Chapter 20
FRAGILE CONTENTS (HOLDEN)
Me and my stupid-ass jokes.
Telling her Kit will be looking her up in the future like we’ll be passing strangers, ships in the night?
Dumbass.
A massive, raging dumbass who’s trying to avoid his obsession with having any ongoing involvement with Cleo Blackthorn. Let alone a real relationship.
I should’ve known better than to let it invade my head, but when she’s lying against me, it’s easy to imagine more days like this.
Coffee and bagels in bed.
Chaos in the living room.
Kit laughing, learning to make more trouble with a paintbrush.
Paint and plaster splattered everywhere.
Her smile clinging to my heart.
Like I said, raging dumbass.
Usually, I’m up before the sun. Before Cleo wakes up to sneak back to her room for appearances, but this morning I overslept.
When I wake up, her side of the bed is cold. I snap up and check my phone.
Gone to see Margot. Be back soon! Don’t worry about me for breakfast.
I don’t like it, even if it’s a perfectly normal morning between cousins.
The way my body tenses says I really, really don’t fucking like it.
Not just because last night was fraught.
I’ve never been good at talking shit out, not after Charli, but I also don’t like letting venom fester.
Plus, the fact that she should stay close so I can watch her. The odds of anyone grabbing her for ransom off the quiet streets of Portland are slim, but still.
It’s part of the job I’ve put on the back burner the second she started riding my cock. Then again, if she’s with another Blackthorn in a city like home, she should be safe enough.
I sigh deeply and roll out of bed, heading downstairs.
The house is still quiet, and even before I reach the kitchen, I can sense she’s gone. Clee has a presence wherever she goes.
I can’t help myself. I walk through the living room, stopping where the canvas remains propped up by the window. Rough textures and paint on cardboard spill sheets strewn everywhere.
A window to disaster in my world, and I wouldn’t want to change anything.
I need to stop wanting things I can’t have.
Coffee will help. A strong, dark brew helps settle the world.
It’s too early for Kit to get up, so I make myself a pour over cup, strong as jet fuel.
Feeling almost human again, I open my laptop at the dining table.
Work. All the work I’ve been too distracted to focus on recently.
That’ll keep me busy, and then I won’t have to think about Cleo and her future. Won’t have to dwell on passing on her invitation last night, an offer to merge lives that will never make sense.
I wonder how long this can go on, the silence between us filled with a thousand words.
I bet she’s telling Margot all about it, the whole dumb situation.
Up until now, I never understood what the kids meant when they said situationship. I’ve decided I don’t like it.
Chugging my coffee, I drag a hand through my hair and open my emails. There’s a new one from Fairfax with URGENT in the subject line.
“Shit,” I whisper.
I tap the message.
Fairfax’s style is short and succinct.
He says he’s identified a PhD student of a Russian professor he contacted in Hungary. Apparently, that student has ties to the Black Talon Group. The professor swears he never leaked a word about the Hera Egg.
However, it’s possible the student had unauthorized access to the professor’s files, either through the professor’s own negligence or the student hacking.
How fucking convenient.
Fairfax promises to follow up and find out, and I want to believe him.
Black Talon?
Fuck me.
I don’t even need to dig to know they’re infamous. They’ve been the tip of the spear in several black-market related ops and hits in Africa, Syria, Ukraine.
Guns for hire. Pirates. Often employed by rogue governments when they aren’t willing to strike out on their own for plunder.
Still, I leave no stone unturned, refreshing my memory as I flick through articles online. I pay close attention to their organizational structure, their logistics, studying how they work.
There’s a boatload of recent speculation about their involvement in several big heists involving priceless artifacts. Ancient church relics in Damascus, Sumerian pieces from northern Iraq, even an unsolved precision robbery in Tuscany that knocked off some rare Etruscan art.
A man with a black beard and blacker eyes at the head, Viktor Guchkov. He wears the same kind of expression I’ve only ever seen on terroristic fucks during my service.
The kind of man who traded another piece of his soul, his humanity, with every throat he slashed.
The kind of monster who wouldn’t think twice about inventing new, horrific tortures if it means another paycheck.
Convenient. Again.
With Fairfax working in this field, he should’ve known the security risks—probably better than I do.
But he’ll have contacts protecting his ass. Not to mention his connections, a few degrees removed from the Russian underworld.
I shake my head, snarling at Guchkov’s ugly, dead-eyed photo on the screen.
Is it a ruse or is Fairfax helping us?
Everything hinges on the answer.
I read the email again, searching for anything that offers me a hint, but there’s nothing. He’s written everything very plainly.
Just the facts, dry as dust.
The facts he’s decided to tell me anyway.
He didn’t even give me the goddamned professor’s name, did he? Just a brief note that he won’t compromise his colleague’s identity and risk any official involvement.
Things can be messy in that world once police or government investigators show up.
Don’t I know it.
If I was in his position, and if I was telling the truth, I’d stick to the same line. I can’t hold that against him.
It just doesn’t prove his innocence. The lack of detail, that’s a mark against him in the trust department.
I’m so lost in thought I don’t even hear small footsteps pattering into the room until I look up. Kit pauses at the threshold, staring at me.
“No Cleo?”
My chest tightens. I close my laptop.
“Hi, Dad,” I say with a sarcastic smile. “Good morning, Dad, how are you doing this fine day? Try again, hon.”
“I like Cleo.” She shrugs shyly, raiding the fridge for her usual morning OJ.
“I thought you liked me.”
Her nose wrinkles. “I do like you. But you’re my dad.”
“Right, right. So glad we cleared that up.”
She sighs. “You know what I mean. I was hoping she’d give me a few pointers with the seashells. I wanna do some 3D art with them.”
I do know what she means.
They discussed it yesterday over dinner, but I don’t have the energy to hear how attached she is to Cleo, so I get started on breakfast.
Kit perches at the breakfast bar like the little fox she is, reading on her Kindle, her fingers flicking idly over the stickers she’s plastered on the back.
They’re mostly parks and museums we’ve visited over the last couple years. Acadia, Congaree down in South Carolina, Taliesin East in Wisconsin.
Clee would love that last one, Frank Lloyd Wright and all.
I grit my teeth, evicting the thought.
Dammit, this is our time. Our routine and nothing else should muddle it.
Same one we’ve had since she was a kid. She still twirls her hair the way she did when she was half her age, too.
Damn. Sometimes it feels like I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, parenting a preteen. She’s grown up too fast and I don’t know how to handle it.
Clee, she’s a young woman herself. She’d have insights I never will as a dad pushing to the end of his thirties, dreading Kit’s teenage years like a man watching an approaching asteroid.
I finish cooking up a pile of cheesy eggs and sausage. Kit stands up to fetch our plates.
Just like every morning for the past few years, there’s a familiar rhythm here.
It shouldn’t feel like there’s anything missing.
Only, there’s a hole where Cleo should be.
I can ignore it. Kit doesn’t.
“Where’d she go?” she asks before I’ve lifted the first bite of eggs to my mouth.
“Out,” I say. “One of her cousins is in town.”
“Will she be back for lunch?”
“Don’t know.” I half shrug and chew my food, hoping she won’t ask more questions. “What’s your obsession with her schedule anyway?”
“Nothing.” She shrugs. “I just like it when she eats with us.”
I chew in silence.
“She’s really nice, Dad. She smiles a lot. We need more of that around here.” She pokes my arm. “You could learn a thing or two.”
“Hmm, not sure. I’m rusty, Kit. Might trigger a nasty jaw injury if I tried.”
She giggles, music to my ears.
“Dad! She’s really cool, if you’d just give her a chance. She said she’d let me help finish her canvas.” She’s practically bouncing in her seat.
Not good.
The second I finish my grub, she grabs my arm and drags me toward Cleo’s happy mess.
The painting—is it still a painting when it’s 3D?—looks even better in the morning sun.
So many shiny jewels stand out, glittering and familiar, yet not ominous like the egg that inspired them.
I don’t know what it’s supposed to be, if it’s supposed to be anything at all. I don’t have the imagination for high art.
Kit thought she saw a dragon, but I just see colors misting together, lighting up a mellow sky over a landscape that flows like a turquoise sea.
Beautiful. It leaps off the canvas into your eyes.
Just like its artist.
Kit stares at the painting softly, her little head tilted, taking it in like we’re at the Louvre in Paris.
I can’t have her this attached.
Can’t have her getting this excited, only for hard reality to let her down.
Everyone needs to get practical here. This isn’t meant to last.
“I’m sure you’re in for a cool experience,” I tell her. “But Kit, let’s not get carried away. With this, or Cleo, I mean. She’s a busy young lady.” I try not to emphasize ‘young,’ but I can’t help it.
The word sticks in my throat. Another reason why we can’t work.
Kit’s face falls. “What do you mean?”