“Maybe it’s under the marble in the entrance hall?” Noah says.
George shakes her head. “Please don’t start guessing. Trust me, I already thought of everything. It can’t be under the floor because lifting these marble tiles would take a team of guys days to do and it would create a lot of dust and mess. Ainsley might’ve had help, but she’d have to work quickly.”
“Maybe we’re thinking about this in the wrong way,” Eli says. “We don’t even know what this treasure is. We’re assuming it’s something big – like, gold bars and statues and stuff, because it’s shipped in a crate. But Claws’ father is the person who gave Howard this treasure, right? And it had to be something worth giving up for the child he always wanted. So we’ve got to think like Claws’ father.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying we should challenge our assumptions. Until we know what the treasure is, we can’t find it. And if we want to know what it is, we need to think like Julian August. Maybe the treasure is actually tiny. If it was small and fragile, it might’ve needed cushioning during storage,” Eli says. “Or Howard might’ve hidden it inside a shipment of something else.”
“But what’s tiny that could be valuable enough to exchange for a daughter?” I ask. “A check?”
George shakes her head. “If it was a check, Howard or Ainsley would have just cashed it in. No need to hide it. A check also couldn’t be used the way Ainsley described, as collateral for illicit business deals. But Eli makes a good point. If the treasure is tiny, it could be anywhere in this house – hidden in a drawer or stitched into a headboard. It could even be something on paper – property deeds, maybe? Or a really valuable diamond?”
I shake my head. “If we’re thinking like… like Daddy, then Julian August wouldn’t have batted an eye at a diamond. But you might be onto something with the property deeds. That might have value to my father. We should check Howard’s office again, maybe something will pop up.”
13
Claudia
But nothing pops up. And I’m getting more and more desperate.
Cleo and her baby, Nero, Constantine, the Lupercalia wedding, Grey Death, graduation, the guys acting weird, monkeys in my closet, a lion in the swimming pool. Mackenzie and her scattershot bullets of Damocles hovering over my head.
Around and around they whir. All my problems. All my fears. All the evil that could befall my family if we don’t hold back the onslaught of bullshit. The weight of my savage and precarious empire is stacked on my shoulders like Mackenzie’s dolls in that closet upstairs. If one piece slips out of place, the entire stack comes crashing down, limbs everywhere, glass eyes shattering.
I’ve got 99 problems but at least Brutus ain’t one.
Thank fuck that bastard is dead, his body burned away, my father’s murder avenged. I take some comfort in that. It’s cold comfort, because the clock is ticking on my impending marriage and I still have no idea what the fuck I’m going to do, and around every corner I expect to find Mackenzie spraying bullets everywhere.
The next week of school passes in a blur. Alongside the rest of the senior class, Eli and Noah sent in their college applications a few weeks ago, so there’s this restless hum in the air while they wait for results. No one sits still in class. Ms. Drysdale is showing movies in English, and Mr. Dallas teaches us how to make molecular cocktails in chemistry. There hardly seems much point attending any longer.
They only have a few more weeks to wait to see if their hard work will pay off.
I give up on any pretense that I give a shit about school. I didn’t apply to any colleges. I never saw myself strutting around an ivy-covered campus, reading glasses dangling from a perfectly manicured fingernail. I sleep through my classes and wander the halls in a daze. It’s as if school is the dream – the alternate reality of parties and finals and SATs from which I’ll soon wake up.
My real life begins when the sun goes down. When the monsters of Emerald Beach come out to play.
At the rate I’m going, I might not even get my high school diploma. Luckily, qualifications count for shit in my world. I may not be able to name all the Founding Fathers, but thanks to Noah’s excellent tutelage, I understand complex shipping forecasts and ship’s manifests. Piece by piece, I’m putting my father’s empire back together, winning over his old alliances with new deals, playing off factions against each other.
But I need more.
If I want to get out of this marriage, I’m going to need something I can sell other than myself. The secret Livvie gave me is good, realgood, but it’s a last resort – I’d be taking a huge risk revealing it, and I only want to play that card if I have no other choice.
When I crashed the Saturnalia council, I promised Nero and Constantine secrets. I promised an advantage they didn’t have – the face of Mackenzie Malloy. A face that can unlock doors to the elite in this city. And I need to use that face to get them something.
On Friday, I wait for George outside her art class and yank her into a supply closet.
“Ow.” She rolls her shoulder. “We can talk at home, you know. You don’t have to yank my arm out of its socket.”
“This can’t wait.” I’m too amped up, too desperate to act. I hate sitting around in this annoying school, knowing Mackenzie is out there, plotting her next move. She could be watching us right now, her sights trained on me. “You said you had secrets on people in this school. Important families, YouTube stars, etc. I need you to start spilling.”
“I keep it all right here.” George taps the side of her head. “I’ve been saving things up for years in case I need them. Sometimes, just knowing you can destroy someone with a well-placed media leak makes it easier to endure their bullying. What are you looking for?”
It figures George is too nice to make use of anything she knows. Luckily for us, I’m not nice. “I need something I can bargain with. An opportunity that the Triumvirate can exploit.”
“Okay. Well, turns out that Amanda Siegal’s mother’s Gulfstream G5 is actually a rental.”
“What else is new?”
