Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
“Getting back to the Centers,” she said, “they got . . . not forgotten, but overlooked in the transition from Silence. The Ruling Coalition has had to deal with multiple crises, including the current fragmentation of the PsyNet, and well, there remain rotten areas in the power superstructure that Kaleb and the others haven’t yet discovered.”
“Did this murderous deep-clean squad succeed in their task?”
Silver shook her head. “Not after the initial purge.” Ice in her tone again. “The ones carrying it out appear to have run scared once they realized the old Council was dead in the water.”
“No one around anymore to protect the vicious bastards.”
A curt nod from Silver. “At that point, the Centers were left in a holding pattern—those who ran them didn’t dare raise their heads above the parapet, lest they get those heads ripped off.”
Yakov might’ve been surprised at the bloodthirsty remark except that there was a damn good reason why Silver was mated to Valentin. Honor and protectiveness ran bone-deep in both. “Which brings us back to what you want from me.”
“Yes. Pax Marshall has just informed the Coalition that he’s finally untangled the part of his grandfather’s operations to do with the Centers. It’s a mess. Turns out the Marshall family owns over fifty percent of all Centers across the world.”
Chapter 6
To earn the trust of not just the humans and changelings but of our own battered people, we can no longer act as a closed system. We must welcome others in, as observers, as advisors, and quite simply, as sets of fresh eyes who will see the mistakes to which we’ve become blind because those mistakes are our reality.
—Ivy Jane Zen (president of the Empathic Collective) to fellow members of the Ruling Coalition (7 June 2082)
“FUCKERS.” YAKOV SPAT out the word. “Monsters, one and all.”
Silver didn’t disagree. “Marshall Hyde’s family has never been one my grandmother liked—but we know very little about Pax’s personal ethics. It does speak well for him that he came to the Coalition with the information about the widespread nature of his family’s holdings in Centers as soon as he had the information in hand.”
“Seems fishy it took him this long.” Yakov narrowed his eyes at the black-and-white house cat that had the temerity to pad up alongside Silver and give him the gimlet eye. Cats. Thought they owned everyone.
Lifting its nose and tail into the air, the cat looked away like Yakov wasn’t there and continued to walk with Silver.
“No, I understand that part.” Silver’s words had him glancing at her in surprise. “Psy family businesses of that magnitude are incredibly complex, and Marshall Hyde was assassinated when Pax was only twenty-four.
“While he was raised as his grandfather’s eventual successor, everyone assumed Hyde would be around for another two or three decades at the very least. There are rumors Pax was taking over more and more from his grandfather up to a year before Hyde’s death, but I don’t believe it.”
Silver shook her head. “No matter how old he was getting or if he might’ve offloaded certain duties onto Pax, he wouldn’t have laid all his cards on the table. There is no way Pax would’ve been given access to or told of all of his family’s holdings at once—first, he’d have had to prove himself with smaller and less sensitive operations.”
Yakov pushed himself to look beyond his instinctive revulsion at the entire “business” of the Centers. “I can see that,” he admitted grudgingly. “Like proving yourself as a junior soldier before taking on more senior duties. So do I have it right? He’s asked the Coalition to give him unbiased observers as he starts to audit these Centers?”
“Basically,” Silver said. “In most cases, the Coalition has sourced medical personnel, human and changeling, to go in as impartial observers and consultants. However, this one situation is different—which is why Pax reached out to StoneWater.”
Yakov ignored the house cat, which had come over to twine around his ankles now that they’d stopped walking. Everyone knew felines were contrary. He’d probably get clawed if he dared pet the slinky creature. “I’ve got basic medic training like all of Valya’s seconds, but my studies were in chemistry, with a minor in pharmacological compounds.”
Every one of Valentin’s senior people had multiple skill sets—Yakov’s knowledge as a chemist was more esoteric than most, but it was part of why he handled anything to do with the clan’s natural resources.
He also had a brain that thrived on patterns and order; that was why he’d volunteered to handle all logistics when it came to shifts, training, and general organizing. Yakov was the reason StoneWater always had backup security equipment, and why their juniors never missed out on external training courses. Valya called him the “quiet engine” at the clan’s heart, and Yakov wasn’t mad about it. He liked being the reason things ran like clockwork.