The True One

Chapter 24

Alek

The wooden door groaned open as I pushed against it. Fourteen concrete stairs later, I had descended into the basement of Treasure Adventures, where Peter, a long-time clerk and an intern at Aurum Venari had told me Norvin was busy inventorying crates of treasure stashes. "Running inventory" was usually code for attending to AV business, but in this case, I found him with pen in hand, counting sacks of fake doubloons. He kept going for a while as I stood silently watching.

"I'm surprised Peter let me in," I finally said. "Did I just walk into a trap?"

Norvin paused a moment, wrote down something on his clipboard, and then turned to me.

"The door is always open for my prodigal son. There's no trap; just business as usual. Don't expect a feast though."

"I'm not returning to the fold," I said. "Nothing is usual about this. And I'm not your son, prodigal or otherwise."

"No." Puffy bags under his eyes gave him the look of an aged rock star whose partying days had finally caught up to him. I hoped, in all my pettiness, that I was a small reason for the exhaustion he bore. "I suppose you never were my child, Alek. Doesn't make the betrayal sting less."

My inclination to tell him off was tempered by the knowledge that he wanted me to respond with hostility so he could justify a harsh retaliation. I'd pleaded with Verity and Flora to stay in the car for this very reason. They didn't need to witness a potentially volatile interaction... or provoke it.

"Can we talk?" I asked him.

He tapped his pen against a box of costume jewelry we used in the Heiress's Missing Fortune hunt, wrote something else down on his clipboard, then walked past me and plunked himself onto the leather couch in the room's meeting area. As I sat down opposite of him, I noticed beads of sweat forming along the neckline of his collar. Either his pants were belted too tight, or he was nervous.

"Did you lose your phone?" He asked.

"Why would you think that?"

"I've been calling and texting you for two days. No response. I figured the only possible explanation you wouldn't communicate with me in a timely manner was that your phone went missing."

As if on cue, my phone beeped from my back pocket. "I guess I found it."

He nodded. "Maybe we should cut the crap now, Alek."

"That'd be nice."

He folded his hands in front of him and made an inverted V with his index fingers. "Why are you protecting a werewolf?"

"Glad to see we're getting right to it, but here's the thing: Verity's not a werewolf." Not a normal one, at least.

"Bullshit. She's been seen. Four legs, fur, golden eyes."

"Who supposedly saw her?"

"Besides you?" He laughed. "You know who."

"Your henchmen are making this claim, I suppose."

"That's a derogatory word that has no place in Aurum Venari. They were just doing their jobs, protecting out interests." He leaned in. "Whose interests have you been protecting? What were you doing?"

"My job. Protecting Verity."

"You know damn well your job isn't to protect her. Christ's sake, Alek, she's the daughter of your parents' murderer. I'd ask what you were thinking, but..." He gestured crudely to my crotch, "I think I know the answer to that."

"It's not like that."

"Then tell me what it is like." He unlaced his fingers and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "What's it like to betray the man who raised you. Or the organization your parents helped build and in which you spent your whole life a part of. How's that feel?"