I’d rather be in New Bristol with her. It’s probably freezing cold and the food sucks, but Pandora’s presence alone would make it better than sitting here, awkward with my parents and fucking Ezio.
Mom smiles at me, though the tension doesn’t ebb nearly as much as it should.
I wonder what she knows.
“That’s a great idea,” she says. “Thank you for sending those seeds. They’ve already sprouted. They’ll be beautiful.”
“Wasn’t Zayden a botany student?” Ezio asks. “I think he was working on dahlia variants too. It’s a shame we still haven’t been able to track him down.”
I don’t react to the comment. I might not be as experienced as my father, but I’ve had plenty of training in maintaining a poker face.
Besides, Zayden’s disappearance is actually trivial compared to my father’s secret.
Zayden is one guy, and he was unimportant in the grand scheme of things.
My father’s secret could start a war with an entire organization.
If I tell Cedric Corroux, would he support me, or would he take it out on me?
If I tell the Corroux twins, would their world view be destroyed?
Does my mother already know? If she doesn’t, does she deserve to know? Ignorance is bliss, until it isn’t. Until it comes to bite you in the ass.
“It really is a shame,” I agree. “Zayden was all right.”
Mom gives me an odd look. “Are you done? Let’s go see the greenhouse,” she says, rising from the table.
“Yeah.” I shove away from the table. My plate is empty except for the bacon, and I know that’ll piss my father off.
Giulio Pavone never tried to insist I eat meat at Thanksgiving. He didn’t put any on my plate, and there’d been plenty of vegetarian food for me to enjoy.
I can’t believe I have something nice to say about Giulio Pavone.
“We’ll talk later,” my dad calls out to me as my mother and I leave.
I can feel Ezio’s eyes boring into the back of my neck.
I follow my mom to the greenhouse. The weather is wet, but the temperature is pleasant compared to the stiff cold of the Northeast. And once inside the greenhouse, I’m downright warm.
“What’s up?” I ask my mom as we walk down the rows.
She falls silent, which is so unusual for her that it makes the concern ratchet up. “You know I’m not involved in any of the family business,” she begins, “but…”
Mom exhales slowly, and for a moment, I think she’s going to stop there.
Instead, she squares her shoulders. “I need you to be very careful, Blaze. Please be careful about who you trust.”
She’s worried about me. Does she know something I don’t, or is this because of the tension between me and Dad?
My lips part while I consider what to say. I settle on, “I’m always careful, Mom. But what brought this on?”
“Bemorecareful,” she says, leading me over to where seedlings have begun to sprout in their pots. “I don’t know what happened between you and your father, but he’s not taking it particularly well. I don’t think he’d take it out directly on you, but you know how these things work.”
“What happened?” I ask sharply. “Did he do something to you, Mom? Because I won’t forgive him if he did.”
“No, no,” she hurries to say. “Nothing like that.” She won’t look at me, though. “I don’t know details, Blaze, or I’d tell you. But I overheard him and Ezio talking to someone named ‘Lynx’ the other day. A code name, obviously.”
Lynx.
