check up scans and a major softball game in the same week, making Gwen and Charlie’s schedule compact, and I couldn’t postpone any longer.
Their faces fill the screen. They’re sitting in Charlie’s car, heads tilted toward each other so they can both be seen in the frame.
“Hey there, how was the honeymoon?” I ask, starting light. Deniz squeezes my fingers as my brother and sister-in-law share a look.
“Shorter than we wanted, but nice,” Charlie says with an exasperated grin. This time, it wasn’t my fault their fun was cut short. My father had sent him and Gwen to follow up on an emergent situation in the southern tip of Argentina because they were so close.
They were in Belize.
“Is everything okay?” Gwen asks, her eyes shifting between Deniz and I on the screen. “You don’t usually caveat your meeting invitations.”
I knew adding a note that the meeting topic was not super serious, I promise was suspicious, but I was nervous. This is the biggest ask I’ll ever make of Charlie and Gwen.
“Everything’s fine,” Deniz assures her, slipping his arm around my shoulder. That helps calm me.
“We have a proposal for you,” I say, my voice more stable than I feel. But Charlie must see the vulnerability in my eyes.
“Anything for family.”
I let out a slow breath.
“We’d like to train your child as the next leader of The Syndicate of Fate,” I say.
Deniz and I expected their stunned silence, so we fill the void with the details of our proposal. Assuming Charlie and Gwen wanted children, which I was fairly certain they did, Deniz and I would abstain from having biological or adopted children, and instead train their firstborn the way I was trained. Since technically this child would be the eldest born of the next generation of Costas, and would be trained directly by the current Matriarch, we hoped the council would approve the decision.
“This wouldn’t apply to Ana, since neither you nor Charlie have adopted her,” I assure Gwen. “And of course, we’d give you a more significant say in the child’s training than siblings of the Matriarch or Patriarch have had in the past. You’d be their parents, and I’d be their mentor.”
Neither of them have said a word, but it’s not like Deniz and I gave them the space. We wanted all the facts laid out to them before they got the chance to say no too soon.
They turn to each other, the silent conversation they have speeding my heart rate. I know Charlie never wanted to be Patriarch, but I have no idea how he’d feel about his future child taking on the role. Maybe it’s cruel to ask this of him.
“Can we have some time to discuss it?” he asks, his features smooth like we’re discussing a mission, and I hate that. Despite how uncomfortable and unfamiliar it is, I aim for emotional honesty.
“Take all the time you need,” I say, turning to Deniz to find him already looking at me. His soft smile, filled with so much compassion and respect and understanding, gives me a solid ground to stand on. “This isn’t a request from your Matriarch. You’re allowed to say no. I’m asking as your sister.”
Charlie nods, a little more relaxed as we say our goodbyes, and the screen goes dark. I slump in my seat, Deniz’s arm keeping me upright.
“It’s too much to ask,” I admit, cracking my neck and closing my eyes. Deniz presses a kiss against my forehead.
“So much is asked of you, Clara,” he whispers, lips still touching my skin. “You can ask things from other people too.”
I burrow into his shoulder, inhaling his black pepper and rose scent, soaking in all the warmth he provides.
“Then I have a question for you…” I start, snaking my arms around hi m and lifting my chin to catch his gaze. “Are you still going to kill me, Deniz?”
His eyes light up like they do every time I ask him this, and he fails to repress a smile.
“I don’t know yet, ????,” he replies, pressing his lips to mine. “I need some more time to decide. What about you?”
I seek out another kiss, opening my mouth against his to tell him what I want. More, deeper. He acquiesces, only pulling away when we both need to breathe.
“I’m not sure,” I say, pressing kisses to his jaw. “You did mention something in Trani about begging for your life. That sounded interesting.”
His laugh is deep and loud, shaking both of us as he stands from the table, pulling me with him. He lifts me into his arms, hands on my thighs as he guides my legs around his waist. I can still feel the aftershocks of his laughter as he brings me to our room and lays me on our bed, showing me just how willing he is to beg for me.