Page 40 of Heartless Legacy

Chapter 25

Thea

Alexz summoned me to his office an hour ago. We’ve been sitting in silence the entire time. It’s not companionable, but it’s not awkward either. I’m simply sizing him up as he does whatever heads of secret organizations do. He finally closes his laptop and asks, “Are you ready to talk?”

“Are you?”

He moves to the sofa, carrying a coffee mug in his hand. “I know you have questions, Thea. You can ask me anything you want.”

I really only have one question. “Tell me about the day you died.”

“It was early morning, and I was heading home after a difficult challenge. Back then, the road in and out of town was through the canyons. It all happened so fast. There was a truck heading in the opposite direction that veered into my lane. I swerved and slammed on my brakes to avoid it, but was rear-ended by another vehicle. The collision pushed me into the canyon wall, and I blacked out. When I woke up, I was on the side of the road, and my car was on fire.”

“You got out in time.”

“Someone pulled me from the car. I don’t know who. I never saw any of their faces, but whoever they were, they put the driver of the second car in mine and dragged me away from the wreck.”

“Your first impulse was to run, instead of going home?”

“I was groggy from hitting my head on the steering wheel, but I could focus enough to know that the wreck wasn’t an accident and I’d have been dead if those men hadn’t pulled me out of the car.” He takes a sip of his coffee, studying me over the rim of his mug. When he lowers it, he says, “You think I made a stupid decision?”

“I’m wondering why you thought it was safe to trust a bunch of strangers. They could’ve been the ones behind the accident.”

“You’re right, but that thought never occurred to me. I honestly… I thought maybe it was the guardians who saved me. They told me it wasn’t safe to stay on the road and I didn’t ask them any questions as they lead me through the network of tunnels and trails to get to Los Angeles. It wasn’t until they handed me off near the Hollywood sign to someone else that I suspected it was a different organization facilitating my rescue.”

He plucks a scone off the pastry plate and breaks it apart, shoving a piece in his mouth. I envy the people who just eat, without worrying about what’s in it.

“The group moved me from one location to the next over the course of a year until I finally ended up in Florida.”

“Did you ever find out who they were?”

“I didn’t need to know who was keeping me safe. I suspected The League was behind the accident and I was grateful that I wasn’t dead.”

“How did you get here?” I wave at his fancy paintings on the walls. “With all of this?”

He takes another bite of his pastry. The way he chews is slow and methodical. Like he’s savoring every crumb, before topping it off with a sip of coffee. “I’d been in hiding for about two years,and was working as a dishwasher in New York. I had been in the city for three or four months. One day, I got off of work and passed an alley where this woman was being attacked. Everyone else was ignoring the screams, but I couldn’t. I stepped in to help her and got a nasty scar on my abdomen as a thank you.”

I can’t help but chuckle, because I know all about getting scars for helping people.

“It turns out the guy was her ex. He stole a bunch of money from her and she was threatening to blackmail him to get it back. I told her for a fee, I’d get it for her, so I did.”

“That doesn’t sound too bright, considering you were supposed to be lying low.”

“I was working under the table, and didn’t have any prospects for advancement. I couldn’t use my limited college experience to get a job, but I could steal and not get beaten up too badly, thanks to the league challenges. I helped her out, took my fee, and moved on. Six months later, I found myself in New England, near Bangor, Maine. I froze my ass off for a year and worked in a bar. I had a coworker who was hanging up pictures of his missing dog. He was offering a small reward for the dog’s safe return. I did some digging and found out the neighbor he shared a backyard fence with stole the dog, because it liked to bark at all hours of the night.”

I settle back onto my end of the couch as he continues to tell his story. I didn’t expect him to tell me anything, and now that he’s talking, I want to hear it all.

“I tracked the dog to an animal shelter in Augusta, collected my cash, continued working in the bar. I hung around Maine for a few more months. My next move landed me in Monterrey, Mexico, where the organization who rescued me finally gave me a new identity. That’s where I discovered I love being surrounded by mountains. I came back to the US five months later and enrolled in school in Louisiana.”

I jerk up in my seat at the mention of the state my fake birth certificate says I was born in.

“I hung out near the military bases in my off time. Befriended some sailors and got my license to carry. I worked a lot of odd jobs, did security and finally got into PI work.”

He smiles. “It all started to click for me when I ran into a distraught mother outside of a restaurant. She was begging for someone to come forward with information about her daughter. The police had labeled the child a runaway and weren’t doing much to find her. The mother thought the girl’s boyfriend had something to do with her disappearance. He was some punk in his junior year at college, and had been hanging around the daughter since her senior year in high school. The parents never approved of the relationship.”

The boyfriend would be my primary suspect, too.

“It turns out they had reason to dislike him. He was running an escort service on campus. He’d throw parties and invite high school girls to hang out with him. Got them used to the idea of being around older men, gave them gifts and before they knew it, they were being told to prove they loved him and had to earn his love and gifts in return.”

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