Last Guard (Psy-Changeling Trinity #5) - Nalini Singh Page 0,3

now.

He should’ve been scared, should’ve worried. But his entire attention was on the wild-haired little girl who’d jumped up onto a desk to thrust a sharpened toothbrush into the teacher’s jugular. “Run!” he cried. “Run!”

Chapter 2

“The boy has encompassed the newborn in his shields.”

“Is the infant under threat?”

“Unknown.”

—Ena Mercant to Magdalene Mercant (February 2054)

CANTO HAD NO way to confirm if Payal Rao had read—or even received—his message. He’d embedded a subtle tracker in the e-mail so he’d know when it was opened, but it had been neutralized at some point in the process. It had been a long shot regardless—Payal wasn’t the head of the biggest energy conglomerate in Southeast Asia and India because she was anything less than icily intelligent.

Two of the other hub-anchors he’d contacted had already responded to him, wary but interested. But for this to work, they needed Payal. Canto and the other hubs on his list were outliers in their designation because of how functional they were in external spheres. Payal, however, was the one who’d automatically garner immediate respect from the most ruthless players in the Net.

He looked once again at the image of her he had onscreen, though he’d told himself to stop obsessing years back, when he’d first done a run on her. She was of Indian descent. And she was a cardinal. Those were the only two traits she shared with 3K. That small girl had been a storm of emotion and passion, nothing about her contained and sophisticated.

Children changed, grew up. But for 3K to be Payal Rao, she’d have to have had a total personality and temperament transplant. No, she wasn’t the one for whom Canto searched—and fuck, yes, he knew 3K had to be dead, but he couldn’t stop looking. She’d saved him. How could he just abandon her?

But whoever 3K had been, her family had scrubbed her from the system with such brutality that even the might of the entire Mercant network hadn’t been able to locate her. Canto might have begun to doubt his memories and believe her a ghost—but he had a scar over his left tibia that was a physical reminder of the warped “school” that had been his home for five hellish months that had altered the course of his life.

Payal Rao, in contrast, had been educated at a private girls’ school in Delhi. Because he was obsessive, he’d checked the records, even located the class photographs.

There she was on the attendance rolls and in the images. The photos from her earlier years were blurry and of low-resolution—that had raised his suspicions until he’d looked back and seen that all the school’s uploads from that period were of the same low quality. Her name had also shown up on athletic and extracurricular lists.

According to Canto’s grandmother, Payal had even been considered for a Council position at one point. “Nothing official,” Ena had said. “But Santano Enrique noticed her intelligence and ambition. In the end, the Council decided that Gia Khan and Kaleb made the better candidates. My guess is it’s because Payal appears to have a black-and-white view of the world. Gray isn’t her strong point.”

And politics in the time of the Council had been all about the gray. Canto could do gray—he was a Mercant, after all—but not only did he prefer the shadows, Payal had a presence about her that couldn’t be counterfeited. She took over a room, was a cold burn of determination.

Canto wanted that icy flame on their side.

He wasn’t planning to give up if she didn’t respond. This was too important.

“Mercants never give up,” Valentin had rumbled to Canto once. “You just get sneaky.” A scowl on the bear alpha’s square-jawed face. “Sneaky-cat Mercants.” Then he’d smiled with unhidden delight. “Beautiful sneaky-cat Mercants. My sneaky-cat Mercant.”

Canto hadn’t needed to turn to see that Silver was walking toward them. Valentin Nikolaev made no bones about the fact that he was madly in love with his mate. To most people, Silver probably appeared cool and standoffish in return. Most people didn’t know Canto’s younger cousin.

Silver would cut out the heart of anyone who dared hurt Valentin.

It had been unexpected to see her fall—yet not at the same time. Because Canto knew about Arwen, about the Mercant who’d altered the course of the Mercant family … altered the shape of Canto’s heart.

Without 3K, he’d be dead.

Without Arwen, he’d be a bitter, twisted monster.

He’d protected Arwen in turn, paid back that gift. He’d never been able to do anything for 3K, and