“He killed Bianca. The guy you jumped. I…saw it.”

His gaze swung to mine. He didn’t ask “are you okay?” because he knew I wouldn’t be, and it had nothing to do with the horror of watching someone die. His arm went around my back as he leaned toward my ear and whispered, “We’ll talk.”

“After we get the hell out of here, right? Before someone discovers the body and finds us hiding under the pool table.”

A small smile. “Preferably.”

I pushed up as he backed out from under the table. I was getting to my feet when he pushed me back under and dropped beside me.

“Footsteps.”

A door slapped open, and Tony’s voice wafted in. “—goddamn cleaners. Just like the last time. Guy freaks out, certain the Cortezes broke in. I say, ‘Hey man, couldn’t the cleaners have forgotten to reset the alarm,’ but no…Gotta be a conspiracy.”

“Bianca’s supposed to be here for deliveries,” Max said. “Could have been her.”

“Bee’s going to forget to rearm the system? As if.”

“Looks like she’s still doing inventory. The hall light’s on. We should tell her about the alarm.”

“And get shanghaied into helping count boxes? Enjoy. I’m heading around back, see whether Guy’s here, if he has any news about Jaz and Sonny.”

We waited until Max and Tony stepped through their respective exits, then hightailed it out.

LUCAS: 5

PORTLAND IS A CITY of many charms. Primary among them is the geography—almost as far as I can get from my father and his Cabal without leaving the continental U.S. As the saying goes, though: act in haste, repent at leisure. I suggested that Paige and I settle in Portland during a particularly dark period between my father and myself, and I have, in some ways, come to regret it. The distance may be comforting, but if trouble arises in Miami, it takes me a while to get there.

While Paige had the insight to pack overnight bags and print out the flight schedule after Karl’s call, it was still late in the day by the time our plane crossed the Florida border.

A trip to Miami is never something I undertake lightly. It is the seat of the Cortez Cabal, and when I am there, I cannot forget who I am.

It’s not that I consider Cabals evil entities. I wish I could. Early life conditions us for a fairy-tale world of good and evil, of wicked witches and beautiful princesses, hideous trolls and stalwart knights. You are good or you are evil and there’s no in-between, no “extenuating circumstances.”

We don’t like extenuating circumstances. They make things messy. We want evil to hide behind a dark mask—cold and faceless. If the villain is not evil, how do you hate him?

If your father is not evil, how do you hate him?

I grew up in a world where the Cabals were clearly on the side of virtue. My family founded the first Cabal in Spain, after the Inquisition. We saw our people—supernaturals—persecuted by a society that didn’t understand that we were not evil, and we gave them a place where they could be safe, and raise their children in safety, and freely use their powers and prosper from them. We didn’t just give them jobs; we gave them a way of life.

I grew up believing in that family mythos. When my father led me through his offices, I saw happy people who smiled and bowed to him as if he was a beneficent king. I was a prince—petted and pampered. Outside those walls, though, I was the son of an unwed schoolteacher, living in a modest home up the Florida coast, where the name Cortez only meant I was “another damn Mexican.” Is it any wonder I clung to the fantasy as long as I did?

Right into high school, to the summer I went to work for my father and walked in on him dictating execution writs as casually as if he were ordering more toner for the copy machines.

I could have plugged my ears and told myself I’d misheard. But my father raised me to never turn my back on a question until it was answered. So I did my due diligence, and found that my palace was built on the bones of the dead. And those happy, smiling faces I’d seen since childhood? I’d play the smiling, happy employee for my boss too, if crossing him meant he’d send fire demons to burn my family alive.

The truth had seemed clear. Cabals were evil. Cabals must be destroyed.

I made a vow, that I’d do whatever it took to bring the Cabals down. A foolish, arrogant vow that only a sixteen-year-old could make, based on a clear division of good and evil that only a sixteen-year-old can see. I delved ever deeper into Cabal culture and counterculture, no longer a prince but an outsider. Instead of galvanizing me to action, the distance only brought the picture into sharper focus. And with sharper focus, I began to see the gradients of black and white.

Cabals do provide scores of supernaturals with a world in which they belong. One cannot underestimate the importance of that for people who otherwise spend their lives hiding. People who have to look at their bleeding child and evaluate the risk of taking him to the doctor. Of those people who smile and nod at my father every day, 90

percent are truly grateful and free of fear.

If they betray the Cabal, the punishment will be execution—horrible execution—but they have no intention of doing so. Yes, they’ve heard stories of families being murdered, but those are other Cabals. Yes, they’ve also heard of Cortez Cabal employees being killed after leaving the organization, but that is the price you pay for reaping the benefits. One of those benefits is security, and if the Cabal must kill a former employee to safeguard its secrets, so be it.

So is a Cabal evil? No. Is there evil within a Cabal? Absolutely. That’s what I fight—the greed and the corruption that arises from an environment where all you have to do is cry “security issue” and you can get away with murder. Yet the world still looks for black and white. In me, supernaturals want to see a meddler or a savior. I am neither, so I disappoint.

I refuse to work for the corporation or take part in Cabal life, and yet I maintain a relationship with the CEO. By naming me heir, my father offers me the chance to take over the Cabal itself, to institute my reforms from within, and yet I refuse. Simple things, one would think. Simple decisions. If you hate the institution, turn your back on it completely. If you want to change it, take it over. Black and white.

Even by coming here today, I’ll displease both sides. To some, I’ll be meddling in Cabal affairs, without even a client as my excuse. To others, I’ll be letting my father sweep me into his world again, on the pretext of helping manage a crisis, as he had with the Edward and Natasha problem four years ago. I’ve learned long ago that this is what I should expect anytime my path crosses my father’s in a professional capacity. It can’t be helped. But that doesn’t make it any easier.