I’d known that, but I’d allowed Priya’s optimistic beliefs to influence me otherwise.
My bestie arrived next with Mrs. Hudson. Priya picked non-existent lint off her polka-dotted wrap dress. “Are you finished being a little bitch?”
I reached for the dog but Priya pulled her out of repossession range. “Yeah. Sorry I hung up on you.”
“Sorry I poked shit you didn’t want poked.” Priya unclipped Mrs. Hudson from her leash.
Mrs. Hudson barked joyously, immediately sniffing around.
A flurry of chimes went off and Arkady punched the air. “Nailed you, sucker.”
Priya ruffled his hair. “Oh, you sad, sad junkie.”
“Don’t be jealous that you couldn’t get past level two.” He slung an arm around her waist. “We can’t all be brilliant unicorn assassins.”
Mock-affronted, Priya knuckled the top of his head.
I pressed my lips tight, not wondering at all about the dumb app they played together, and moved over so Pri could sit on the sofa.
Rafael hurried in, his cheeks pink with exertion, holding two mugs wafting Earl Grey–scented steam. He handed one to Pri. “I thought, perhaps, you could use this pick-me-up.”
Her face lit up and she took the drink from him. “Thank you. That’s so sweet.”
“What about me?” I said.
He frowned. “Don’t you usually drink coffee?”
“Lovely of you to notice. Did you bring me one?”
“I—uh—no?” Whose Attendant was he anyway?
Levi entered at that moment and shut the door. Rafael gave him a grateful glance and squished in between Priya and me.
“Everyone’s here.” Levi exuded haughtiness in his sharp black suit and slicked-back hair. “Good.” He strode over to his desk, ribbing Arkady and Miles about their shit taste in some movie they’d dragged him to, teasing Priya about her caffeine consumption, and even asking Rafael if he’d enjoyed that restaurant Levi had suggested the other day.
New furniture, new friend group—my, His Lordship had been busy. I dug my boot heel against the couch to leave a black mark.
Levi could keep Miles. However, even if I was pissed at Arkady, he’d been my friend, not Levi’s, so Montefiore had no business going to movies with him, regardless of Arkady’s relationship with Miles. As for Priya and Rafael? They were right out as anything other than Levi’s professional acquaintances.
I calmed down with my alphabetizing technique.
Asphyxiation, bludgeoning, choking, decapitation… my spirits were lifting already. “Is this or is this not a work meeting?” I said. “Because I have things to do.”
“That’s right. Your noble calling leaves little room for relationships.” Levi tugged his cuffs straight.
“And yet, how nice to be a man of leisure and have all the time in the world for them.”
Miles and Arkady shot me displeased looks at insulting Levi, but Priya and Rafael covered smiles, which cheered me up immeasurably.
Levi’s lips quirked and my heart leapt. It was almost like the old days, trading barbs and smirking at each other. Or, like playing at a magician’s booth, tracking the ball as it sped from cup to cup, and feeling certain of your choice. But I’d lifted the cup without the ball under it yet again, because he wiped his expression carefully blank, nodded, and said, “Let’s begin.”
Chapter 4
To add insult to injury, Mrs. Hudson scampered over to Levi, pawing at the hem of his trousers.
I crossed over to grab her, just as Levi bent down. Our hands brushed and a tingle went up my arm.
Without looking at me, he handed me the dog, who whined softly. “As most of you know,” he said, “for the past two months, I’ve attempted to find proof tying Jackson Wu to the money laundering in Hedon.”
He had? From the others’ expressions, this was only news to Rafael and me.
“The contact there, Luca Bianchi, has been deemed off-limits by the Queen,” Levi said, “and the team led by Priya and Miles haven’t uncovered any irregularities in this company’s accounting practices.”
Priya made a frustrated noise. “They’ve hidden their tracks well.”
She’d moved from overhauling House cybersecurity to this? Why hadn’t she said anything?
This was supposed to be a meeting of Team Jezebel, but the lines had been redrawn. It was Team House Pacifica with Rafael and I the only ones left in the dark. I cut a sideways glance at my Attendant. Was he a shell game of an entirely different sort, only loyal because of what I represented as a Jezebel?
I shoved those doubts deep inside me. “Why am I only finding this out now?”
“I wasn’t aware I was accountable to you,” Levi said.
“I brokered the alliance with the Queen that got you the damn information in the first place and my mother’s career is tied to the party. I should have been looped in.”
Priya dropped her gaze to her half-empty cup.
Rafael shot her a troubled look. “Ash…”
“Why?” Arkady said. “The bulk of the work required computer skills you don’t have and I handled the undercover operation.” His loyalty had always been with Levi, but it still hurt.
And Levi? He watched the proceedings with a vaguely impatient expression.
I picked up Mrs. H’s leash and wound it around my hands. “I didn’t ask to be part of it, but it’s rude to use me when it’s convenient and then cut me out.”
“I’m including you now,” Levi said.
“Because you need me for something.” I snapped the leash tight.
Rafael elbowed me and I set the leash down on the arm of the sofa.
Levi propped his hip against the desk. “Yes, Ashira. That’s how it works. I’m House Head and I decide how and when people are brought in.”
We were back to full name usage, were we? A muscle ticked in my jaw and I saluted him. “Aye aye, boss.”
Mrs. Hudson trotted under Levi’s desk, pushing a fallen paper clip with her nose.
“Arkady, fill them in,” Levi said.
“Jackson Wu started his career as a business grad,” Arkady said. “His first job out of university was working for the Allegra Group, a property development company started by Richard Frieden.”
“Frieden was one of the original founders of the Untainted Party,” I said to Rafael, who was looking lost.
“Wu was the golden boy being groomed to eventually take over the company, until his abrupt switch to politics about seven years ago,” Arkady said.
“Frieden was grooming him in other respects,” Rafael said.
Arkady draped his elbows over the back of the chair. “Yeah, but even after Wu left Allegra, he remained the second-highest shareholder in the company after Frieden. Richard’s shares were distributed amongst his family when he died.”
“Even so,” I said, “Jackson wasn’t working directly for the company when the money laundering happened. If the extent of his involvement is as a shareholder, that gives him a lot of plausible deniability.”
Levi’s computer chimed with a notification. He glanced at it and shut the laptop. “All our fact gathering indicates that Jackson is still very hands-on with Allegra. There’s no way he was in the dark. That said, we still need hard proof to bring him down and destroy his credibility so he can’t move this legislation forward.”