Page 42 of Corrupted Empire

“Good morning,” she greets, sprinkling a little more flour on her rolling pin. “There’s fresh coffee in the pot.”

“Good morning.” I go to pour myself a cup and feel Victoria’s eyes on me.

“It’s nice to have Alexis and Harry back,” she says airily.

“Mm,” I grunt, and leave. I can almost feel Victoria’s nervous energy flood into the hallway as she wonders if she’s offended me.

The truth is, she’s right. I just don’t want to admit out loud that it has been nice to have them back. The energy in the house feels different. Laughter fills the halls, and the air feels warmer somehow.

I go back to my office, and it feels like a millennium has gone by, by the time Silvano arrives, a steaming mug of coffee in hand.

“What did you do to Victoria?” he asks. “She’s stress baking.”

“I didn’t do anything to her.” I gesture impatiently for him to sit down. “She bakes. It’s part of her job.”

Silvano perches on the chair, one eyebrow cocked. “When I popped into the kitchen, she had about eight dozen cookies on sheets waiting to go in the oven, plus she was rolling out pastry dough for vol au vents.”

I shrug. “Alexis eats a lot,” I reply. “Now, get on with your report.”

He smiles knowingly and takes a sip of his coffee. “There’s nothing to report. Over the past week, I’ve left a veritable buffet of incriminating material either out for her to find or tucked away in places where you thought she might look. She hasn’t gone to the shed where you used to store the purple heroin, and the cellar has been unlocked, but she hasn’t so much as poked her head inside. Anytime she has come across documents, she has barely spared them a glance, and she gave the guards a good tongue lashing after stumbling upon a gun. On one occasion she even told Clara not to touch a dossier I left on the living room table, and had one of the guards return it to you.”

“She’s being very clever,” I remark.

Silvano’s gray eyes go wide. “Clever? No, Gabriel. She’s being trustworthy.”

I frown. I’m still wary. It has only been a week, and who is to say Alexis doesn’t know she’s being tested? She’s whip-smart when she wants to be.

“You don’t want to believe her,” Silvano presses. “It goes against your black-and-white worldview. If you start to trust her now, it slides her out of the black and into the gray, and that’s going to mess up beliefs that you’ve had ingrained in you your whole life.”

I glare at Silvano, and he looks away and takes a sip of his coffee.

“I am being cautious with good reason,” I growl.

He smiles. “I have other good news.”

I raise my eyebrows expectantly. He sets the mug down on my desk and pulls a piece of paper from the inside of his suit jacket, passing it over to me.

“This is a report from our insider source in the investigation against you,” he explains. “They’ve shelved the case for the time being.”

I take the notice and read through. “I’m confused.”

“Yes.” He nods. “I was too. I had some men look into it and found that a couple of the investigators, including Ruby Flint, have received some troubling threats.”

I frown and look up. “Now I’m more confused. I haven’t ordered any intimidation. Not yet. None of my men should have done anything without my express order.”

“I know. And none of your men did.” He takes another sip of coffee. “According to my sources, the threats came from a woman.”

I don’t know why Silvano considers this to be good news. The only woman I know who is capable of such a thing is Felicity Huffman, and if she is behind this, it means she is planning something worse than jail time.

“Do you want to hear what our mystery woman told Ruby Flint?” Silvano asks, lip quirked at the corner. “It’s quite entertaining.”

I sigh. “Go on, then.”

* * *

After I send Silvano away, I leave my office, intent on hitting the gym for a while to clear my head. He has given me a lot to think about. It’s suspicious to me that Alexis passed all of his tests with flying colors. It’s suspicious to me that suddenly I am a free man. None of it is sitting well.

I head for my bedroom to get changed first but stop when I hear voices around the hall corner. Alexis is speaking to someone in a stern voice. Is she on the phone? I press to the wall and listen, just as a female voice replies to her.

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