I watched James' face, but he turned his back to me so he could look at Constance.
"So, to which non-extraditing country have they moved now?" he asked Constance, his posture stiff, despite the way he nonchalantly put his hands in his pockets.
"They're in the Maldives," Constance told him, her eyes moving to mine before back to James.
"Have they tried to access our accounts?" he asked her.
"No," Constance answered. "Rhey haven't tried to do that again."
My eyebrows drew together and I waited, either for one of them to explain, or for someone to ask me to leave. Silence descended upon the kitchen, and James continued to watch Constance.
"I'll let you two talk," I said finally, picking up my books and moving toward the door.
I heard James sigh. He came up behind me, taking my books from my hands and tossing them. They slammed onto the table.
"Don't leave," he said, sitting down and pulling me onto his lap before wrapping his arms around me. "I'll explain everything."
I wrapped my hands around one of the hands that laid on the table and kissed the back of it in encouragement.
I heard one of the chairs scrape against the floor and Constance sat across from us. She watched Jamie, and I felt awkward sitting on his lap. I made a move to sit next to him, but he wrapped his arms around my waist, keeping me in place. Constance's eyes went from his arms to me before she carefully schooled her features into blankness.
"The Academy is helping me keep track of my parents," James said. "They aren't..." He stopped. "They aren't good people."
I squeezed his hand again as I waited.
"How far back should I go?" he asked, and I got the feeling he was asking both Constance and himself.
She shrugged. "Might as well start at the beginning," she said, giving him a small smile.
"Alright," he started, his voice low. "My family has a lot of money. It's money we've had a long time, passed down through generations. I couldn't spend it all if I tried."
I nodded, but I really had no concept of what he was saying. How did someone have so much money that they couldn't spend all of it in their lifetime?
"My great great great grandfather, he made investments that are still paying off. We have mineral rights, rights to oil reserves... 'money breeds money.' That's what my grandfather told my mother, and what my mother told me. She and my father." He paused. "For some reason, what we had was not enough."
He shook his head. "I don't know what they could have possibly wanted that we didn't have, that they couldn't get..."
"When did you join the Academy, James?" I asked, a sickening feeling coming over me.
"Right after," he said, looking at our joined hands. "Right after I got what they needed to put my parents in prison and they fled the country."
My eyes flew to Constance without my volition. She returned my stare, not looking away until I did. She didn't look embarrassed or guilty, whatever it was they had asked James to do, it seemed she believed it was the right thing to do.
My thumb rubbed across James' knuckles as questions flew across my brain. How did he end up alone? Where is his sister? What did they do?
"Insider trading," James said, absent-mindedly. "It doesn't sound like something that would hurt people, but it did. It hurt a lot of people. They took their friends' money, their friends' families' money, and what really got them in trouble; they stole the government's money. They manipulated stocks, paid off brokers, ruined a few banks."
He trailed off, and I heard Constance clear her throat. "It was a game to them," she said. "They were bored and smart."
"They didn't care about my sister or me," James said. "Before we were shipped off to boarding schools, we were raised by nannies. We never figured into their plans. When they left, they left thinking our trusts were empty, and we'd be put into state custody. And they didn't pause. They didn't warn us. They just left. Moving on to a life of luxury in a country that wouldn't send them back to the U.S."
"It sounds like something my mother would do," I said, without thinking.
James laughed, and even Constance chuckled.
"But, how?" I asked inarticulately, looking around at his house, and thinking about what I'd seen. Money did not seem be an issue.
"Like I said, we had money. Our money had money, and our trusts had trusts. My sister and I, despite everything, are fine," he answered.
"I got in trouble, Lyric," James said, pulling his head back and looking at me. "You should know that. Before the Academy found me and offered me a way out, I lived a shallow, selfish existence. The Academy gave me a way out, gave me focus and purpose. I should have told you. We all should have told you about our pasts before we told you how we felt."
I noticed Constance frown slightly out of the corner of my eye, but when I looked over her face was back to that curiously blankness.
Too blank, I decided.
"James and his sister are both part of the Academy," Constance told me, "though his sister is on an all-female team, rather than on his team."
"We don't work well together," James answered, a small smile appearing on his face.
Constance rolled her eyes. "It tends to go either way with siblings; they either work extremely well together, or not at all. James and Juliet fall into the latter category."
"We're still trying to arrest my parent. Most of their money has gone to the people they hurt and stole from, but they were able to squirrel enough away to keep themselves well-off while they're on the run."
"Oh, James," I said sadly.
I didn't pity him, but I did know how it felt to be disappointed, and generally shafted, when it came to parents.
"My sister and I donated money to the people affected, but every once in a while, someone does a news story, or we have a law suit to deal with. The Academy deals with most of it, they're our guardians, but it still happens."
"So they're where now?" I asked, trying to remember what Constance said.
"Maldives," Constance answered. "Tropical islands with no extradition to the U.S. They're good there for a while."
"Apparently Morocco no longer suited," James said drily.
"They'll be caught, James," Constance told him. "It's just a matter of time before they're arrested."
James took a deep breath. "It can't happen soon enough," he said, heatedly, "they shouldn't be allowed to just move on with their lives after what they've done."
Constance nodded, "You're right, James," she said, "but you need to be patient."
He snorted. "That's never been a strength of mine," he said.
Constance looked over at me thoughtfully, and said quietly, "I know."