CHAPTER 27

“L adies and gentlemen, we’re nearing the end of our auction.” Vince is having trouble keeping the gloat out of his voice. Bids must be even higher than he expected.

He’s standing right next to me. I know the bids must be visible on one of Carlson’s screens or Vince wouldn’t be able to make the announcements, but I’ve kept myself from looking.

I’m hiding from reality again, like I’ve done all my life, like I’ve done since that day. Distracting myself with boys and parties and drugs so I don’t have to see the blood. Running away, pretending to be someone else so I don’t have to be the heir of the Highest House. Ignoring the warning signs with Vince and Tori because I didn’t want them to be real. Ignoring my feelings for Mitchell because I was too scared to trust motives rooted in kindness.

I don’t want to look at that screen. Don’t want to know the truth. Don’t want to see the winning bid. But not looking won’t make it untrue.

I need to stop living in denial.

I need to face what’s real.

I force my damp eyes to Carlson’s bank of paper-thin monitors as I continue to coax Ivanov’s melody from my instrument. The first line of screens shows me, rosy and elegant in silk, elbow gliding back and forth, sliding bow over strings. The second bank of screens displays a list of names and numbers. At the top of the screen, older names and bids disappear as new offers flash across the bottom. Vince said the bidders can’t see the names of other auction participants, but clearly he and Carlson can.

I scan the older bids, where several Great Houses are represented. Ones I know have eligible heirs. Ugh . It turns my stomach, but their bids have all been eclipsed, pushed to the top of the screen.

Further down, my mother’s family name flashes in white next to a ridiculously extravagant bid:

CRUZ: 500,000,000.00 CR

Below, in yellow, my father’s surname shines next to an even higher offer:

MEDICI: 600,000,000.00 CR

House de la Cruz is bidding separately from House Medici. The speculation I overheard from Ballga and Mitchell must be true, then—the alliance within the Highest House must have been teetering on the brink of collapse.

I’m sure my father has kept my disappearance hidden from House de la Cruz, probably pretending I’ve been busy at school finishing my thesis year while he attempts to quietly recapture me. But this auction has outed him. And, judging by what’s flashing on the screen, severed the last strained threads of alliance.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to be bought by my mother’s House. Better than going back to my father, anyway. Better than marrying some eligible heir. But with the compulsion implant, the House Council would control me completely. They’d keep doing terrible things and force me to be the smiling face of it all. No steps forward. No change.

New tears of helpless anger well in my eyes as my chin and shoulder continue to press the violin in place. Music spills from the instrument like water spills from my eyes. But I keep my gaze fixed on the numbers, forcing myself to own the truth.

KONSTANTIN: 800,000,000.00 CR

For a moment, I don’t understand why the Highest of the Martial Houses would want me. But then it clicks. They’d have complete, unfettered access to PharmaServe.

And they have an heir. The Martial Houses always have plenty of heirs. Good little soldiers to endlessly swell the ranks.

If I could shudder, I would.

I search my memories of the galas and diplomatic events I’ve attended with my father over the years, but I don’t remember meeting anyone from House Konstantin. The Martial Houses tend to keep themselves aloof from the social maneuverings of the nobility. They have a war to win, after all. Soldiers to train, to brainwash, to send off to die .

I remember Mitchell’s description of his father, though. Cold. Heartless. He didn’t see people; he saw pieces on a chessboard. If that’s how the general of a minor Martial House treats his family, I’m certain the heir of the Grand General can only be worse.

For a few seconds, a few mournful notes, the hefty bid from the Martial House goes unanswered. But I need not worry about a forced marriage when another bid rolls in from my father.

MEDICI: 900,000,000.00 CR

Vince leans over and whispers in my ear, voice strange through his mask. “Down to the wire, DJ Girl. You rooting for your captain? Or hoping for a family reunion?”

“My captain? What the hell are you talking about?” I whisper to Vince as I continue to play.

“Mitchell didn’t tell you? I thought you two had some kind of heart-to-heart back in Dino Country. Kinda figured…” Vince trails off as he stares at a new bid on the screen. He lets out a high-pitched whistle. “He wants you bad.”

I glance at the letters and numbers flashing at the bottom of Carlson’s monitor.

KONSTANTIN: 950,000,000.00 CR

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Your boyfriend? Mitchell? He’s the heir of House Konstantin. Figured it out when the doc let his name slip. I thought you knew. ”

If my fingers were under my control, they would have stilled on the strings. But they keep playing while my mind reels.

Mitchell? The heir of the Highest Martial House? He told me his father was a general. Not the Grand General, tied with my father for most powerful man in the entire Federation. I thought—

But it doesn’t matter.

A pang stabs my already aching heart. Even if he was the heir of House Konstantin, he isn’t any longer. Mitchell is dead…

Isn’t he?

“I heard two shots,” I whisper, not daring to hope. “I thought…”

“We only stunned them. Tori didn’t want to kill the kid. And once I figured out the captain’s identity, we decided to leave him alive in the hopes he’d put in a bid. Thought he might drive up the price your dad ended up having to fork over for you. But this… wow.” Vince shakes his black-masked head in my peripheral vision.

There’s so much to process right now. Mitchell and Sam are alive?

They’re alive.

They’re alive and I didn’t realize just how much of the pain in my chest was for them until now, when the sharp ache is suddenly lifted, the heavy hopelessness lightened .

I may be doomed, but at least Mitchell and Sam have a future. Maybe Ballga’s been spared as well. They’ll keep on doing good, fighting against the evil I’ll be forced to condone.

As the smother of pain and hopelessness retreats, rage takes over. I feel my fight returning.

“Must feel good to be wanted this bad by this many people, eh, DJ Girl?” Vince goes on, unaware of my internal battle.

In a hissed whisper, I lash out. “It feels like shit to be treated like an object and not a human being, and even worse to be controlled, you son of a—” I gag as my mouth closes over the words. Guess the compulsion commanding me to behave like a lady won’t allow me to utter the string of choice names burning on my tongue. “Unprincipled reprobate,” I choke out.

Vince sniggers under his breath at the ridiculously proper insult. Then he turns and speaks to the camera in his infuriating announcer voice. “If you’ve been waiting to pull out the stops, Miss Medici-Cruz is in the final moments of her performance.”

God, I hate him. Lava boils in me, burning so hot it hurts to keep it inside. But what can I do?

Play the violin like a good little puppet and hope Mitchell rescues me? With all this new information, I don’t even know if I can trust him. And even if I could, there’s no way he could outbid my dad. House Konstantin is wealthy, but its real power is in its military might, while House Medici’s power emanates directly from its bank account. In a battle of liquid assets, my dad’s unbeatable.

I glance again at the screen. Sure enough, the most recent bid tops Konstantin’s already astronomical offer.

MEDICI: 990,000,000.00 CR

I doubt Konstantin or de la Cruz can beat that. My stomach knots. Either House would be better than my dad.

My mind races.

I have almost zero control over what happens to me now. I’ve been relegated to the position I was in as a child. Back then, I had almost zero control. But there were small choices I could have made that would have slowly built to more autonomy. I was just too scared to make them.

Even now, even under compulsion, even when it feels like my future is utterly out of my hands, there is one small thing I can do. I can choose to trust Mitchell. And I can try to throw the auction in his favour. Buy him some time.

I draw in a surprised breath. If Mitchell’s really out there, really trying to get me back, he might be counting on me to do this. He might be holding back his father’s final bid until the other bidders think it’s over.

Because Mitchell and I are likely the only two people involved in this auction who are aware that the piece I’m playing has an alternate ending. An ending that’s never played in concert but was found in the composer’s notebook after he died. An ending that adds about ten seconds to the finale. Just enough time to sneak in one last bid, leaving no time for others to counter.

And because it’s technically a part of the piece Vince asked me to play, because I truly do believe I’m operating within Vince’s orders by playing it, the compulsion chip shouldn’t stop me.

I draw out the last note of the commonly played ending, dragging the bow as slowly as possible over the final string. I glance at the screen displaying bids. My father’s gargantuan offer of nine hundred ninety million credits is still the highest. No one’s been able to top it.

I swivel my head to look straight into the camera and in Varunese, which I know Mitchell speaks, but which I’m certain no other upper-cruster even on Varus would bother to learn, I say, “Alternate ending, from the notebook. You’ve got ten seconds.”

Vince glances at me, probably wondering what the hell I’m saying, then looks at the camera. “Ladies and—”

I throw myself into the sudden flurry of notes that many people think was a mistake in the deceased composer’s notes, cutting off Vince’s announcement.

“What the hell?” he mumbles, but he doesn’t rip the violin out of my hands or even stop me from playing. He thinks I’m totally under his control. Probably thinks he misjudged the length of my piece .

I’m watching the screen where my father’s bid still blinks at the bottom. No new bids are coming in. But I keep playing. It’s all I can do, the one tiny step of hope and trust that I can take even when I feel hopeless and trustless and out of control. Like the one tiny step I was too afraid to take that day long ago.

I’m on the last note. The screen blinks.

CRUZ/KONSTANTIN: 1,000,000,000.00 CR

I lower the violin. Press it between my bow arm and my body. I bend at the waist, long dark hair falling forward almost to the floor, like the little girl on the screen. And when I rise, like that little girl, I open my blue eyes, no longer pure but stained with experience learned through many bad choices, and I smile.

But this time, I’m not smiling because I’m a trained puppet. I’m not smiling because I live in a gilded world where everyone dotes on me and I’m unaware of the truth. I’m smiling because I took a tiny step toward change, even when I felt helpless. I’m smiling because I trusted someone, and they came through for me when no one else ever has.

I’m not a child now. I’ve made mistakes, but I’ve learned. Today, for the first time, I did something besides run and hide, however small. And I know it’s only the first tiny step of many.