"Not yet," I replied, licking my lips. My stomach rumbled loudly, and Zed rolled his eyes.
"Sit down," he ordered. "I'll cook; Cass can talk. Lucas, keep cramming for your econ exam. If you fail that, we will all give you no end of grief."
Lucas smirked. "So bossy." But he still flipped the page in his textbook and picked up his highlighter.
Cass nudged me to take Zed's seat, then boosted his ass up on the counter near the fridge. He seemed so comfortable in Zed's house I could almost forget that he was the reason Zed was sporting a black eye today. Almost.
"I imagine you weren't done when we called you away on Operation: Rescue Seph," I stated, and Cass inclined his head with confirmation. "Well, in that case we will need to work out 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?"
"Sounds like it," I murmured, my heart breaking for Nadia. Why'd she marry someone else if a man was willing to steal a Fabergé egg for her? "So she kept it, obviously."
Cass nodded. "She hid it from her shitty, abusive husband as they immigrated to America. He died when I was six, liver disease from a lifetime of excessive drinking. After his funeral, I found Nadia looking at the egg in the fancy, velvet-lined case she kept it in. She told me not to tell my mom, but I was a kid and thought it was just a pretty egg." He heaved a sigh, rubbing his forehead.
I could guess where this story was going. "Your mom stole the egg from Nadia?"
He shrugged. "Sort of. Times were tough, and my mom... well. She was no gem. I never knew my dad because he was just one of her many clients, but she did her best to raise me. Mostly let Nadia do it, though, while she was off on benders or... with men. When I was maybe eight or so, something changed."
Cass paused in his story to take a gulp of his coffee. It wasn't in his nature to speak so much, and I could tell it was grating on his nerves. It was important information, though. So I didn't offer any quick excuses to let him off.
"She showed up with some guy she claimed to be in love with," he continued, his jaw tight with old anger. "Started bringing him home, telling me he was going to marry her one day. Apparently, they were old acquaintances, which was just a nice way of saying he was a client. This prick had no intention of actually marrying her. He couldn't, seeing as he was already married with kids of his own."
Zed grimaced. "Lockhart."
Cass nodded. "The same. He just used my mom for sex and a convenient punching bag. I couldn't tell you how many times I had to call my grandmother ’cause I thought my mom was dead after one of his visits. Then one day, the stupid bitch thought she'd try and blackmail him, tried to force him to leave his wife by threatening to expose their affair."
"I bet that went down well," I whispered. I'd met Channing Lockhart—knew him far more intimately than I’d ever cared to—and there was no question in my mind that Chase was a product of his upbringing. Channing was as sick and twisted as they came.
"He killed her that night. I tried to stop him, but I was this... skinny, malnourished kid. Weak." He spat that word like it was coated in poison. "One backhand and I was knocked out. I woke up just in time to see him put a bullet through her head. Then he took the egg that she'd stupidly fucking shown him and left."