Page 114 of Heart of Thieves

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

LOLA

Enzo ripples through the door.

“Any luck?” he asks, then he looks around and realizes where we are. Panic bolts through our heart as his eyes go straight to the photograph on the desk. He raises his gaze back to my face.

Yes, this is how he found out about me.

“What are you doing?” he asks warily. “I thought we were supposed to be looking for my brother?”

I lick my lips, but my mouth has gone bone-dry. Everything in me wants to shout. How long did he plan to hide that my mother made the moonshard? Was he ever going to mention the fact that she might be alive?

But no matter how many questions build up in my throat, the Unbreakable Lie glues my tongue to the roof of my mouth, leaving the things left unsaid to thrash about inside my chest like demons in a cage.

“I was looking for him, but then I came across my father’s office,” I force out, voice scratchy and quavering.

Enzo searches my face. “You look . . . sad.”

I brush my father’s leather chair with a thumb. “It smells like him in here,” I choke out, and tears blur my vision.

Enzo wraps his arms around me and doesn’t utter a word. Perhaps he knows he cannot. It would not be enough, no matter what he might say.

How I wish I could tear at him. Scream at him.

Leave him.

Instead, I cling to him like he’s a life raft in a storm. Because no matter how deep my anger goes, no matter how stinging his betrayal, stars damn it, I would die for him. And I know he’d die for me.

It would be so much easier if I could hate him. Tear myself from his side, walk away, and forget about his miserable curse.

I press my face into his leather jacket, and his hand comes up to cradle my head.

“Let’s find Nic,” he whispers. “And then we’ll win Nocturne’s game.”

I pull back, mopping my forearm across my eyes. “Maybe Nic’s in a cellar? I haven’t seen any sign of him up here.”

“I found a stairwell in the east wing.” Enzo grasps my hand. “Come on.”

We flicker into mist and pass through the walls until we make it to the stairwell. As we descend, Forsyth Lott stomps right through us on his way up, and I shiver at the sensation that, no matter how many times I’ve experienced it, never ceases to disturb me.

As we reach the bottom, a narrow hallway unfurls, and my stomach drops. Could my father be down here? Will I have to see him in his gang lord element once more? I don’t know if I could handle witnessing any more of his treachery right now, not when my nerves are leaping beneath my skin and my mind is repeating the word conduit over and over like a deadly refrain.

We pass several doors, and Enzo and I take turns poking our heads through to check the interiors. A few store books, ledgers, and paperwork. One bursts with cases of pistols and rifles and blades. Another is a vault full of voratium. As we reach the end of the corridor, a clear, gentle whistle filters through the final door, perfectly pitched with a lovely vibrato.

Enzo’s grip tightens on mine as we plunge through the wood and stop short.

Nic is strapped to an ornate velvet chair, head tipped back as though he’s as relaxed as can be. Crimson glistens across his tuxedo, and his sleeve is torn. A garish wound on his arm weeps blood. His right eye— usually glittering violet, is swollen to the size of a small orange and shadowed with deep purple bruising made worse by the sparkling scar. His lips are stained as well, but he seems utterly unbothered by all of it, whistling along like he has not a care in the world.

Enzo releases me, and our bodies materialize.

Nic pauses his song. When his eyes find mine, he stills. “Oh, thank the gods.”

“Thank us; the gods had nothing to do with it.” Enzo surveys him. “What the depths happened to you?”

“That’s a foolish question,” Nic says.

“Where’s my father?” I ask quietly.