Road To Fire (Broken Crown Trilogy #1) - Maria Luis Page 0,59

system.”

It takes everything in me not to roll my eyes. “Yes, Saxon, a security system. One that’s state of the art, nothing like I’ve ever seen before, and programmed to analyze a person’s identity simply by stepping in front of it.”

Not to mention that this fancy-schmancy tech security system is being used at a dead-beat phone shop in Stepney, of all places. Which means that this building is either not at all what it seems, or the Priest brothers were in need of a testing zone for another locale and figured this one would do.

Either way, it doesn’t make a lick of sense.

How can they afford technology like that? Surely, The Bell & Hand does well—but this well? And why in the world do they own an abandoned building in the East End, in the first place? One glance around the space proves that the ramshackle exterior suitably matches the inside. An old register sits along a far wall and aisles take up the majority of the space to my left. Dust and debris crunch beneath my boots as I turn in a small circle.

Hellhole is a grave understatement.

Saxon brushes past me. “Has anyone ever told you that you ask too many questions?”

“Yes, actually.” I stare at him, deadpan. “My old employer at the network right before he sacked me for insubordination.”

“Seems like he had the right of it.”

Deep breath. Take it in; let it out. Do not kill someone else today.

Fingers tingling at the memory of what I’d done, just hours ago, I slam the door on those debilitating thoughts before they cripple my wits. “Who owns this building? Just you? You and your brothers?”

He guns me with a quick stare. “Sometimes, the less you know the better.”

“You know what I think?”

“Something tells me that you’ll say what’s on your mind, no matter how I answer.”

Disgruntled, I plant my good hand on my hip. “It was a rhetorical question.”

“Rhetorical questions are for the weak-minded.” I drag in a sharp, affronted breath, just before he adds, “Say what you want or don’t say it at all.”

“Fine. All right. Then I don’t agree with you—knowing less makes you a sitting duck.” Restlessly, I dig my fingers into my hip. “Yesterday, you essentially told me that the information I had didn’t interest you.”

“I said that I didn’t want to know anything more, not that it didn’t interest me. Two very different things.”

“Either way,” I bite out, reining in my temper, “you chose ignorance. That’s your prerogative, of course, and I was going to do just that. Lay off and let it be—begrudgingly, I might add, because it was obvious that something was brewing and knowing less is like throwing a white flag in the air and begging to be caught before the war’s even begun.”

“Brilliant visual, Isla,” comes his dry reply, “really.”

Stubborn.

Infuriating.

Man.

“Father Bootham tipped me off today. His and Peter’s stories lined up, even though they’ve clearly never met before.” Lifting my chin, I continue, “You might believe that knowing less is better, but I was always taught to gather the facts, then assess the situation when you have it all laid out before you. It’s what I did as a publicist. It’s what I did on the network, when they allowed me to actually do my job. And it’s what I had to do here, too, to make sure you wouldn’t be utterly blindsided.”

I step forward, only for my wet boot to squeak loudly against the floor. Following the source of the noise, Saxon’s attention drops south. He pauses, hands flexing at his sides, and cocks his head. Something in his expression . . . God, there’s a rawness there that I’ve never seen before, not from him. It’s not vulnerability, I don’t think. Not affection either. Like every other aspect of Saxon Priest’s icy exterior, it’s impossible to put my finger on it and yet I feel that look anyhow.

Slow heat thaws the perpetual chill in my bones when I say, “You should be thanking me, you know.”

“Is that so?”

His voice is deep, guttural, and matched with another deliberate perusal that starts at my feet and meanders its way up my thighs to the nip of my waist, and then, finally, to the delicate slope of my neck. I stave off a shudder. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because the man—the professor—that I-I—”

Saxon’s gaze collides with mine. “Say it.”

Heat of another kind kindles in my chest. Remorse. Shame. Disgust. “No.”

“This is why you first showed up to The Bell & Hand, isn’t it?” Slowly, he