Charani left her seat and came over in front of me. I looked down at my mother, and in a flash of movement so fast I didn't even see her move, she slapped my face. “If you have any honor left in that black pit you call a heart, you will have answered that question for yourself already.”
“Mother . . .” I said softly, her anger breaking through my emotional shield. “Please, don't you understand?”
“I understand that at this moment, I would rather have died with your Father than have seen you betray your own blood like this. I would rather have been childless than to see this day.”
She turned and followed Jordan out of the barge, leaving me with our visitors and Syeira, whose eyes burned with just as much anger as her sister's, but had remained in control of herself. “You have two options, Francois,” Syeira said, her voice cold and heartless after Charani left. Romani or not, she was an aristocrat, one who'd grown up in the bloodline of generations of ruling people whose code made Machiavelli look soft. “You can either atone for your actions by lending your considerable talents to the rescue of your brother, or you can run. You have enough money in your personal bank accounts that I’m sure you'd make a decent go of it. But know that if you do, after our tribe rescues Felix, we will come after you. No matter if you run to the ends of the Earth, one day you will find my hand on the handle of a knife twisting into your heart.”
I sagged into the chair behind me, tears finally falling from my cheeks. Her words destroyed every bit of resistance left in me, and I felt hopeless, defeated beyond all measure. “I . . . I've lost it all,” I whispered, ignoring everyone around me. “The title, the position, my honor. Even Jordan . . .”
“Perhaps, just perhaps, you have a chance to redeem yourself.”
“And if I try, and I fail?” I ask, looking up at her, who shrugged, crossing her arms. We both knew the answer to that. If I failed, I might as well die beside my brother. “I understand. What can you tell me about this estate?”
* * *
By the time De la Rosa and the men from the Black Sea tribes left, it was nearly midnight. Syeira had left an hour after I sat down with the men in order to learn what they knew, going out to get her sister and Jordan. They returned a while after sunset, carrying bags that ended up containing sandwiches they'd gotten from a street vendor. I noticed that when they were divvied out that I got the smallest, but by that point I didn't care. All I wanted was to regain some trust in Jordan's eyes, no matter how unlikely that was.
I sat up at the kitchen table, staring at the computer screen in front of me. Even I had to admit that I was disgusted by what I'd done to Felix, looking at the way he was being treated. While the reports were jumbled, him being kept in a cargo container was disturbing. I wasn't sure what some of it was, but the people who’d sighted Felix hadn't been able to get close enough to find out for sure. All they knew was that he was being kept like some kind of pet. I was disgusted at how weak I was — at how I let my thirst for greed get the better of me.
I ran my fingers through my hair and sighed, wishing I'd done things differently. I wondered how my jealousy had led me to this point, and what I could have done differently. I wondered if my own ambition and jealousy had ruined my life, and possibly Felix’s life too.
I was staring a hole in the table when I felt someone standing behind me, very quietly, just watching me and breathing slowly. Considering I hadn't heard them approach, I figured it was Charani or Syeira. “What is it, Mother? Come to say that I don't deserve my name again?”
“Actually, I came to see if you were sleepy,” Jordan said behind me, putting her hands on my shoulders. “You aren't going to save your brother in one night.”
I looked up, reaching for her hand before letting my hand fall back to the table. “Why?”
“A question I've been asking myself,” Jordan said, rubbing my neck, “but I doubt that we're asking why about the same things.”
I sighed and nodded, relishing the feeling of her touch even as I knew I had betrayed her. More than Syeira, I had betrayed Jordan, for which I was sorry. “You are right. I assume your whys have been more about why I did what I did, and why I deceived you.”
“Those were two of them,” Jordan agreed, letting go of her massage and coming around to sit next to me at the table. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the wood, and I couldn't help but notice that instead of the simply sexy sleepwear she'd favored most of the time we had been together, she was wearing one of Felix's t-shirts, a blue one that had a high neckline. “Also, why in the world you did it the way you did. Had we never found out, what you did was even worse than killing him. It was beyond low.”