Tempest - Kris Michaels Page 0,11

conducted business with Regina. The path she chose to walk after that weekend had been jagged and almost impossible to navigate, but she'd taken a page from her mother's script and for the most part pantomimed the woman, draping herself in a cloak of normalcy. Unfortunately, there were times she cracked, bristled under the armor she’d put in place, and goaded her mother. Times like today.

The main issue she needed to solve was how to get the information she’d accumulated to someone who could do something with it without revealing her as the source. The elemental question was what organization was strong enough to go up against the empire Regina controlled? Her only option was to keep compiling the information, watch for an opportunity, and find a way to make her mother pay for the multitude of sins she'd discovered.

Her rescuer was walking into a maelstrom, and she needed to warn him away. But how? At the time they’d met, she’d had only myopic glimpses of Regina's corrupt world.

In reality, her concern about betraying her oath to the court was minimal. What Regina would do if she discovered Pilar had betrayed her formed the basis of her sleepless nights. The darkness in her mother terrified her. The risk of betraying Regina was one she couldn't take until she found an entity impervious to Regina's money and power. She was caught in her mother’s poison laced web of corruption, intimidation and death. Why hadn't she seen it before she'd been shoved into the cell with him? Well, the blindfold had fallen from her eyes. She saw everything now.

Her mother needed to be stopped, and yes, brought to justice. Was he strong enough to go up against the empire Regina controlled? No. No single person would be able to take on the staggering organization Regina had amassed. If she'd only known three years ago, she'd have told the man to forget her. She stared sightlessly out the window. She had to warn him away, but how could she get word to him? She closed her eyes. She desperately wanted to see him. To make sure he was okay, to know that he'd recovered.

A flash of lightning and an immediate sizzling clap of thunder startled her out of her thoughts. The power flickered and then went out. She waited for the emergency generator to kick on. It took a while, but the lights flickered to life. The clouds darkened the sky and the din of rolling thunder echoed the somberness of her memories. He was coming, and she would see him. If only once to warn him away.

She deleted his draft and closed the tab before systematically closing down the rest of the tabs and clearing her browser history. It wouldn't matter if someone with a computer forensics background looked into her actions, they'd know what website she'd gone to, but she wasn't going to make it easy for just anyone to determine where she'd been.

In the darkness of the afternoon storm, she drew a deep breath and smiled. The day after she'd sent the message, her mother’d had a meltdown. Well, what constituted a meltdown for Regina. It made sense now. The message she'd sent worked. He'd escaped.

His friends had moved quickly. It had to be why her mother had been irate. Cold, calculating, reserved Regina had shocked everyone in her New York offices that day. Her mother was never loud. Never spoke above a flat calm tone. A lift of an eyebrow or a muscle twitch around her eyes were effusive gestures for Regina.

"What?" The threat in her mother’s screech sent a wave of gooseflesh crashing across her skin, and she was two offices down. She made no pretense about walking to Regina's door and eavesdropping on the unprecedented outburst. "Repeat what you just said," her mother hissed. The fury banked behind the words was a living thing.

Whoever was on the other end of the phone call was in jeopardy of losing their life—or worse. She'd seen first-hand what her mother was capable of doing to another human. It had only been two months since she'd been with the man in the cell. Two months of waking up from horrible dreams and worrying about someone she'd no doubt never see again.

"You will find who aided him. You know what to do when you discover who it was." The words were almost shouted before a longer pause. Her mother paced back and forth behind her desk. Her assistant noticed her, strode toward