Chapter 13: The Devil's Suspicion

ERDEM

The courtyard attack had left the estate unsettled in that specific way gunfire always did: not in the shouting or the running or the blood, but in the quiet that followed once everyone had been forced back inside and the doors had been locked again.

That was when a house told the truth about itself.

A fortress became a cage.

A family became a target.

And every person inside it started revealing what they were willing to do to survive.

I sat in my study with my injured shoulder exposed while the doctor worked, his hands quick and careful as he stitched the graze I had taken near the upper seam of the muscle.

The pain was useful, it sharpened things and kept me from thinking too broadly. Or rather, it should have.

Hendrix stood near the wall, quiet and still, with two guards behind him and one by the door.

He had been brought here under the excuse of supervision.

Suspicion, really.

The sort of suspicion I did not bother to hide.

If someone had wanted to breach my estate from the roofline, I needed to know whether Hendrix had been the intended target or the distraction.

I needed to know whether the attack had been meant to rattle me, isolate him, test me, or all three.

And because the boy was still standing in my study with a pulse that refused to betray him, I had to accept that he was more useful alive than dead for now.

The doctor tied off the final stitch and checked the wound with a brief, respectful nod.

"That will hold," he said.

"It had better."

He gathered his tools quickly and left.

The door closed behind him with a soft click.

Hendrix kept his face lowered, but not too low. He made being underestimated look easy.

That was what I liked least about him.

I looked at the guards. "Out."

One of them hesitated. "Sir-"

"I said out."

They obeyed, only the door guard remained until I dismissed him too.

Now the room belonged to me again.

I stood and rolled my shoulders once, feeling the pull of the stitches and the dull heat under the bandage.

Hendrix's gaze flicked briefly toward the study window and then returned to the floor.

"You're thinking too hard," I said.

He lifted his eyes a fraction. "I didn't realize that was a crime."

I crossed the room and stopped near the desk.

He did not move away. Interesting.

I reached for the decanter, poured a drink, and did not offer him any.

"Do you know what they were aiming at?" I asked.

He held my gaze with quiet caution. "You."

It was the simplest answer and, in its way, the most honest one he had given since entering the house.

"What makes you say that?"

"The shooter had a clear line on the courtyard path," he said. "You were the center of movement, everyone else would have been collateral."

"I want your interpretation on what really happened," I said.

"Someone tested the perimeter."

"Who?"

He did not rush to answer.

Then. "Someone with enough confidence to know the courtyard schedule," he said. "Or someone who had help."

He was telling me What I already suspected.

Which meant he understood more than he had any business understanding.

I took a slow drink.

I saw his attention settle on the floor panel near the desk, where the access mechanism to the vault sat hidden under brass and carved wood.

I did not say anything yet.

I wanted to know how badly he wanted it.

The doctor had left instructions on the desk. I ignored them.

"You know what you are to me?" I asked.

Hendrix's expression did no cahnge. "Your informant."

"Good."

I walked around the desk slowly, watching him the whole time.

The wound had stiffened on my shoulder, but pain was a small price for clarity. The attack had made one fact obvious: there were still eyes on this house from outside, and Hendrix was at the center of too many of them.

That meant I needed to place him where I could monitor both his movements and mine.

I stopped near a portrait.

My father stared back at the room from the frame, painted in the old formal style, one hand on the arm of a chair.

Hendrix followed the motion before he could stop himself.

There.

I sat the glass down.

"You can keep pretending not to be interested," I said. "It won't help."

He looked at me then, fully.

"Interested in what?"

"The room."

He did not answer.

The silence between us lengthened.

Then I said, "You're too curious for your own good."

A faint pulse at the side of his throat. That was all.

The truth was simple. He wanted something here, something beneath the estate, but I didn't seem to care what it was.

I just liked the fact that he had the courage, and I wondered what he would look like if I removed the little control I have on him.

The thought was ugly.

"Stay in this room tonight," I said.

His brows moved, very slightly. "Because of the attack?"

"Because I said so."

I reached for the case file sitting open on the desk and tapped it once with two fingers.

"You'll sleep here," I said. "And you can keep looking at the wall like it owes you something."

"Maybe it does," he said.

I smiled.

"Just be careful." I said.

If he wanted something here, he would have to move through me to reach it.

That thought pleased me more than it should have. I did not examine why.

HENDRIX

I stood near the wall where he had left me.

He had not spoken to me in several minutes, maybe he was thinking about something he didn't want to say.

"There's something I should tell you." I said carefully.

Erdem did not look surprised. "What?"

"I'm not sure it matters."

That got his attention.

He leaned back slightly, one hand resting on the desk. "Tell me."

"I heard something." I said. "Someone told me before, that there were plans to sell information to Niko Arzan."

Erdem's gaze sharpened.

"He mentioned routes," I said. "Schedules. A transfer window. Names of men who were supposed to move out of the east wing and into the lower storage chain."

That part was partly true, which made it easier to burry the lie.

I had heard them from servants, from the kind of careless conversation that happened when men thought no one important was listening.

I had already heard from Vera that Niko Arzan was already a pressure point to Erdem.

The idea that outsiders were feeding him information about the estate would matter more than the source.

"Who told you?"

My face was still, as our eyes met.

"A man I used to know."

"That's not an answer, Hendrix."

"It's all I can give right now."

There was the slightest pause.

Then he said, "You're offering me information without naming the source."

"If I name him, he might die and if he dies you will lose the possibility of tracing who really sold you out."

"Why should I believe that?" He asked.

"You always think I'm lying."

"That's because you keep proving me right."

The words should have irritated me more than they did, instead they told me exactly where the conversation was going.

He was not rejecting the story.

I stepped a little closer, lowering my voice.

"If Niko is getting information from inside my former group, then there may be a reason they mentioned it to me."

Erdem watched me for a long moment.

Then: "Why tell me now? You had already heard about this before coming to my house."

Because I need the house distracted, I thought.

Because I need the estate in motion so I can search what you won't let me near.

Instead I said, "Because if there's a leak, you'll want to close it before Arzan uses it."