“We may not have a choice. Benedict brought friends.”

I surveyed the crowd, trying to pick out faces I had seen on Alessandro’s laptop.

“How many Diatheke employees are here?” Linus asked casually.

“Seven,” Alessandro said. “The dark-haired man to the left of Benedict is an aegis Significant.”

I glanced in Benedict’s direction. A lean, pale-skinned man in his late forties sat by Benedict, picking at the appetizer with his fork. Aegis mages specialized in protection. They could throw a barrier in front of themselves that would absorb physical impact and block elemental magical assaults. An aegis Prime could walk through a modern battle with everything from snipers to artillery shooting at him and emerge unscathed. A Significant would be considerably less powerful, but still, shooting at Benedict would do no good.

“Catalina, lean toward me again,” Alessandro asked.

I turned slightly and tilted my head closer to him.

Alessandro smiled. “Benedict is having a fit.”

Looking at Benedict would be entirely too obvious.

Alessandro’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s see what happens if I do this.”

He reached over, took my hand, gently rubbed his fingers on mine, and kissed my knuckles.

All my hormones stood up and gave him a standing ovation. Damn it, Alessandro.

“Careful,” Linus said, raising his wineglass to his lips. “He might explode.”

I finally glanced in Benedict’s direction. He was staring at me with a kind of possessive hatred. If I were in range, he would have hit me.

“What is his deal with women?”

“He’s a half phobic with sadistic tendencies,” Linus said. “He finds pleasure in inflicting torture and fear, and the more exquisite the woman, the more he wants her.”

“He prefers mental mages for his amusement,” Alessandro added. “Maximum satisfaction.”

I turned to Linus. “Why has he been allowed to operate?”

Linus grimaced. “I could give you a long explanation about magical checks and balances, but the short answer is that powerful people find him useful. He’s a known quantity; he’s reliable and rarely unpleasantly surprising. There are a great many things I wish I had the ability to change.”

There were nine other people at Benedict’s table and nine at Cristal’s. Most of the tables around us had filled. Several women were looking in our direction, some at me, but most at Alessandro. Our table remained empty except for the three of us.

“Will we be joined by anyone?” I asked.

“No,” Linus said. “The Society maintains a table for me to use as I see fit.”

If Linus wasn’t here tonight, nobody would have sat at this table. For some reason, I found that more disturbing than all of his turrets, guns, and exosuits.

A handsome older Hispanic man in a ringmaster’s suit of blue velvet strode to the middle of the stage, a top hat in one hand and a cane in the other.

The opening act began.

Chapter 14

The beautiful acrobats in silver bodysuits cartwheeled off the stage to enthusiastic applause. The clowns, the animal trainers in pink, the magician, and the rest followed. The baritone in the ringmaster’s suit took a bow and strode off. The first act was over, and the intermission began.

Soft music filtered in. People got up and began mingling, some drifting to the tables, others to the stage. Half of them could kill me, and the rest would put up a serious effort.

Avoid Benedict, get to Cristal, get her to confess, and go home. Don’t screw this up or we would never find Halle.

A stunningly attractive woman jumped to her feet and crossed the stage, heading straight for us. Petite, with a perfect figure, golden skin, and a wave of glossy black hair, she seemed almost elflike, otherworldly, as if she had stepped out of some fantasy painting. I caught sight of her face. It was perfect. Too perfect, with the same flawless coldness as Augustine.

I knew her. Natasha Popova, Illusion Prime from the Russian Empire. Alessandro’s fiancée number three.

“Do we have a problem?” Linus asked.

Alessandro put his fork down. “No.”

Natasha crashed to a halt at our table, her eyes blazing. “You! How dare you show your face?”

Alessandro smiled.

Natasha spun to me. “Are you with him? You shouldn’t be with him. He’s a liar. Everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie. He isn’t who he says he is. His family is—”

“Do I need to remind you why you ended our engagement?” Alessandro asked, his voice carefree. “Perhaps you would care for another demonstration, right here?”

Natasha froze for a furious second. Fear flickered in her eyes. She spun on her heel and walked away.

Alessandro’s expression turned dark. “See? No problem.”

And that wasn’t weird. Not at all.

I rose to my feet. Both Linus and Alessandro stood up.

“Where are you going?” Alessandro asked.

“Cristal is on her third glass of wine and they refilled her water. She’s going to have to visit the bathroom and I want to get there first.”

“I’ll escort you,” Alessandro said.

“Play nice,” Linus warned.

We strolled through the stage toward the back of the Grand Foyer, where a hallway led to the women’s restroom. We turned a corner, and suddenly the hum of the crowd and the lights receded. We walked side by side. The women’s bathroom was almost halfway down the hall, past a couple of doors presumably leading to other smaller rooms. We were completely alone.

I leaned against the wall by the bathroom. I would step inside as soon as we saw her coming.

We waited.

Minutes ticked by. My skin was on too tight.

Maybe I had miscalculated, and Cristal had a bigger bladder.

Another minute. Two . . .

She wasn’t coming. I started back to the Grand Foyer. At least I could see where she was.

“So, about this business of me lying,” he said.

You’ve got to be kidding me. “What about it?”

“Care to explain what you meant?”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now.” I felt like I was running on the edge of a sword as it was.

Alessandro fixed me with his stare. Magic flared around him, flashing with orange for a fraction of a moment. “I’m afraid I have to insist.”

I stopped and crossed my arms on my chest. “Or what?”

“You’re just going to throw it out there and walk away?” The stalking killer was back in all his glory. “A bit cowardly, don’t you think?”

“Fine, let’s talk about it. When Benedict’s goons chased me into that mall, I beguiled four of them. As they cheerfully murdered their friends for me, they told me this charming story about how they killed a lawyer in his own home. They put a gun in his mouth, pulled the trigger, and left him for his wife and daughters to find. They killed him with no remorse, collected their payment, and then went about their lives, fishing, saving for their kids’ college, and doing whatever else hired killers do in their off time.”

“And you think I’m just like them.”

“That’s precisely my point. You’re nothing like them. At first, I thought you might be, but it made no sense. You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. You’re a Prime from one of the oldest and most respected Houses. You have a noble title. You’re smart, funny, handsome, charming, and rich. If you see a fast car you want to drive, you buy it. If you find a woman you like, you seduce her. You could be anything. Every door is open to you. The world is your playground.”

He winced.

I should’ve stopped, but he’d started it and now I was on a roll like a runaway train. “So I thought to myself, why would a man with your opportunities become a hired killer? It could happen if you were an adrenaline junkie. There probably comes a point when the cars, yachts, and women no longer provide enough of a thrill. Perhaps taking the life of another human being is the only way you feel alive.”

His expression was flat, but his eyes were drowned in orange fire. “So that’s how you see me?”

“A man like that would be fundamentally selfish, Alessandro. He would put his enjoyment above the lives of other people. He wouldn’t give a half-starved dog a treat. He wouldn’t pose for a picture for an elderly woman just to make her happy or comfort a teenager lost in guilt and grief. He wouldn’t fight his way through an assault team to save a girl he barely knows. He wouldn’t promise her that he would stay with her to see things through. Because a man like that only cares about himself. Why are you doing this, Alessandro? What is it you want?”

He just looked at me.

“Will you answer the question for once in your life?”

His face was resolute. “You have family obligations. I do too.”

“What does that mean?”

He didn’t answer.

“I hate you.” The emotional dam broke and words tumbled out. “You walked into my life and screwed it all up. I’ve wanted you for so long, and now you show up, and you flirt with me, and you hold me to protect me, and you tell me things like ‘I’ll stay with you as long as it takes,’ and all the while I have to constantly check myself because I’m scared to death that if my control slips, I’ll turn you into a lovesick zombie. I know you’re trapped somehow, and all I want is for you to be happy, Alessandro. Tell me what’s going on, and I swear I’ll do everything I can to help you. Tell me. It’s driving me insane . . .”