Ruby Fever (Hidden Legacy, #6)(64)

Matt’s face blanched.

“Mr. Benson,” Nevada said.

Matt didn’t answer.

Nevada picked up the corners of the rug and folded it in half, exposing the dark floor underneath. The chains slid out of her way, shifting Matt aside, and straightened again.

“Last night Xavier Secada put a chunk of metal through my mother’s leg,” my sister said.

Matt swallowed and licked his lips. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“So was I.” Nevada took out a piece of chalk. “I think you and I should have a nice long chat.”

My phone rang. An unfamiliar foreign number starting with 351. Now what?

I waved at Bern. He muted the feed, and I took the call on speaker.

“Prime Baylor speaking.”

“My name is Christina Almeida, Prime of House Almeida.”

Female, young, slight trace of an accent, not Spanish, not Italian, something else.

Bern’s fingers flew over the keyboard. The search engine spat the results. House Almeida, a Portuguese House, old nobility, rich, made money from rubber and cork . . .

“How can I help you?”

Another page of results. Christina Almeida, Magus Praelia, Prime. A warrior mage. Like Buller, who conjured armor, praelia conjured weapons and they used them with deadly skill.

“I’ve come to retrieve my fiancé,” Christina said.

“Who would that be?”

“Alessandro Sagredo.”

What?

A text popped up with GPS coordinates.

You have questions. That’s understandable. Meet me at this location in one hour. Let’s talk.



I showed the coordinates to Bern. He plugged them into the search engine and Google Maps obliged. A park, ten minutes down the road from us.

Arkan made his move. That was so fast. How did he know?

“Will you come?” Christina asked.

An hour was tight, but it was enough time.

“I’ll be there,” I told her.

“Good. I am looking forward to our discussion.”





Chapter 11




“As your cousin-brother, I feel compelled to point out the utter fuckedupness of this situation,” Leon said as I took the turn onto the side road.

“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t use that term.”

“Fuckedupness?”

“Cousin-brother. Pick one, not both.”

The area around the Compound was still mostly rural, with the city encroaching like an urban octopus stretching its tentacles. Fields rolled on both sides of the road, with a farmhouse here and there and small businesses like car repair shops and veterinary clinics sprouting up by the road at random. The armored troop transport rocked as it rolled over haphazard bumps in the road. It was very well protected but far less comfortable than Rhino. I missed our tank-SUV.

Leon checked his SIG Sauer. Runa had heroically offered to go with me on this adventure, but she could barely stand. Besides, Leon had mentioned he “needed comfort” again, which in Leon speak meant he wanted to be useful.

“Is this fiancée even real?” he asked.

“Probably.”

“How?”

“I suspect that’s something his family arranged. He’s been getting phone calls.”

“What kind of phone calls?”

“The kind he takes in private. He speaks in Italian, and they make him irritated.”

The Sagredo family had been overextended for generations. They dragged a mountain of debt behind them, and they expected to sell Alessandro for a pretty penny. They had arranged three engagements for him, and Alessandro had torpedoed every one of them. Trying to sell him for a fourth time didn’t seem like much of a stretch.

Leon frowned. “Correct me if I’m misunderstanding this, but he’s been excised. They disowned him.”

“Yes.”

“So how could they be arranging marriages for him?”

“If something happens and you are excised, will you stop caring about your brother, or Arabella, or Nevada?”

He grimaced. “So it’s emotional blackmail.”

“Probably.”

Our childhood shaped us in deep, fundamental ways, and Alessandro’s childhood was all about taking his rightful place as the Head of the family, carrying on the Sagredo name, and marrying well to stave off creditors so House Sagredo could survive for one more generation. At heart, Alessandro was a protector. That part of him never disappeared; it only grew stronger, except now my family and I were the focus of that protective urge. Before he’d left with Konstantin, he’d kissed me and asked me to stay in the Compound until he returned. If he found out I left on this little expedition, he wouldn’t be happy.

Unfortunately, it couldn’t be helped. I needed to ascertain the scope of this threat.

“It’s a messed-up family,” I said. “His grandfather runs it, and neither Alessandro’s grandmother nor his mother can stand up to him. He wants him to marry an heiress.”

“He has a grandmother? And what, we’re not rich enough?”

“It’s not just a matter of money. It’s about generational guilt and lost noble titles which shouldn’t matter but still do. He wants Alessandro to get a rich wife, come back to Italy, and then sit on his hands for the rest of his life. Because that’s what he and Alessandro’s father did. It’s kind of a family tradition for the men in his family. If Alessandro goes out and decides to make his own money, it will invalidate his grandfather’s entire life. He doesn’t want him to be successful, Leon.”