Chapter 17
Electra
It’s been twenty minutes since I joined Gael, Dorian, and Mom in the living room. Gael is the only one who’s spoken in the span of those twenty minutes.
Mom stands from the sofa. “I’m just going to check on your father’s ETA. Be right back.”
Gael burrows into his armchair, propping one ankle on his opposite knee. “You mean Yosef since I’m—”
“Let’s get one thing clear, Gael.” Red slashes my mother’s cheekbones. “You will never be Electra’s father.”
“Presumptuous. How about we ask for her opinion?”
Mom cuts the air with her arm. “By all means, ask…” Her tired eyes sparkle with a plea.
“I’m happy to finally make your acquaintance,” I reply diplomatically, “but I’m all set in the parental department. In the sibling department as well.”
Gael’s eyes tighten. “So you don’t even want to meet your real brother?”
“I am her real brother,” Dorian growls.
Gael pays him no mind.
“I’d be happy to meet Alexander—eventually. So you were saying how you ended up in Chicago, which is where you met the woman who gave birth to me, right?”
“That’s right.”
“How did you meet?”
“She was the hostess at one of my restaurants. I have a whole conglomerate of restaurants and clubs across the US.”
“You already mentioned that,” Dorian grumbles. “Just like you mentioned your revenue and profit margins.”
I smile, because there were definitely five minutes allotted to walking us through his multiple ventures.
“I work real hard for my money, Dorian,” Gael says. “Pardon me for bein’ proud.”
“Can you tell me more about your relationship with the woman who birthed me?”
“I didn’t have a relationship with her. I’d just met Ines, and I knew she was the one for me.”
Yet he slept with a stranger? No wonder Ines hates me.
“So you had an affair with—”
“Let’s not call it what it wasn’t. Your mother and I had sex. The condom broke—I always wear condoms with humans.”
TMI, Gael. TMI.
Dorian grimaces.
“Granted, Atlantean sperm is real potent, so maybe it leaked—”
“Please spare my daughter the mechanics of reproduction, Monta,” comes a voice I haven’t heard in a month.
“Dad!” I hop off the sofa and dash to him.
“Hi, bug.” He folds me into his arms and presses a kiss to the top of my head. “I missed you this summer.”
“Missed you, too,” I say, savoring the scent of wild shrubs and bright sun that’s permanently etched into his skin.
“Who’s lookin’ after the mine?” Gael asks.
“Ines,” Dad says. “She landed just as I was departing.”
I almost ask if Malachi went with her, but decide now’s not the time. There might never be a right time for it, actually.
After Dad lets me go to hug Dorian, I settle back in my seat across from Gael. “So my biological mother never told you she got pregnant?”
“No. Your mama got around, so she probably reckoned the baby wasn’t mine.”
“Until I was born. I mean, I had runes. She couldn’t have thought them birthmarks.”
“They’re very small on infants,” Dad says, coming to sit beside me.
“I had a real shark for a lawyer back then. He had his hands in everythin’,” Monta says. “I’m guessin’ he paid her off.”
I sit up straighter. “Can you ask him?”
“When he started stealing from me, I sent him away for good, and sadly, unlike Tarian, I can’t communicate with the dead.”
“Tarian can’t communicate with the dead,” Dorian grumbles.
“If they’re freshly dead, he can bring them back,” Gael points out.
My brother lets out an exasperated sigh. “Not by talking to them, Monta.”
“The point is, Dorian”—Gael spits out my brother’s name in a way that makes me bristle—“the man’s dead, so we’ll never know.
But, Electra, darlin’, rest assured that if I’d known about you, I would’ve taken you away and raised you.
” Even though I don’t love being referred to as darling, I do appreciate his paternal sentiment.
Gaea only knows how I would’ve turned out, besides having confidence in spades. Would Malachi have been attracted to me or repulsed by mere association?
Mom returns, balancing a large platter of scones. Cillian’s… How ironic that the man isn’t even here, yet a piece of him appears just as my thoughts stray to Malachi.
Gael plants his suede loafer back on the area rug and leans forward. “Come for a visit.”
“Hmm, what?” I ask, dragging my gaze off the golden-brown triangles.
“I’d like to host you in Austin. Show you some of my restaurants. Introduce you to Alexander. I get you ain’t lookin’ for a new family, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re my daughter.”
My father tenses.
Before he can reiterate what Mom said earlier, I place my hand on his knee. “I’ll think about it.” I lean over and float a scone from the platter into my palm. “So, you run a profitable restaurant business by day and eliminate Holy Hunters by night?”
I take a bite and…holy wow. The dough shatters into flaky layers, each one bursting with the nuttiness of creamy caramel.
My mother, who grabbed a scone after putting the platter down, moans around her mouthful. I think I even hear her murmur an impressed “Wow.”
“That’s correct,” Gael says. “Alexander tells me you’re very active on his Huntin’ the Hunters chat.”
I nibble on the second corner of my scone. Corners first—always. One of my many quirks. “I wouldn’t say active, but yeah, I follow it. Even if a lot of the information circulating is speculative, it’d be stupid not to pay attention. Especially since becoming a guardian is my vocation…”
Monta smiles. “It doesn’t surprise me. It’s Alexander’s too.”
Dorian’s eyes blaze with annoyance.
“You want to know how I located Chairman and Patriot? And learned their real names?” Gael doesn’t wait for my reply.
Instead, he launches straight into the story of how he eliminated Dominic Caruso, the head of the Holy Hunters—aka Chairman—and his right-hand man, Levy Rafferty—aka Patriot.
“Thanks to my restaurants and private clubs,” he tells me.
“I have audio surveillance built into every table, and a state-of-the-art listenin’ software that filters through conversations—which I designed myself. ”
Dorian snorts. “Of course you did.”
“However do you have time to do all you do?” Mom’s sarcasm is lost on Gael.
“I’m extremely disciplined. I wake up every mornin’ at four and never take breaks or sit around and twiddle my thumbs.” He looks squarely from my father to my mother when he says this, as though he believes babysitting the mine is a menial job.
My fingers clench around the scone, reducing what’s left of it to crumbs. I’m leaning so far forward in my seat that they fall on the rug between my socked feet. “The amount of sacrifices my parents have made and still make to ensure no one breaches the mine—”
“I, along with all our fellow Atlanteans, am deeply grateful for their continued service, darlin’. I could never do their job.”
Confusion seizes me. Did I misinterpret his comment? Was it not passive-aggressive?
Gael spreads his fingers on the sharp gray armrest. “So, you were ten when you were found. By Malachi, if I’m not mistaken.”
“That’s correct,” I say, sweeping the crumbs up with a pulse of magic and dumping them on a side plate. “He caught wind of a woman selling vials of miracle blood, followed the lead, and ended up at my door.”
“That’s the tale he fed me too,” Gael says. “I’m surprised your mama lasted a whole decade. Was she not injectin’ herself with your blood, or were you givin’ it to her freely?”
“My earliest memory is of her sniffing lines of white dust, so I think she was just selling my blood to buy herself other drugs. And Swarovski crystal figurines. She had shelves and shelves of them.”
Gael nods. “What I don’t understand and what perhaps your entourage can clear up—”
“We’re her family, not her entourage,” Mom snipes.
Gael flutters his fingers as though her comment were superfluous. “What I don’t understand is why Malachi didn’t tell the Council the girl he found had a human mother, and therefore an Atlantean father. Why pretend he didn’t know which parent was from Atlantis?”
While my brain tries to play catchup and slot all this information in the correct mental cubbies, Mom says, “Saul did tell the Council. I was there and so was your uncle Ramir.”
Ramir… One of the councilmembers who lost his life last year after aligning himself with Symeon. My stomach churns at the idea that I’m related to him.
“Fuckin’ Ramir,” Gael mutters, surprising me.
I blink. “You didn’t like him?”
“Not one bit. Couldn’t have been happier than when Gaea stripped him of his magic and life.”
“You mean, Tarian?” Dorian says.
Gael shrugs. “I suppose Tarian is Gaea’s spokesperson. Do you know why my uncle didn’t like me, Electra?”
I don’t ask why, since he’s bound to tell me.
Sure enough, he says, “Because I outshone all five of his kids.”
Dorian snorts—again. Again, it doesn’t ruffle my conceited genitor. To think that Ines, who has little tolerance for most people, chose to marry this man. It seems incongruous.
Although she was in Saul’s employ for a mighty long time, and he definitely had a high opinion of himself.
For some reason, I find myself saying, “Saul tried to pawn me off on your ex-wife, but she didn’t want me. Pretty ironic that I turn out to be your kid, isn’t it?”
The silence that ensues makes me glance around the room. No one meets my stare…
“Holy shit,” I gasp. “It’s not ironic. Ines knew exactly who I was! That’s why she didn’t want me.”
Gael works his jaw from side to side. And then he’s taking out his phone and dialing someone using speakerphone. Ines’s voicemail clicks on.
“Call me back when you get this, hun.” His tone is so brittle that it cracks like glass.
Could Ines have dealt with my mother and given her hush money?
“How long has she known about me?” I ask Dorian. “And don’t lie, because I’ll find out.”
“If you don’t, I will,” Gael says.
I should resent standing on the same side as him—against my parents and Dorian—but I don’t. I’m glad to have someone in my corner.
“She was only trying to clean up your mess, Monta,” Dorian says.