Into the Fire

^{CHAPTER SIX}

Benny Quindlan had read—at least skimmed—the entire file by the time he left the office. But he still did not understand it well enough to present on it the next day. Oralie would be annoyed, but he had to take the work home, and he would have to skip the evening they’d planned. Third time in the past ten days… actually, Oralie would be furious.

But he knew his uncle too well to risk being unprepared the next day. He’d considered just staying in the office—a space Oralie couldn’t reach—but decided against it. She might, being angry, go out with friends and talk about how he was working nights too many times, and that… would not please Uncle Michael, either.

A man should manage his household well. One of the twelve rules of the family, the unbreakable ones. When he walked into the foyer, briefcase in hand, she was there, a drink in her own hand, and more challenge than welcome on her face. “You’re going to work, then.”

No use trying to explain now. “Yes,” he said. “And no, we’re not going out tonight.”

“Then I am,” she said, and upended her glass, eyes on him as the liquid flowed down her beautiful throat. She knew he would watch the ripple; she knew him well. He wanted to put his hands on that throat, stroke it, lead her to the bedroom… He dragged his mind back to business.

“You are not going out,” he said. “There’s a reason.”

“You got the promotion? We’re going to be rich and I can have that necklace you said was too expensive?” Her voice could cut like a knife.

“Not yet; there’s a job to do first. But the necklace…” It was a small price to pay for her cooperation. “You will have the necklace when I give it to you—very, very soon.” Her birthday was coming up; she would think it was that.

Her voice changed with her mood, and she shrugged. “Well, if you have to work, you have to work. What would you like for supper?”

“Simple. That thing you do with rice would be great.”

An hour later, she set the plate on the end of his desk. Rice with vegetables and chunks of crab meat in a red sauce. He smiled and thanked her; she went away silently, for which he was grateful. The full scale of the plan was just beginning to emerge from its nest of figures, charts, and documentation. Four hours after that, Benny leaned back in his chair, more frightened than he had ever been in his life. His uncle had trusted him with Quindlan’s darkest and longest-laid plans—not just for wealth, but for ultimate political power—which meant his uncle would kill him if he made a hash of it. And the plans were so… he hunted for an adjective and gave up. It was too much, too big, and far, far too dangerous. Stealing a continent was one thing—no one had wanted it, at least not then. But plotting to steal several more, all inhabited and thriving under the current government? Was Michael insane? Were all the elders insane?

He looked again at the security cylinder on his desk, the green lights along its side reassuring. But—for such a plan—could his uncle have planted surveillance even here, in his shielded home office inside his shielded home inside the gates and walls of the Quindlan estate? Of course. He dared not even murmur the thought running traitorously through his mind: I wish I’d been born a Vatta.