Resistance (Replica) (16 page)

The problem was that if Nadia didn’t tell Gerri what was on those recordings, Gerri could just go listen to them herself—which ran the risk of leading the Chairman’s spies to their location, which would be even worse.

“You can’t listen to those recordings,” Nadia said, glancing around the room to make one hundred percent certain no one could hear what they were saying. “Having them safely hidden is the only thing that’s keeping me alive, and the Chairman would do anything to find them and destroy them—including putting you under surveillance and bugging your phones and computers. If you go anywhere near the recordings, either physically or electronically, he’ll find them.”

Gerri’s eyes widened. “What the hell is on those recordings that’s worth all that?”

“Nothing,” Nadia said, the lie falling glibly from her tongue. It was the perfect solution to her problem, making it seem not worth the risk for Gerri to listen to the recordings. “He
thinks
I have something, but I don’t. When he found the transmitter, he assumed I’d been sending the whole time and had caught everything he said. But I didn’t. As long as he doesn’t know that and doesn’t find the recordings, I’m safe.”

Of course, thinking the blackmail was a bluff did nothing to stifle Gerri’s curiosity. “So what did he say that he’s willing to kill to keep quiet?”

Nadia wished she had come up with this solution earlier so she’d have had time to think all the possibilities through. Making up an elaborate lie on the fly was fraught with danger, especially when she was faced with a sharp mind like Gerri’s. Which meant that keeping the lies to a minimum was her safest strategy.

“I can’t tell you,” Nadia said, looking her sister straight in the eye. “The information is useless without proof, but if the Chairman ever so much as
suspected
I told anyone…”

“How would he find out? It’s not like I’m going to say anything to him.”

Nadia shook her head. “Maybe all it would take is having you look at him the wrong way.” Gerri opened her mouth to protest, but Nadia kept talking. “As long as you can’t do anything with the information, there’s no reason for you to know. Except curiosity, and that’s not good enough.”

It was obvious Gerri wanted to argue, and Nadia couldn’t blame her. In her sister’s shoes, she’d be dying to know what the big secret was, too.

“Please trust me, Gerri,” she said. “It’s better for everyone if you don’t know what I heard.”

Gerri’s narrowed eyes said she still didn’t like it. “Well, I don’t suppose I can beat it out of you. But I still wish you’d tell me. If I know what the Chairman’s hiding, then maybe I can persuade him to—”

“No!” Nadia said, too fast and too sharply. She forced herself to lower her voice. “Don’t even
think
about trying to blackmail him. I mean it, Gerri.”

“Why not?” Gerri challenged. “Don’t you think it’s worth getting our hands a little dirty to save our family from complete ruin?”

“Of course. But do you think for one moment the Chairman didn’t consider the possibility when he decided to break the marriage agreement?” Gerri’s shrug was as close to an agreement as Nadia was likely to get. “He wouldn’t have done it if he weren’t fully prepared to call my bluff. And if he calls my bluff and finds out it really
is
a bluff, I won’t just be ruined, I’ll be dead—and probably you, too.”

Gerri leaned back in the love seat, her nails tapping restlessly against the padded arm as her face furrowed in thought. “He’s a devious bastard,” she said under her breath. “Maybe he guessed you’d be too afraid to try to blackmail him again. Maybe you’re playing right into his hands.”

It was possible Gerri was right, but Nadia didn’t think so. If the Chairman were prepared to give in to a blackmail attempt, then he never would have changed the marriage agreement in the first place. Backing out of the agreement would mortally offend Chairman Belinski and the entire state of Synchrony, and he would not have put himself in that position. Wars had been started over lesser offenses, and though Paxco was much larger and richer than Synchrony, Synchrony’s high-tech military made them a bad enemy to have.

“I’m not going to do it, Gerri,” Nadia said, putting every bit of her conviction into her voice. “I’m not going to blackmail him, and I’m not going to tell you what I heard. Period.”

“Fine,” Gerri said. “For now. As long as the marriage agreement isn’t signed, and as long as Mom hasn’t as good as publicly admitted your guilt by sending you upstate, there’s a chance that we can get out of this. But if they start hammering nails into our social coffin, you and I are going to have another talk. I am not going to let the Chairman destroy our family without a fight.”

If it came to that, Nadia was going to have to tell Gerri the whole truth, no matter how much she didn’t want to. Her sister was ordinarily levelheaded and practical, and she had to hear the sense in what Nadia was saying. But she was also fiercely protective of her family, especially her kids, and she might well be willing to risk both her own life and Nadia’s if she thought it would save the rest of the family from ruin.

Gerri sighed. “I wish I could segue from that into something better, but I also have some bad news I have to share with you.”

Nadia listened with a heavy heart as her sister told her about the death of Nate’s mother. News of Eleanor Lake’s passing didn’t exactly break her heart, but she knew Nate had to be hurting, no matter how many mixed feelings he had toward his mother. She was grateful that she would be allowed to leave the retreat to attend the funeral. It might be the only chance she got to see or talk to Nate in the near future, considering the difficult position his new unofficial engagement put him in—and the pleasure the Chairman no doubt felt in keeping Nadia as isolated as possible.

Just as Nadia thought this, she saw Nate, standing in the entryway. A smile of greeting began to curve Nadia’s lips. Until she saw the girl who stood a couple paces behind him, just in front of his bodyguard. The girl who looked to be about Nate’s age, and who was, as Dante had described her, “not beautiful.”

The girl who Nadia knew at once was Agnes Belinski.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Meeting
Nadia’s eyes across the crowded visitors’ lobby was like a punch to Nate’s gut, made about a thousand times worse when he saw her notice Agnes. Nadia was a pro at hiding her feelings when she wanted to, but she couldn’t hide her hurt and dismay at the sight of the girl who would replace her by his side. Nate cursed his father under his breath for one more act of casual cruelty. Instead of forbidding Nate to visit, or arranging some activity that would prevent Nate from doing so, he had merely declared that Nate and Agnes should spend the day together “getting to know” each other. Nate’s choices had been to bring Agnes along or to not visit at all. He hoped he’d made the right one.

Nadia was sitting with her sister, Gerri. When he first caught sight of them, they’d been leaning toward each other in earnest—and obviously private—conversation. As soon as Nadia noticed him, Gerri followed her sister’s gaze and noticed him, too.

Gerri was like a younger, marginally softer version of her mother. Not quite the cast-iron bitch that Esmeralda was, but plenty formidable nonetheless. Which was only natural, with her being the heir to her father’s presidency.

Nate had always had the impression that Gerri didn’t like him, though he’d never had any concrete evidence to support that impression. She was properly respectful and polite when they ran into each other at social functions or when Nate had attended business meetings with her. There had never been any warmth in their interactions, but then neither had there been noticeable coldness. Until now, when Gerri was glaring at him so fiercely he could almost feel it as a physical slap across his cheek.

Nate’s temper stirred, but he quickly leashed it. Gerri had no way of knowing how the Chairman had managed to force him into this marriage arrangement. Nor did she know that Nate hadn’t brought Agnes with him to the retreat by choice. In her place, he’d have been staring daggers, too, and he was glad at least one member of Nadia’s family seemed to be standing by her. He glanced over his shoulder at Agnes, who had spoken maybe five or six words during the ride over, and those only when absolutely necessary.

“Stay here!” he ordered her, and he had no doubt she would obey. She was very likely the mousiest girl he’d ever met, which made her about the worst match for him he could imagine.

He started across the room, and, as expected, there was no pitter-patter of footsteps indicating Agnes was following. Meanwhile, Gerri and Nadia exchanged a few more words and a hug. By the time he reached the love seat where they were sitting, Gerri was on her feet. The look on her face had not warmed, and Nate was half-surprised his bodyguard hadn’t gone on red alert. He checked over his shoulder to make sure, but Fischer was still standing at attention in the entryway while Agnes stood a little ways off, looking lost and uncomfortable.

“You have some nerve,” Gerri said to him when he was within earshot. She looked like she wanted to skin him alive.

Nadia put her hand on Gerri’s arm. “Gerri, please.”

The soft plea did nothing to calm Gerri’s obvious rage. “It wasn’t bad enough that you ruined my sister? You had to bring
that creature
here?”

“Gerri!” Nadia said more sharply. “It’s not his fault. And we aren’t alone.”

Nate saw Gerri do a quick visual sweep of the room, checking to see if anyone was watching them. Which, of course, they were. Nate was the Chairman Heir, and when he walked into a room, he could be sure his every move was being observed.

Gerri shook her head and lowered her voice. “You never deserved her. And she deserved way better than you.”

Once again, Nate had to wrestle with his temper. He was the Chairman Heir, and people just didn’t talk to him like that. Not only that, the words fucking
hurt.
Nate tried very hard to swallow that hurt, because Gerri was more right than she knew. And until now, he’d never really appreciated just how lucky he had been to have a friend like Nadia.

“I know,” he told Gerri in a tight voice.

She blinked in surprise, but otherwise made no response. She gave him another contemptuous look, then brushed past him, bumping his shoulder on the way by like a pissed-off guy might do. Nate ground his teeth and took it without complaint, watching her stride angrily away from him. She paused for a moment to give Agnes a sneer, making the girl’s face turn a mottled red; then she left the room.

Nadia sighed. “Sorry about that,” she said. “Obviously, she doesn’t know the whole story.”

Nate turned back to Nadia and took a really good look at her for the first time. She was as beautiful as ever, though the powder-blue uniform leached much of the color from her face and he thought she might have lost a little weight. A glance at her hands showed she’d been chewing her nails, a habit she’d broken long ago, and there was a hint of a slump to her usually proud shoulders. She was not flourishing here at Tranquility, and everything she was suffering was because of him.

Guilt ate at him as he enveloped her in a hug, wishing he were smart enough to think of a way to fix things.

“I’m so sorry, Nadia,” he murmured into her hair, and to his shame his eyes were burning. “You know I had no choice, right?”

Nadia hugged him harder. “I know. And we both should have seen it coming. Not that seeing it coming would have helped any.” She tried to end the hug, but Nate wouldn’t let her go. She probably hadn’t had a proper hug since she’d set foot in the retreat, Gerri being too reserved to be so demonstrative in public. He refused to think about the possibility that Dante had laid hands on her.

“Cut it out, Nate,” she protested, pushing against him. “Your fiancée is watching us.”

“Fuck her,” he snarled, still not letting go. He was being an ass, and he knew it. He couldn’t count how many times he’d chided Kurt for swearing around Nadia, and here he was doing the same thing. But there was so much anger coursing through his blood, and he had nowhere to turn to let it out.

Once upon a time, Nadia had been reluctant to criticize him with any real heat. Not because he didn’t deserve it, but because she thought letting things slide—or being excessively subtle in her criticism—was part of her duty as his presumed fiancée. Things had changed between them since the death of the original Nate Hayes.

“I don’t know who you think you’re impressing,” she said crisply, “but it definitely isn’t me. Now let go and show a little class.”

“Bossy,” he teased, though he doubted there was much humor in his voice. However, he’d created enough of a spectacle already, and Nadia was the one who would have to live with any consequences. He suspected gossip was like a national pastime at an Executive retreat—even more so than it was for Executives in the public eye. What else was there to do in a retreat, after all?

Reluctantly releasing Nadia, he took Gerri’s recently vacated seat and patted the spot beside him. Brow furrowed, Nadia looked across the room at Agnes. Their eyes met for a moment, and Agnes turned that particularly unattractive shade of mottled red Nate was already growing accustomed to. He felt his lip curling into an involuntary sneer as Nadia slowly took the seat beside him.

“I take it you and Agnes aren’t like this yet?” Nadia asked, crossing her fingers.

Nate snorted. “I’d rather marry Jewel, and you know how much I hate Jewel. But at least she has a personality, however loathsome.”

“And she’s prettier than Agnes,” Nadia said, and though he heard the tone of reproach in her voice, he chose to ignore it.

“I’ve seen cows prettier than Agnes.” He crossed his arms over his chest and slouched more comfortably into the love seat. “Even her
name
sounds ugly.”

“That sounds like something Jewel would say,” Nadia pointed out, the reproach in her voice growing sharper.

He was sure Jewel and her bitchy friends had said worse about Agnes already. As far as he could tell, Agnes’s only redeeming feature was that she was the daughter of a Chairman, and that would buy her very little slack with the Executives of Paxco. Particularly the teenage ones, who had such a propensity for playing games of one-upmanship anyway.