Chapter Eleven Hollis
Chapter Eleven
Hollis
I peeked around Julian, staring down an eerie stairwell that looked like it led straight into the depths of hell.
He flicked on a series of sconce lights that lined the stone walls. “You sure you want to do this?”
“Well, when you put it that way . . .” At least with the lights on, I wouldn’t fall to my death in the dark. “Something tells me this is a regular occurrence in my life. Creepy tunnels, hidden rooms—that kind of thing. And if I’m ever going to learn who I am, I have no choice, do I?”
He frowned. “There’s always a choice.”
“Just, um, lead the way.”
His mood lightened, and he winked. “Roger that.”
Two things hit me at once: the wink and the military-style response. Both seemed out of place for a cyber guru. I didn’t know how or why I knew that. Maybe it was just leftover movie trivia rattling around in my head.
“Were you in the military?” I couldn’t seem to picture him serving behind anything other than a keyboard, even if, based on the fit of his clothes, he clearly hit the gym.
“Surprises me, too, that I ever wore a uniform or took orders.” He held my arm, steadying me as we took the first step.
“I was a sniper. Only after I proved myself did Dad put in the request for the military to use my other skills.” He glanced over his shoulder at me.
“I am a decent shot, though. So don’t let my appearance fool you, or Gideon’s cockiness have you believing he’s the best of us.
In truth, you’re neck and neck with him. ”
I paused on the next step. “Are you saying I’m on his level of terrifying?” I mean, apparently I could go head-to-head with our mother, but Gideon? No way.
The man had to be at least six-four and was as broody as he was intimidating—even though that didn’t stop me from swinging at him yesterday, I suppose. Still, most definitely not someone to bump into in a dark alley. Or, heck, in the light of day.
“Your kill count is right up there with his,” Julian laid on me.
I thought back to Gideon’s serial killer-y comment about leaving a trail of bodies behind.
Great, and I’m like him. I checked my palms, ensuring they weren’t stained with blood even now.
“Hard to believe I’ve killed anyone with these things.
” I lifted my hands between us like they were weapons in themselves.
“You usually use a firearm. Knife, sometimes. Rarely just your hands to take someone out.”
Rarely implied it had happened.
“We’re not psychos, I promise,” he said quietly, urging both my arms down. “We’re not even red flags. More like yellow lights.”
I cracked a smile, surprising myself with that reaction. “And that means?”
“We always give warnings.” He smirked. “If someone chooses not to listen, then—”
“I get it.” A little too much, in fact. I gestured for him to start walking again, and we took baby steps into my literal past until we made it to the end of the corridor, stopping before a domed chamber.
Without thinking twice about it, I moved in front of a retinal scanner and punched in the access code.
“Muscle memory. Your fingers knew the numbers, even if you didn’t.”
I stumbled back in surprise as the door clicked and began to creak open, scraping against the stone floor.
“Come on,” he said when I remained stuck at the threshold, unsure whether I should take the plunge. “It’ll help.”
“Not so sure about that.” But I did as he asked, and a burst of goose bumps prickled across my skin as I walked into the chamber.
The room was encased in smooth gray limestone laced with obsidian veins that shimmered under the soft golden glow of the lanterns.
Forgetting for a moment why I was there, I just took it all in. I ran my fingers along the edge of a marble bust, absorbing the sight of the artifacts lining the walls. Swords, scrolls, framed maps—each preserved in glass or reinforced metal casings.
“Recognize that?” Julian pointed to a painting on the wall. “Our family crest.”
I stepped closer to the oil painting, an exact match to our tattoos.
It was divided into four quadrants. A crown in the right-hand corner. A chained lion, a falcon holding a scroll, and a phoenix wing rising through fire in the other three. A crucifix sat at the top, and beneath the shield was Latin script: In tempore veritas.
In time, there is truth. I assumed I’d correctly translated that.
“Tell me about the crest,” I requested, my voice soft, like I might disturb the dead while stepping into the past. “What do the symbols mean for us? For our family?”
“Well, uh, the scroll represents knowledge we’ve protected under our wing. And it’s a falcon because they don’t rule from the sky. They hunt. Silent and precise. They don’t wait for war. They end it before it begins.”
“And that’s who we are? What we do?”
“That’s who we were trained to be.”
I focused back on the sword and crown. “This is a classic heraldic symbol?”
“Yeah, but what makes ours different is that the sword is in front of the crown instead of behind it like normal. It means truth over sovereignty. Truth above loyalty to any king.”
“So we don’t serve the crown?”
A nearby sconce light flickered against his pupils, giving them a brief golden sheen. “No, we defend the truth.”
“And the lion?”
“He’s chained to represent restrained strength. That just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should.” He traced his stubbled jawline with his knuckles while continuing. “Power can corrupt, and we have to be careful we don’t let it corrupt us.”
“So truth over ourselves, even.” I turned to face the final quadrant. “The phoenix. I recognize that symbol. From a movie, maybe?”
“That’s Audrey’s doing. She’s been catching you up on a lifetime of movies you missed whenever you hang out.”
Audrey, the one I’m using to feel normal? Eight years was a long time to play pretend, though, wasn’t it? Maybe my mother didn’t know the real me—or at least, only the one she wanted to see: Celeste, the warrior.
“Our phoenix is different from what you may remember in the movies.” He lifted his chin as a directive toward the painting.
“Only the wing is in the fire, not the whole bird like usual. It represents a transformation still in progress. Not a full rebirth. Just . . . survival.” He turned away from the painting.
“Once it was safe to visit England again, you’d always spend your time down here exploring. ”
“Why wasn’t it safe to—”
“An enemy of our parents tried to kill Gideon. He was seven at the time, and that’s when they opted to move to the US.”
I was less shocked by the story and more surprised at the outcome of it. “So what you’re saying is, she cared about us at one point?” My shoulders sagged with regret almost immediately. “Sorry, that was rude.”
He rested his hand on my shoulder and gently squeezed, and thankfully, his touch didn’t bother me.
“No, it’s just untrue.” His dark brows slanted as he stared at me.
“Mum is a hard nut to crack. She’s got walls higher than the one our parents helped dismantle in Berlin in 1989. She has her reasons, I swear.”
“Sure.” I rolled my eyes, then huffed out a deep breath. “What if Tristan is responsible for what happened? Gideon said he’d kill whoever did this to me.”
He was quiet for a moment, taking longer than I thought he’d need to answer. “He’d never kill Tristan. Not even if he did this.”
“Just lock him away?” I raised my brows.
“Maybe.” His gaze slipped over to a case that held a leatherbound book with bronze-capped corners, as if searching for a distraction.
Books in cases—why does that feel so familiar? I closed my eyes, trying to summon a memory. I even tightened my lids as much as possible, as if the action would produce something. The only thing that came to mind . . . a husband I wasn’t married to and kids I didn’t have. What in the world?
“You used to read this all the time.” Julian’s words returned me to the present, which was ironically also my past. “The Avery Wyndham d’Aragon Codex. It’s one of the records of our bloodline—from Iberia to our Vatican ties. This isn’t legend, it’s documentation.”
Iberia? Vatican? “So we’re not just—”
“No,” he cut in. “We’re far from being just British aristocrats.”
“Our mother mentioned she’s an Avery and our father is a Wyndham d’Aragon.” What a mouthful. “Why does he have two last names?”
“Dad’s mum’s side is the Wyndhams—another powerful bloodline. Our grandparents were matched together just like our parents were.”
Matched? Like . . . arranged marriage?
Julian typed in a code, letting that subject go as if it were no big thing. The case hissed and unlocked, opening with a click. He tried to hand the codex to me, but I hesitated, because something told me a book that needed special sealing shouldn’t be touched.
“That’s okay.” I waved him off. “Just tell me what I need to know.”
He opened it, revealing pages of illuminated script. Handwritten Latin, intricate diagrams, and gilded edges.
“It’s a history of war and peace. Influence and legacy. Family secrets, too.” After gently turning a few more pages, he closed the book, resealed the case, and returned it to the shelf.
A hopeful feeling of familiarity pulled at me, but I didn’t bother to shut my eyes this time. No point.
“Our bloodlines have advised the Medicis. Funded some of da Vinci’s work. Have long-standing privileges with the Vatican. Helped launch MI6. And that’s barely scratching the surface.”
“So what you’re saying is, we’ve been there, done that. Been around a while.”
This should have produced a lot more shock and awe inside me, but my pulse remained fairly steady.
And as long as we weren’t discussing lives I’d taken, I didn’t feel the need to upchuck.
I supposed that meant the badass me was front and center, not the shaky, sad who-the-heck-am-I version my mother couldn’t stand.