Page 74 of Born for Starlight

"I think it's corrupt," I said. "I think children move through it that shouldn't."

"Explain how. Be specific."

I didn't answer.

Because being specific meant telling her what places like Aurora actually did. It meant putting cages in her head the night before she walked in there smiling for cameras. She'd come out of a place with a reputation every bit as ugly, thirty years ago, two years old and half-starved. She didn't remember one minute of it. God willing, she never would, and I would not be the man who handed her the details of what she'd been saved from.

"Matthew." Finality in her tone. "If you can't give me details, then let's call Layla. Maybe she can clear things up. Since her father obviously isn't high up in state politics." A beat. "Yet another lie."

She was keeping count.

I was cornered, and we both knew it. If I refused, I lost her tonight. If I called, God only knew what would come out of Layla's mouth. But Layla could give her the truth about Aurora without touching how I knew it. Without burning three years of work. Without going anywhere near the fact that Luzia had never been my endgame.

The auction was part of it. Dismantling this entire fucking operation was the whole damn shooting match.

I pulled out my phone and dialed.

"Speaker," Angelica said. It wasn't a request.

I put it on speaker and set the phone on the coffee table between us, next to her nail polish.

"Alô, querido." Layla's voice filled the suite, warm and amused, in Portuguese. "Twice in one day. People will talk."

"English," Angelica said.

Layla kept on in Portuguese. "Ah. The movie star is listening."

"I need a favor," I said in English.

"Another one. Querido, you are getting expensive,” Layla continued in Portuguese. Angelica was beginning to fume.

"Come to the hotel. Tonight. Angelica needs to hear what's happening at Aurora, and she needs to hear it from somebody who isn't me."

The line went quiet. When Layla came back, she'd dropped into the same tone of voice she’d used at the fish market.

"Have you thought this through?”

“I said English,” Angelica interrupted.

Layla continued in Portuguese like Angelica had not said a thing. “Have you truly thought about this, Matthew? About your movie star. Will she be able to keep playing her part once she knows what the vintages really are?"

Her part.

I wanted to reach through the phone and choke her. Code or no code, some things you don't say with the woman standing three feet from the speaker. Especially when I still didn't know how much Portuguese that woman actually had.

I looked at Angelica.

She'd gone completely still. Eyes on the phone. Her face gave me nothing. No. She'd caught one kid's question about a dragon. This was fast, grown-up Portuguese over a phone speaker. She was furious at being talked around, that was all, and I filed it with everything else I'd pay for later.

"I said English." Angelica's voice could have frosted the windows.

"What I say in Portuguese is not for you, menina. It's for him." Layla said, finally speaking in English. Then a silence stretched out, long enough that I wondered if she'd hung up. "But fine. I will come. And you, child. You should pray you are ready for the truth."

The line went dead.

Angelica looked at the phone. Then she looked at me, calm and pink-toed and untouchable in that damn robe.

"I'm ready," she said.