how to get you back out there without Chase spotting you." I grimaced. Even though Zed lived on an eight-acre lot, so there was no chance of neighbors peering through the windows, I was still paranoid as hell having him right there across the road. Exactly what he’d intended, no doubt.
Cass nodded. "I've got a few ideas. We also need to discuss how to handle the Reapers. At some stage, they're going to work out that I'm not dead. Then it'll be a matter of blood betrayal."
I shrugged. "Then I'll squash them, just like I did the Wraiths."
Cass shot me a tiny, indulgent smile. "I'd rather you didn't, Red. I'm sure we can think of something else."
With a nod, I watched what Zed was preparing for me to eat. It looked like he was making some variation on parmesan-and-garlic angel hair pasta. Yum.
"Chase asked me something at dinner the other night," I said after a moment of silence. "About you." My gaze shifted from Zed's muscular back at the stove and across to Cass.
He arched a scarred brow. "What was it?"
"He said that he went snooping through your apartment while we were planning your funeral and that he found a hard drive full of information on Channing Lockhart." I left it as a statement, inviting him to fill in the blanks of the story himself.
Cass tipped his head back against the cabinets, looking up at the ceiling for a long moment. Then he scrubbed a hand over his short beard and returned his steady gaze to mine. "That was an encrypted drive." Irritation was clear in his rough voice.
I shrugged. "Not well enough, apparently." I paused, biting the inside of my cheek as apprehension twisted my gut. "Why were you researching Lockhart senior, Cass?"
Lucas carefully placed his highlighter down and dropped his hand to my knee, squeezing gently in a sign of support, but I didn't take my eyes from Cass.
After a tense moment of silence, Cass exhaled and shook his head. "Because he took something of mine, and I want it back."
My brow furrowed with confusion. "Channing? How? He's been dead for five years."
Cass grimaced. "I'm aware. He took it a good twenty-three years ago. I started looking into where he might be keeping it right before you killed him."
"I don't get it," Lucas commented. "Why would he still have it? Or... where would it even be now? What happened to the estate when everyone was presumed dead?"
"The Lockhart estate was passed to the closest living relative, an elderly third cousin living in Alaska," Zed replied, clearly having already looked that fact up. I'd never even given a second thought to who would inherit the Lockhart coffers when they were all dead, but clearly, somehow, it'd all found its way back to Chase. How else could he be funding his war?
Cass gave a tight nod. "That's what I found, too. Except the old guy is totally out of his mind and nonmobile. My best guess is that he signed it all back over to Chase, under the Wenton identity."
I drummed my fingertips on the counter, thinking, and Zed placed a steaming, fragrant bowl of delicate pasta in front of me. "Okay, but that's a long time to hold onto something. You're sure it's still in the estate?"
Cass huffed a short laugh. "One of the original Fabergé Imperial eggs? Yeah, I'd have heard if it sold. He still had it, the old goat. He was too self-important to have ever sold it."
My jaw dropped, and I wondered for a second if I'd heard him wrong. "What the hell were you doing with a Fabergé egg at age"—I quickly did the math—"eleven?"
Cass sighed, his shoulder slumping. "It's not mine, exactly. It's my grandmother's. I want to get it back for her."
Zed leaned against the counter, his arms folded and a crease of confusion in his brow. "Nadia's? Okay, what the hell was Nadia doing with a Russian Imperial heirloom worth millions of dollars? And how did Channing Lockhart get his greedy paws on it?"
A shadow of a smile passed over Cass's lips. "She was given it as a wedding present from the love of her life, a man named Kristoff Valenshek. He was a thief, and a damn good one too. He stole it from the Kremlin itself, simply to give to her on her wedding day to another man." His eyes flicked back to catch mine. "It was one of those tragic romances, you know?"