Page 96 of Lethal Legacy

Never once did it occur to me to look inside the egg itself. Now, that seems remarkably short sighted, but at the time, all I had seen was whatwasn’tinside that box.

But now, remembering that long-ago conversation, I wonder if my father might not have hidden something else inside that egg. He was a jeweler, after all. One who specialized in designing intricate locks. It’s what made the Borovsky safes so famously impenetrable.

I remember the vault he built, just as I remember the Miami compound where he built it. I ran there after his death, just as he told me to.

But after I saw men arrive at those gates with sparrow tattoos on their hands, I gave up any hope of finding sanctuary there. And the vault had never mattered to me in the first place, beyond the fact that my father had built it. In time, both ceased to matter to me.

I was too busy trying to survive.

As for the man who promised that night to hide my mother and to protect me?

I kick the MTT into life with unnecessary force.

That bastard failed.

So profoundly that I lost both my parents, and any chance at a normal life. He broke his promises to my family. He let killers come to my door. And wherever he took my mother clearly wasn’t safe enough.

I turn the bike back onto the road and roar onward in a satisfying spray of gravel.

I don’t know exactly what I’ve learned through recovering that particular memory. It brings little with it other than bitterness, and anger.

Whatever may or may not be inside that egg can fucking stay there, for all I care. And the name Ilyan means nothing to me at all. I’m not even entirely certain I remember the name correctly.

I tuck the memory back into the box it came from and close the lid.

None of it gives me any idea how to manage either Lucia Lopez or the motherfucker currently attempting to hack into my billion-dollar project.

28

ROMAN

By the time I ride the MTT into the Mercura basement, my mind is laser focused. My past, along with the problem of Lucia Lopez’s true identity, has been tucked away in a box I will open later.

After I’ve taken care of business.

Because that, after all, is what I fucking do.

I walk into the ops center, stripping off my helmet and gloves as I go. “What have we got?”

Dimitry’s eyes narrow when he sees my leathers, but he wisely doesn’t comment. “Pavel?”

Pavel wipes pizza sauce from his beard and blinks nervously behind his glasses. He’s wearing a Thor T-shirt. I cannot imagine anyone who resembles a superhero less, although the way he puts down pizza certainly rivals a fucking Viking appetite.

“We’ve isolated the breach and plugged it. We’re working the trojan through analytics now.” At least he doesn’t try to bamboozle me with tech speak.

“Explain to me exactly what happened.”

“The virus came through the software center upstairs. That is, whoever wrote the virus sent it into the software center first. As you know, Mercura is maintained entirely separately, which is why we caught the trojan before it caught us. That said, whoever wrote it is clearly looking for something. And they know what they’re doing. The trojan didn’t get picked up until it hit one of our firewalls.”

He goes on to explain, in increasingly confusing language, what actually happened. I hear him out. Sometimes it’s worth putting up with geek speak just to get the full picture, even if I don’t understand half of it.

Randomly, I think of Mickey and smile inwardly. He’d probably be able to explain the fucking thing better than Pavel can. I can’t believe that a fourteen-year-old has been left in charge of programming the audio for an entire Holy Week procession. Making a mental note to let him know how impressed I am, I tune back into Pavel’s recitation.

“So the bottom line,” I cut him off as he starts to peter out, “is that somebody suspects we’re doing more than software development here and is trying to find out exactly what is going on. Is that correct?” I look between the nervous faces surrounding me, all of which nod vigorously.

“Right. Given that I sprayed the walls with the brains of the last traitor, do we have any idea who thismudakmight be?”

“They’re not one of us,” Pavel says hastily. “That much I can guarantee.”

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