Ivan (Gideon's Riders Book 3) Page 6

  He could protect Maricela from physical harm, but he couldn’t protect her from the demands of who she was. No matter how much he wanted to.

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  Over the years, Maricela had learned to treat dances as reconnaissance.

  There was a lot you could glean about a person in a few minutes of chatter on the dance floor. So far this evening, she’d learned that Gabe was her favorite Montero for a very good reason, because most of his uncles and cousins were pushy as hell. She’d also found out that tongues were wagging about the fact that Gideon had chosen to bring his entire family--plus all the Riders--to the Rios gathering. Rumors of an impending engagement had already begun to circulate.

  Which was probably why the Monteros were being so damn aggressive.

  Still, in between the stilted conversations and stomped toes, she discovered some lovely things. Alexei Petrov was a polite, witty man who seemed to be genuinely interested in talking to her, and dancing with him proved a welcome reprieve from the thinly veiled declarations of intent. And her friends were having a good time, something she couldn’t help but appreciate with snatches of their laughter blending into the music.

  Mostly, she realized that she was aware of Ivan. Not in that way where she always knew where he was, or how his proximity made her skin prickle. She could feel him watching her, the soft weight of his stare like the barest brush of a hand. And every time she glanced over to test the sensation, she was right.

  That was new.

  So was the look in his eyes. His expression was set in the same blank mask she’d become accustomed to, but his dark blue eyes followed her with a barely contained heat she told herself she had to be imagining.

  “Your bodyguard’s cute.”

  The words jerked her attention back to Alexei a moment before their meaning sank in, and she blushed furiously. “I suppose so.”

  “All stern and broody.” Alexei grinned and twirled them so Ivan wouldn’t see her blush. “I used to have a weakness for the type. It’s irresistible, you know. Finding out what’s lurking beneath all that brood.”

  She fought a smile. “Teasing people is just mean.”

  “Hey, now. I thought we were becoming friends. And friends get to tease.” He leaned closer. “Anything that gets us through the week, right?”

  “You’re right.” She lowered her voice to match his. “But it’s a sore spot.”

  “Ah. Nothing more tragic than star-crossed lovers.”

  He spoke with enough melancholy to convince her he knew this from personal experience, which was the only reason she didn’t step down firmly on the arch of his foot.

  “So,” he continued, his tone lightening again. “Maybe you can help me out with something.”

  “After you’ve teased me so mercilessly? How brash.”

  “Consider it a business opportunity.” He looked around quickly. “You know one of the Montero chauffeurs is taking bets on which of us get married off. The odds are all over the place on you, and I’m a lost cause, but your friend Nita...” He waggled his eyebrows and tilted his head toward where Nita was dancing with one of Hunter’s brothers. “Any hint of romance in the air you want to tip me off about?”

  The odds of someone successfully wooing Nita were perfectly calculable and exact: zero. Nita would never, ever marry anyone, not even under the fiercest pressure Estela Reyes could muster--not while Hunter was alive. She’d never said it, not in so many words, but Maricela had watched her friend’s infatuation with him kindle and grow into something that nothing, not even him joining the Riders, seemed to shake.

  Alexei was still watching her, so she shook her head. “My advice? Save your money.”

  “Now that’s what I needed. The good intel.” They spun in another lazy circle as the music swelled toward its climax. “Tell me the truth. Does this whole thing get any less awkward?”

  “Hmm.” He’d only been attending the parties for a year or so. He’d never experienced them without the burden of searching for a spouse he didn’t want. “Ask me again in the fall, Alexei.”

  “What will be different in the fall?”

  “Nothing, probably. But maybe I’ll be able to give you a better answer by then. Because right now, the truth is not so far.”

  “Pity.” His dark hair fell across his bright blue eyes as he offered her a smile. “Well, I would tell you that you make it slightly less awkward, but then you’d think I have designs on you. So I’ll just say you’re a terrible dancer and this isn’t any fun at all, and I hope we can continue to not enjoy each other’s presence tomorrow at the picnic or the horseback riding or whatever we’re supposed to be doing.”

  “Likewise, Mr. Petrov. Likewise.”

  The music wound to a close, and a tall stranger with tanned skin, black hair, and a neatly trimmed beard appeared at their shoulders. “Can I claim the next dance?”

  She didn’t know him, she was certain of that, but he seemed so familiar that she smiled reflexively. “Of course.”

  Alexei relinquished her with a bow and a wink, and the newcomer slid into place, clasping her hand in his as the musicians began to play a slow waltz. He was tall enough that she had to reach up to settle her hand on his shoulder, but when he guided them into the dance, he moved gracefully. “I’ll try not to step on your toes. I’ve only done this a few times.”

  Taken off guard, she answered honestly. “I don’t believe you.”

  He laughed, his brown eyes twinkling. “All right, I’ve only done it with someone who isn’t my mother a few times. She taught me because she loved to dance, but I haven’t had much opportunity to practice.”

  Maybe that was it--he was the distant cousin of someone at court, but she knew his parents. “I’m Maricela.”

  “I know.” He spun her around, giving her a brief glimpse of Ivan watching warily. “I’m Lucas.”

  The name didn’t prompt recognition, but he did, so profoundly that she knew she knew him. “Have we met before?”

  “Oh, I doubt it.” He tilted his head. “I grew up away from the sectors. In a survivalist commune in the mountains, actually. Hence why I haven’t had many chances to attend formal dances.”

  “But your family is here. They must be.” More than money, Estela Reyes valued status. There was only one way to win an invitation to her yearly house party: to have a name or position she prized highly enough to merit it.

  “Antonio Montero has taken me under his wing. He was kind enough to bring me with him this week.”

  That would do it. Gabe’s uncle wasn’t the patriarch of their family, but he was well-respected and genial. More than that, he’d developed a reputation as having a keen head for business. If anyone could socially elevate a new arrival from the communes, it was Antonio. “Then I hope you enjoy your visit to Sector One.”

  “Well, it will be hard to top the pleasure of dancing with Maricela Rios.”

  His smile was just right, wide and appreciative without treading too close to artifice. But there was something else going on behind his eyes, something calculated and nervous that left her instinctively looking around for Ivan.

  Her gaze snagged on Isabela instead. Her sister gasped, and her champagne flute slipped between lax fingers to shatter on the stones beneath her feet.

  The music tapered off with a discordant screech of strings. Murmured voices buzzed around the room, but Maricela couldn’t look away as her sister raised a shaking hand to her throat, her lips forming a single word.

  “Abuelo.”

  She swayed, and Maricela dove toward her. “Isabela--”

  Gideon was quicker. He caught Isabela around the waist, steadying her as his gaze raked over Lucas. Emotion flashed across his face almost too fast for Maricela to track--rage, pain, regret--before he locked it down.

  When he spoke, his voice was perfectly even. “I suppose you’re Teresa’s son.”

  “Indeed.” The glint was back in Lucas’s eyes. He smiled at Maricela again before sweeping a bow to Gideon. “Fern
ando Lucas Rios. It’s so nice to finally meet you, cousin.”

  Chapter Seven

  After a late night of wine, dancing, and frantic gossip, most of Estela Reyes’s guests were crashing in their borrowed beds.

  The Riders didn’t have time for that.

  As the hallways quieted and servants finished attending to last-minute needs, Gideon assembled his people in the generous suite he’d been provided. Kora and Maricela were next door in Isabela’s suite, waiting under Bishop’s watchful eye, but Ivan was anxious to return to her side.

  He was just anxious in general.

  Laurel tagged along to the meeting with Ana, and Gideon’s nod of welcome all but confirmed his plans to woo the sniper from Sector Three into the ranks of the Riders. Ivan still wasn’t sure that was wise. He liked Laurel, but she reminded him of a skittish, wild creature. She seemed easygoing and confident on the surface--especially when she was verbally sparring with Zeke or poking at Gabe--but she got a look in her eyes sometimes. A well-hidden but undeniable panic, as if the walls were closing in and she was searching for the closest exit so she could disappear and never return.

  Ivan didn’t trust Laurel to stick around if shit got too weird for her. But he trusted her to have their backs while she was here, so he settled into a seat with a strong cup of coffee and braced himself to have the darkest parts of his childhood torn open.

  “So.” Reyes brushed his hair out of his eyes. “The lost heir of the Prophet’s bastard son. This should be fun.”

  Zeke made a rude noise. “Only the really out-there conspiracy theory nuts in Eden bought into this one. I can’t believe it’s fucking true.”

  “It looks like it could be,” Gideon said reluctantly. “His resemblance to my grandfather in his youth is uncanny. Kora says it’s possible cosmetic surgery could have replicated the features, but a simple DNA test will reveal the truth either way, and that would be nearly impossible to fool.”

  “Nearly,” Ashwin interjected. “The Base has experimented with retroactively altering DNA, but their only successes have been at a microscopic level. Nothing sophisticated enough to counterfeit a familial connection.”

  “It would be risky for an impostor to make such a public claim.” Lucio didn’t move from his spot by the window, and he gazed out over the lawn below as he spoke. “Then again, potentially being exiled from One might be worth the gamble.”

  Deacon gestured toward Gabe. “Your uncle brought him. What did he have to say about it?”

  Gabe’s eyebrows drew together in a stormy frown. “Uncle Antonio wasn’t very forthcoming. He’s never been shy about asking me for favors, but now suddenly this is family business, and I’m not technically family anymore.”

  Hunter scoffed. “Come on. You didn’t let him get away with that, did you?”

  “Of course not. I made it clear he could explain the situation to me or directly to Gideon. But he still just spewed a lot of shit about forgiveness and grace and how if Gideon wanted to hold the sins of the family against the next generation, then he never should have--” Gabe cut off abruptly, but his gaze slid to Ivan.

  There it was.

  “Then he never should have let me become a Rider,” Ivan said as evenly as he could manage.

  “That’s a load of shit,” Reyes growled.

  “Oh, fuck,” Zeke exclaimed suddenly, sitting upright. His wide eyes locked on to Ivan, and the expression there was familiar and demoralizing. “I mean, I learned about the bastard heir and the civil war and everything, and I guess I knew your uncles were involved, I just never...”

  “Zeke,” Deacon snapped.

  Laurel, who had been surveying them all with silent interest, cleared her throat and raised her hand. “A little background here? For the new kid?”

  Half the Riders looked at him. The rest looked at Gideon. Ana was the one who cleared her throat. “About twenty-five years ago, some people decided they didn’t agree with the way the Prophet was running things, so they found a convenient figurehead. The grown son of one of the Prophet’s mistresses.”

  “He had plenty of choose from, I assume.” Laurel glanced at Gideon. “No offense.”

  Gideon lifted one shoulder. “The idea of group marriages had become popular by that point, but my grandmother drew a firm line. The Prophet had many consorts, but only one wife. I expect Abuela Ana is the reason our inheritance traditions are so rigidly defined. She had no intention of seeing her children usurped by the many, many offspring her husband fathered in his later years.”

  “Which is logically inconsistent,” Ashwin said, his brow furrowing. “If any specific divinity could be inherited, all of his children should have equal claim to it.”

  Reyes barked out a laugh and batted his eyelashes at him. “You’re so cute when you’re being stupid.”

  Ashwin glowered at him.

  “Don’t start, you two.” Zeke leaned forward, grabbed an entire tray of pastries--probably meant for the next morning’s breakfast--and dragged it towards him. “It’s too late to be punching each other.”

  “You’re straying off topic,” Ana chided them, then turned back to Laurel. “Anyway, there was a civil war. Fighting, on and off, for years. But it started when the main agitators kidnapped Gideon’s cousin and his aunt.”

  Laurel absently reached for one of the pastries and drew back her hand when Zeke smacked it. “You mean Mad and his mother.”

  “Yeah.” Ana glanced at Ivan, her gaze almost apologetic. He inclined his head to give her permission to say the worst of it.

  At least then he wouldn’t have to do it.

  “It got bad,” Ana said softly. “They made a ransom demand, and the Prophet refused to negotiate. He said he’d had a vision, that he was being tested. So they sent him his daughter’s finger.”

  A horrifying detail, but still so sanitized. Ana probably didn’t know how it had really gone down. Ivan did. When he’d been old enough to understand, he’d made Mad tell him all of it. How they’d held Mad and his mother in a dark room, shut away from light and food and water. How they’d come into that stinking cellar with a gun, but couldn’t bring themselves to point it at Santa Adriana, the beloved princess of Sector One. They certainly couldn’t bring themselves to cut her. So they’d ground the barrel of the gun into Mad’s temple and ordered him to cut off his mother’s finger.

  And, in a dull voice numb with trauma, Mad had told Ivan how his mother had begged him to do it, so desperate to save her son’s life that, in the end, she gave up her own.

  Ivan’s family had done that to him. His Uncle Scott had bounced Ivan on his knee and let him steal the bacon from his plate, and then he’d gone to a shitty, dank basement, wrapped his fingers around a pistol, and shoved it against the temple of a thirteen-year-old boy, forcing him to take a knife to his own mother.

  No wonder Ivan’s mother had gone a little crazy. Finding out that the people you loved were capable of evil left wounds that never healed.

  Ana was still talking, her voice too warm and bright for the story she was telling. “...eventually they got Mad out, but both of his parents died. That’s when the war broke out in earnest. The bastard heir had a pregnant wife, but she disappeared in all the chaos, and then he died pretty dramatically.”

  “But the war never really did,” Gideon added. “I formed the Riders officially five years after the kidnapping, and it took us another eight to bring the sector back to order. A lot of people died on both sides. I guess I always figured that if Teresa had gotten out, there was no way she’d risk coming back.”

  “To be fair, it seems she hasn’t.” Lucio finally turned toward them all, his arms crossed over his chest. “The question is, why did her son? Is he looking to reconnect with his roots, meet his cousins? Or are his intentions more...revolutionary?”

  Ivan almost held his tongue. Shame still burned in his gut, and he wanted nothing more than to escape this conversation. But he had a job--a duty--one that mattered more than personal comfort. “I think his inte
ntions are obvious. He went straight for Maricela.”

  “Assuming he’s being honest about his identity, she is his cousin,” Hunter said mildly. “And less intimidating than Gideon or Isabela.”

  And more useful as a kidnapping victim. If someone snatched Maricela, Gideon and Isabela wouldn’t make up some shit about being tested. They’d sacrifice whatever was necessary to get her back.

  He didn’t say it out loud. Gideon was already giving him that look, the one that peeled away all the walls you tried to hide behind and saw into the darkest corners of your heart.

  Lucas was the son of tragedy, just like Ivan. He hadn’t even been born when the events that had defined both of their lives had transpired. The people who loved Ivan would be horrified to know how quickly he condemned Lucas for the sins of his father, because then they’d know the truth.

  Ivan had condemned himself a long, long time ago.

  “Lucas isn’t responsible for what his father did,” Gideon said slowly, his gaze never leaving Ivan’s face. “I won’t damn him for someone else’s crimes. But Teresa was in the thick of the rebellion, and we don’t know what he grew up hearing about us. So caution seems wise. Zeke?”

  “On it,” Zeke said around a mouthful of donut. He reached into a bag at his feet and pulled out a sleek tablet that unfolded on the table into a wide square. “Check this out. I got the new prototype out of Eden. The best thing about the war being over is that innovation is booming.”

  He swiped a hand over the edge of the tablet, and a holographic display appeared above it. “Sweet, right? I’ll get my group on it, tracking down any whispers. I might even be able to sweet-talk Penny into running some facial recognition scans inside Eden. See if he’s been around for a while and what he’s been doing.”

  “Good. Ashwin? Do you know anyone in the mountain communes?”

  “I don’t. But I know a Makhai soldier who’s cultivated an extensive network of contacts there. I can ask for a favor.” He hesitated. “The Makhai don’t take favors lightly. Indebting myself to him will mean he can call on us for assistance later.”