Rogue Descendant (Nikki Glass) - By Jenna Black Page 0,45
for what happened with Justin Kerner?” Anderson asked with patent disbelief.
Cyrus smiled ruefully. “Of course not. It’s the incompetents who didn’t bury him deep enough, and Phoebe, whose visions weren’t clear enough, and, hell, me because I met with you a couple of times and didn’t stop his secret from getting out. There’s plenty of blame to go around. And Nikki, he hates you, but you’re nowhere near important enough to him to warrant this kind of attention.”
I believed every word of what Cyrus was saying. For a while, I’d allowed myself to accept that Konstantin really was behind the fires, but the motive had never quite made sense. Hearing Cyrus shoot down the theory without even momentarily considering it just cemented my opinion.
Anderson, of course, saw things differently. “Did it ever occur to you that his misfortunes might have caused him to become a bit . . . unhinged?”
“No,” Cyrus said. “It never did. I’ve been in regular contact with him, and I can assure you, he’s acting like his usual, ornery, domineering self.”
“And I’m supposed to take your word on it?”
“Why would I lie?” Cyrus picked up his cup and frowned at the contents. “Mine’s gone cold. Are you going to drink that?” He gestured at Anderson’s untouched espresso.
“You’d lie because that’s what Olympians do.”
“There’s no reason to be such a dick,” Cyrus said, reaching for the espresso without Anderson’s go-ahead. “I’m telling you my father isn’t behind these particular attacks. I’m not trying to tell you he’s a nice person, and I’m not telling you he wouldn’t take an opportunity to hurt Nikki if it fell into his lap. But he’s not going to go through this elaborate bullshit in a quest for revenge.”
“Of course, you also said Emma wouldn’t do this,” I pointed out, more to give Anderson a moment to cool down than because I thought the point needed to be raised, “and she’s the only other person I can imagine wanting to hurt me. You’re wrong about someone, either your father or Emma.”
“I suppose it’s possible,” Cyrus conceded with a careless shrug. He took a sip of Anderson’s espresso. “But I don’t think it’s likely, and you didn’t ask for this meeting because you wanted to solve the mystery of who’s behind the fires, now did you?”
I think Anderson wanted to snap something about there being no mystery, but he refrained. I suspected that somewhere down inside, he had to see where the evidence was pointing, even if he wasn’t ready to admit it.
“No,” he said, wiping the emotion from his face. “I asked for this meeting because I want you to put a stop to it.”
Cyrus took another sip of espresso, as nonchalant as ever. “Can’t help you there. Property damage isn’t covered under our agreement.”
“Property damage?” I cried in outrage, pushing my chair back so I could leap to my feet. “Three people were killed, including an infant, for Christ’s sake. That’s murder, not property damage!”
And here I’d been worried about Anderson losing his temper. Mark’s hand had disappeared into his pocket, and he was watching me with studied intensity. I assumed his hand was on a weapon, and that he’d be on me in a heartbeat if I made anything that he could construe as a hostile motion toward Cyrus.
“Sit down, Nikki,” Anderson said, still calm and unruffled.
“At ease, Mark,” Cyrus said in a similar tone of voice.
I wondered if they were going to tell us to heel or fetch as a follow-up. Mark didn’t seem to mind being given commands. He took his hand slowly out of his pocket, but he kept his eyes on me. I minded a lot more, but I knew emotional outbursts were counterproductive. I wished I hadn’t just lost my temper in front of the enemy, but there was nothing I could do about it now except try not to make it worse. I sat down and tried to relax, though I was practically shaking with rage.
“Sorry,” Cyrus said with a grimace. “I should have known you’d be more upset about the casualties than about your property. I’m sure the intent behind the attack was to destroy something that belonged to you, and that doesn’t fall under the purview of our agreement. Nor do the incidental deaths that accompanied the damage.”
This was exactly the response Anderson had warned me to expect, but that didn’t make it go down any easier. Cyrus made such a good show of being a nice guy that no matter how