Kane’s expression tightened, his mouth along with it. “The man who doesn’t exist. Yes, I remember. What about him?”
“His people cornered me the day of the heist, after the… fire.” Zaria watched the pale column of Kane’s throat shift and wondered what memories were playing through his mind. If they were the same moments she couldn’t shake. “He knows about the theft, too, Kane, and apparently he’s been having me watched. He asked me to work with him. Threatened to turn me and Jules in if I didn’t say yes.”
“Why would Vaughan be having you watched?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you or Julian tell anyone else about our plan to rob the Exhibition?”
“No,” she insisted, hands going to her hips. “Vaughan fancies himself a kingpin in his own right. He wants control of the dark market. He knows how lucrative the position is, and thinks you’ll be easier to oust than Ward was.”
Kane’s gaze was flinty. “He fancies himself a kingpin? Of what, exactly?”
“Seven Dials.”
“There is no kingpin of Seven Dials. That slum has been anarchy for years.”
“I guess things change.” Zaria shifted beneath Kane’s suffocating scrutiny. She had the unfortunate feeling she knew what he would ask next.
“What, precisely, did Vaughan ask you to do?”
Her blood seemed to slow in her veins. “He wanted information. At first, anyway. He thought I’d worked for Ward alongside you, and refused to listen when I said we were no longer… collaborating.”
“What do you mean, he wanted informationat first?”
“Once Vaughan found out Ward was dead, he wanted something else.” Zaria’s head was beginning to throb, exhaustion and stress making her body protest once more. “He asked me to steal from you.”
There was a stretch of quiet during which Kane pulled at his collar, the sole indication that he was anything other than perfectly composed. “Is that so?”
“I was asked to find a ledger. Some document outlining your dark market clients. I assume he intends to try and poach them.”
“Ah,” Kane said harshly. “Perhaps. Or he intends to leak the list.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because it would destroy my reputation and theirs. Stealing clients is a slow, tricky business. Outing them as having involvement with the dark market, though? That makes me look careless, not to mention would turn each and every client against me. And who do you imagine would be there to save the day?”
Zaria hadn’t even considered that angle. A cold sweat that had nothing to do with the dizziness broke out over her skin. “I don’twantVaughan to have the ledger, but I had to agree. I didn’t have a choice. Not only because I was blackmailed, but because…” She trailed off, swallowing. “I was told my mother works for him. I don’t expect you to care, but if I was successful, Vaughan’s people said he was willing to tell me where I could find her.”
“And that’s something you want.”
Zaria couldn’t remember if she’d ever spoken of her mother in Kane’s presence before. She suspected not—until now, what was there to say? “She left immediately after my birth. I’ve never met her, and she’s never tried to communicate with me.”
Kane’s cool gaze turned even icier. “Then you owe her nothing. Certainly not the benefit of contact.” His words held a new kind of fury Zaria couldn’t quite understand.
“It wouldn’t be for her benefit. I have questions that I want answered.”
“You want to know why she abandoned you.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
He appeared to consider this. “No. I’d want to kill her.”
“Well, we don’t all go around murdering our parents,” Zaria snapped, then tamped down her anger as Kane stiffened perceptibly, his lip curling back from his teeth.
“Are youtryingto provoke me, Miss Mendoza?”
“No.” That familiar dread shot through her blood, a strange excitement alongside it. What the hell was wrong with her? “Forget it—I don’t expect you to understand. I’m sorry, Kane, okay? I didn’t want this, especially when you were already furious with me. But I’m telling you the truth now because I want to helpyou. Not Vaughan. All I want is for him to go away. I want all of this to go away.”
