Page 24 of The Fixer

Ophelia’s question tore me from my troubling thoughts, drawing my gaze to her furrowed brows and puckered lips.

She looked troubled. “If everyone has different plans for the assassination attempt, which one was actually used? And if they’re all the same, who decided not to use it?Also… which one of them planned what ultimately happened?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “We haven’t been able to get into the computers yet.”

Ah… Okay. I got it now. The problem, here was Aleksander planned everything to a tee, so anything that went wrong, went wrong wildly. He was smart enough, perceptive enough, to figure most things out and maybe, the small percentage he couldn’t predict were easily dealt with. This overhaul was not a localized operation, though.

Ophelia cocked her head curiously, as she frowned deeper. “What? Why not? All their passwords are their favorite kids’ birthday followed by ‘abc123, exclamation point’…” Ophelia trailed off.

Aleksander went red in his face.

I clenched my jaw hard to hold back my chuckle. Amusement made my eyes sting as she flipped her hair over her shoulder, the ends of the strands tickling my shoulder and neck.

“Trust me, I get why you never wanted anything to do with the families, Aleksander, but you should at least know your enemy a little bit. They never crossed your mind until your dad was attacked, so even the simplest things aren’t things you’d consider. Do you have the machines here?”

Aleksander cleared his throat roughly. “How doyouknow their passwords? You’ve barely had any contact with your own family, let alone the others.”

I could see it in his face ? hehatedthat something so stupid had flew by him ? just because it wasso stupid.

“Because I was the one who told them it was a good idea and set it all up for them. “You’d know that if you took a moment to realize that pawns are the most important pieces in the beginning of the game….you can’t move anything else until you move them.”

The nonchalance with which Ophelia revealed that tidbit of critical information caused pride to bubble up in my chest like a thick, black tar.

Aleksander’s expression closed like a brick wall and he reached to cover his frown with the back of his hand.

16

Ophelia

We were put into an office, so I could further my investigation into the plot.

Scratching my scalp absently, I slumped back in my chair to frown at all the lunacy spread out before me. Erik and Rucca weren’t dumb enough to put their plans on paper, but I still had a pretty good picture of what was happening. With her dead, it only stood to reason her idea was the one used in the actual attempt on the Patriarch’s life. The second she found out it’d failed, Rucca killed herself rather than let Aleksander do whatever he wanted with her.

But Rucca was a romantic and anything she came up with would have to be tempered down quite a lot. Clearly, her father knew something was going on by his emails, but he wasn’t involved. Which meant…

The only viable option to who had started all of this was Erik Avernisk. He’d also know that I’d snitch without hesitation, so he’d kept me out of it as desperately as he could.

He’d been holding out while being tortured on the assumption that if he reinforced his innocence, it would eventually pay out and he’d be released. Aleksi would break easily, and Erik knew this. The poor kidjustturned 18 and was being introduced to the Suvensk business. If he thought he’d unwittingly done something he wasn’t supposed to, he’d cop to everything that ultimately happened.

“Aleksander was right about who, at least generally…” My murmur was loud in this small, grey office as I rubbed my palms up along my face with a sigh.

The door cracked open, revealing a slightly familiar face crested in a small smile.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing. I was just coming to talk to you.”

I had to reach far back into my memory— far, far back for just a few days, to figure out her name.Envre. She was Aleksander’s girlfriend, I thought. Sitting up straight, I propped my elbows on the desk to pinch the bridge of my nose.

“Is this a bad time?” she asked.

“… I psyched myself out about Aleksander. That was my first time meeting him in person— the day he killed my parents and my brother. I misjudged him.” My admission was all I felt comfortable revealing.

Envre giggled knowingly. Wandering into the office, she plopped down to rub her legs, her knees clinging together.

I went on, “He hated us, thought we were rodents, and I guess he was right, in a way… I never expected him to need me to fix his mess.”

“I actually didn’t know you guys existed until a week ago, either.” Envre shrugged. “I always thought Aleksander’s socialist bullcrap was it. Finding out all those American movies had truth in them was… well, it was strange. Aleksander doesn’t think some things are important when they really are.”