Chapter 4
Emily
“Ithought you were supposed to be researching rockfish.”
My laptop is propped open on my bed, and the hotel room is small enough that I can hear Charlie’s voice from the bathroom where I’m brushing my teeth.
“My PhD advisor suggested the topic change to coincide with a climate change grant,” I yell through a mouth full of toothpaste. Charlie grumbles about how he can’t understand a word I’m saying as I spit into the sink and splash water on my face.
“Didn’t we give them the money for the research? Don’t we decide what you study?” Clara mutters irritably. I can tell she’s distracted because usually she would be much more bitchy about something like this.
“The donation was anonymous. And it would be pretty suspicious if I insisted on arguing with my advisor about the species of venomous animal we should spend weeks hunting down when I’m supposed to be worshipping the ground she walks on,” I shout into the main room while tugging on my cargo pants.
“Plus, why do you care? We did the important part—we found the city Alisa was in and made up a reason to be here.”
To be fair, I was a little disappointed that I wasn’t going to be able to stick with the rockfish cover. Mostly because they hang out in more shallow waters than these fucking jellies.
“As long as you’re getting information out of her, you can get stung or bit by whatever you want,” Clara says.
I’m fully dressed and decent, so I move back in front of the laptop so I can see them.
Gwen is on her first solo mission for The Syndicate—I think Clara sent her just to see Charlie squirm—and Bea’s phone went straight to voicemail when we started the call, so it’s only Clara, Deniz, and Charlie on the screen.
“It’s been a day and a half. Let me warm up a little,” I say, trying to infuse my normal irreverent charm to hide whatever inexplicable emotion is stuck in my chest.
My first day with Alice was not at all what I expected.
She was…argumentative. Almost combative.
Despite over a decade of keeping tabs on her from a distance, I never expected her to be anything but docile.
Particularly knowing Konstantin would never have tolerated a hostile daughter.
But the realization shook me for a reason I couldn’t pinpoint until late into the night.
It took hours of laying in this bed and staring at the ceiling to accept that I had objectified Alisa.
All these years, I had taken the few moments I actually spent in her vicinity and built an imaginary person on them.
I know a lot of things about her—her blood type, the languages she speaks, the way she prefers her coffee—but I don’t know her.
It makes the work I have to do so much easier. She’s not this shimmering standard of beauty that I’ve been mooning over since I was a teenager. Like Clara told me all those months ago, she’s just a target.
So what if I’ve spent the last decade and a half watching recordings of any event Alisa attended in the name of research to see her face again?
Who cares if it felt like a gut punch when her engagement to the eldest Andreeva brother was announced?
Or that I threw up in an airplane bathroom when I heard she died?
I was mourning the version of her I created in my head.
Every time I thought of Alisa over the past decade, I imagined the girl on stage, the quiet and creative excellence, the sly smile she would give her father at events, the gentle and delicate way she laughed when paraded around by Ilya.
I mourned Alisa, whoever I thought she was.
But Alice? She’s nothing to me. A puzzle I have to solve to get one step closer to destroying Konstantin and avenging the attack on Lucia. Separating the childhood crush from the woman before me is necessary, for the success of my mission and for my own sanity.
I am a daughter of The Syndicate of Fate.
I know better than anyone that the means will eventually be justified by the ends.
Alice may be a victim of her fathers villainy, but so is Lucia.
And my allegiance is to the family who has loved and protected and mentored me my whole life, not the girl I had a childhood crush on.
If I have to sacrifice her to her father, so be it.
“Emily, are you listening to me?”
Clara’s voice is no longer distracted. I shake myself out of the spiral I was falling down and focus on the screen, displaying her very pissed face.
“Sorry, no I wasn’t,” I admit, turning around to load my backpack with the equipment I charged last night. “Was thinking through my plan for the day.”
“Well I suggest you get your act together, because if you don’t confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that she’s not involved with her father, and milk every ounce of information you can about his operations out of her, by the end of August, we will.”
I whip around before I can control the expression on my face, the solar charger for ROV slipping from my fingers and landing with a thud on the dirty carpet.
I’ve known Clara my entire life, so the carefully controlled and commanding expression on her face is easy to read.
She’s pushing me because she knows something is up.
She has since the moment we realized Alisa was alive.
It’s her job to pry and pick at the weaknesses in our ranks, not only to ensure the mole that betrayed her mother is unearthed and exterminated, but to safeguard the future of The Syndicate.
It’s her job to question me, to make me prove my undying loyalty to The Syndicate and our family. Even if she loves me. Especially because she loves me.
“I was under the impression I had until the end of the year,” I say carefully, knowing an outright argument would get me nowhere. It’s only family on this call, so we get some leeway, but even here I can’t go so far as to openly defy an order or question her leadership.
“Circumstances have changed,” she replies in monotone, not a shred of emotion in her voice. “Ilya returned to Russia for a few weeks when Konstantin’s men found what we left of his brother, but he’s back now. Outside of Sacramento this time.”
My stomach dips, fear crawling through my veins as I curse under my breath.
We really hoped our handling of Lev—the obvious torture, the burned remains, the indignity with which we left his charred bones on Konstantin’s proverbial doorstep—would make them hesitate to take more action.
But I should have known that Konstantin would be willing to sacrifice anyone to get his daughter back under this thumb.
“Do we think he knows where she is?” I ask, not certain if I’m afraid of the answer or looking forward to it. I can handle Ilya Andreeva on my own. He fights dirty, but I’m worse.
It’s keeping Alice alive in the crossfire that concerns me. If I’m going to sacrifice my first love, I’m certainly going to get more out of her than an Andreeva. We need Konstantin.
“We’re monitoring his movements as best we can, but he’s being more careful this time,” Deniz replies. Clara’s stone expression softens a little at the sound of his voice. “He’s not going to be as hasty as his brother.”
“Never was,” Charlie mutters, dragging his tattooed hands through his hair. He’s not wrong. The Andreeva brothers were known for their violence, but Ilya’s was always more controlled, which made him far more dangerous.
“In any case, time is no longer our luxury. You get the information we need from her in the next six weeks, and figure out if she’s worth enough to Konstantin to make himself vulnerable,” Clara commands.
Her edict hasn’t changed since that weekend in the cabin, and I still haven’t found a way around it.
“And if she’s not, what’s our plan? Abandon her here and let Ilya kill her? Or worse?”
Charlie keeps his gaze lowered, and Deniz is clearly staring at Clara through the screen. But my Matriarch doesn’t flinch, doesn’t shift a millimeter.
“Her life isn’t our concern. If she’s Konstantin’s victim—and that’s not yet certain—she has my sympathy.
But I am not Bea, and I will not risk the safety of our family and our mission for the daughter of a monster.
” It’s silent for a beat, and I think she’ll end the meeting there.
But something shifts—perhaps she meets her fiancé’s eyes.
“If you think she’s worth saving…well, it seems you need a better plan. ”
-
“I feel like we got off on the wrong foot yesterday,” I yell, hanging on to the railing of this horrifying boat for dear fucking life.
Alice doesn’t turn around, which is fair. I don’t think she can hear me over the wind and the roar of the engine. I’d get up and move closer to her if I wasn’t half-convinced I’d be flung off this glorified dinghy into the sea.
The thought of the depths below me is harrowing. Dark, cold, unknown. Monsters and dangers who can see and smell your fear so acutely, you have no hope of hiding from or outrunning them. Floating in that open sea, with nothing around you for miles, is my version of hell.
Alice was eerily accurate when she said I’m afraid of everything.
Fear plagues every moment of my existence.
When I was young, it kept me from being the daughter of The Syndicate I was supposed to be.
I didn’t want to learn to swim, or wield a weapon, or even try new foods.
Outside of well-controlled environments where I could dictate every variable and predict every potential outcome, I wanted nothing new.
Aunt Lucia blamed my parents. Said they were too soft on me, as the youngest. Though it was uncommon for the sitting Matriarch to take anyone under her wing except her successor, Lucia made an exception, teaching me to face my fears herself.
Forcing me to defend myself against attacks.
Throwing me into a lake and demanding I save myself.
Pitting Clara and I against each other, with our fists and our minds and our will.