Kurt shook his head and looked at Nate with open shock. “What the fuck is this secret you think is big enough to make your father resign?”
“Language,” Nate reminded him automatically, then wanted to kick himself. Kurt wasn’t his valet anymore, and it was no longer important that he learn to act socially acceptable in the Executive world. If he wanted to curse, he had every right to, despite the way it made Agnes squirm. Nadia, at least, had been around Kurt long enough to be inured to his fouler moments.
Kurt arched an eyebrow at him and affected an upper-crust accent. “I beg your pardon, Miss Belinski, Miss Lake.”
“Oh, stuff it!” Nadia said while Agnes looked around as if in search of a place to hide. Nadia spared Kurt only a brief scowl before turning her attention back to Nate. “Your plan is to take over as Chairman of Paxco.”
It sounded so … ridiculous when said out loud like that. Nate had to resist the urge to duck his head and hunch his shoulders in embarrassment.
“Um, basically, yes,” he said, no doubt cementing everyone’s opinion of him as a firm and decisive leader. He cleared his throat. “I couldn’t be much worse than my father right now. Especially if Thea’s still got her hooks in him, which she obviously does. And if I’m Chairman, I can make sure Thea is shut down permanently.”
The loss of income Paxco would suffer without the Replica program would no doubt make Nate the most hated Chairman in his state’s history, but it was the right thing to do. And surely their economy would recover eventually. Maybe it would even become more healthy, no longer relying so heavily on a single source of revenue.
“I know it sounds crazy,” Nate said. “But if you accept what I said about us not being safe as long as he’s Chairman, then I think the rest naturally follows.”
A long, meditative silence followed. Kurt and Dante and Agnes were all obviously bursting with curiosity, dying to know what secret was so massive the Chairman might step down rather than letting it get out. And though it was Nate who was proposing he take over as Chairman, it was Nadia everyone looked to for a decision.
She thought about it for a long time, her brow creased with concentration. Nate kept expecting her to poke a hole in his plan, to point out something obvious that he’d overlooked, or even just to tell him that the idea of him being Chairman before he’d had at least another decade of training under his belt was too ridiculous to contemplate.
“Do you really think he’ll step down?” she finally asked.
“I don’t know,” Nate replied, because it was the only answer he could give. His father was convinced that if the truth about Thea got out, it could spell doom for all of Paxco. Basement-dwellers would riot; dissidents would revolt; anyone who had a friend or relative die in prison would wonder if they’d been one of Thea’s subjects. And possibly worst of all, other states that coveted their territory—and that already had serious moral qualms about the Replica program—might decide this was a good excuse to stage the kind of hostile takeover that left thousands of bodies in its wake. “If he thinks we’ll really follow through on the threat, then maybe.”
Nate didn’t think the Chairman’s ego could withstand the total devastation of his legacy that would come if the public ever learned about Thea. “I tried to blackmail him into not changing the marriage agreement, but he called my bluff. He said there would be no upside to releasing the recording, either to me or to Nadia, and that was why we wouldn’t do it. But if he tries to call our bluff this time, then releasing the video would be our only chance of stopping Thea. And he knows that’s something we think is worth doing.”
“I have to come with you to confront him,” Nadia said. “I won’t have any trouble convincing him I’d release the video, not after what he did to Gerri.” Her voice was cold and hard, and the intensity in her eyes was chilling. “I don’t care what I have to do to make him pay. If I have to shoot him dead, I’ll do it. And if I have to release the video, I’ll do that, too. Tell me there’s any chance your father could see me now and not believe I mean it.”
Everyone was looking at her with a kind of wary caution, Nate included. She didn’t look at all like his childhood friend right now. She was an avenging angel whose eyes glowed with fury and hatred.
Nate dried his suddenly sweaty palms on his pant legs. She was right, and his father would believe her threat when he saw her face. But he wanted his gentle-natured, kindhearted friend back, wanted the girl with the easy smile and the rapier-quick wit. He didn’t want to think that his own father’s cruelty had destroyed what she had once been, but everyone had their breaking point.
Nadia met each of their gazes in turn, then gave a nod of satisfaction. “I didn’t think so. Now, let me tell you exactly what Chairman Hayes is so desperate to make sure no one finds out…”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Nadia’s costume was relatively simple, if uncomfortably revealing, and it appeared to be the same one she’d worn on her one and only previous foray into the Basement: a skintight catsuit, a pink wig, and a band of black face paint over her eyes. Agnes helped her out with the paint, but was twitchy enough that she managed to get as much paint on her pink gown as she did on Nadia’s face. Of course, ruining that gown was an act of mercy.
Agnes’s costume was more of a challenge, the first part of which was getting Agnes to agree to wear it.
“I can’t wear that!” she squeaked when she opened the package Kurt had brought her and found the neon-blue vinyl bodysuit with high-cut legs and enormous silver epaulets.
Nadia sympathized, but she kept her opinion to herself. “This is how people in the Basement dress,” she said firmly, as if she made a habit of sightseeing in the Basement in her spare time. “I’m sure it will look better on than it does in the bag.”
Agnes’s eyes pooled with tears. “You can’t be serious.”
Nadia couldn’t be sure in the dark, but she suspected Agnes’s cheeks were crimson with embarrassment. “Bishop knows what he’s doing,” she soothed. “The most important thing is to make it so people don’t recognize you, even if the outfit makes you feel uncomfortable. You don’t imagine I feel comfortable in this, do you?” She indicated the catsuit with a sweep of her hand. She’d been mortified the first time she’d put it on, though she’d felt better about it when Dante had looked at her as if she were the hottest girl in the universe.
Agnes was never going to be the hottest girl in the universe, but Nadia could clearly see where Bishop was going with the costume. The epaulets and the lack of Agnes’s habitual pleated pants or fluffy skirt would change her shape entirely, evening out her hips and shoulders. True, he could have just given her tightly fitted pants instead of the bodysuit, but Basement-dwellers did not go for subtlety.
Agnes picked the bodysuit up with two fingers as if afraid it would bite her. Shaking her head, she turned her back on Nadia and worked her way out of the pink monstrosity she’d worn to the opera. Nadia tactfully looked away while Agnes changed.
When she was ready, Agnes held the pink dress up against her as if to shield herself, and Nadia fought for patience. Getting this worked up over modesty when their lives were in danger was just plain silly. And the longer they took getting ready, the more risk that the authorities would show up to check out Dante’s apartment.
Agnes dropped the dress, and Nadia rolled her eyes before she could stop herself. Luckily, Agnes was too sunk in her own misery to notice.