A Matter of Heart (32 page)

“Talk about assholes,”
Astrid mutters. “There’s the perfect example of one.”

Her daughter chugs the rest
of her wine. I stand up. This is my battle, not theirs. I’m a first tier
Creator. I don’t want people thinking I’m hiding behind others. “I should—”

“Do nothing,” Astrid says,
laying a hand on my arm. “This is between Jonah and Belladonna.”

I hate to think this of such
a nice woman, but . . . is she delusional? “It’s me Jens has a problem with!
Not Jonah, and certainly not Kellan.”

“Chloe.” Astrid busts out
her serious mother tone. “I must respectfully disagree with you. Now,
please—sit down and try to enjoy your salad.”

“Mom always gets her way,”
Callie tells me, topping my wine off and then pouring a fresh glass for
herself. “Might as well do as she says and watch the fireworks.”

The room around us hushes;
it’s common knowledge that Jonah and Jens have gone head to head before with
Jonah coming out the victor. A rematch between the two of them would be
something the gossips in Annar definitely would not want to miss. “You’ve been
ordered to not come within a thousand feet of Chloe,” Jonah is saying. His
voice is calm. Measured. “Did you lose your sense of distance along with your
job?”

What’s this?

Jens’ smile is oily.
“Somebody needs to keep an eye on her, Whitecomb.”

Jonah leans down, palms
pressed against the table. “That somebody will never be you.” His voice lowers,
but we all can still hear him, clear as day. “You are hereby officially banned
from Annar until I decide otherwise.”

Gasps surface throughout the
restaurant, including at my table. Jens, though—Jens looks like this is
nothing.

Callie leans towards her
mother. “He can do that? Just him, without a Council vote?”

I tear my eyes away from
Jonah long enough to see Astrid nod. And I’m . . . pissed off, to be honest.
That I’m sitting at this table, twiddling my thumbs, while Jonah is going to
bat for me against one of the most influential Guard members in the last hundred
years.

He’s your Connection
,
Caleb reminds me.
Wouldn’t you do the same for him?

Of course I would—but I’ve
been accused for so long of being weak, of being naïve that all of this
rescuing from the men in my life, sweet as it can be interpreted, grates
against my fragile nerves.

“You think you can stalk
Chloe for weeks and it not get back to me?” Jonah is saying. “Harass her? Put
Trackers on her? Even though the Council has explicitly forbidden you to do so?
Do you really think you’re so important, so clever, that you’re above the
Council’s reach? Their laws?”

Jonah knew about the
Tracker?

Jens remains silent. Muted
whispers fill the restaurant. A few people have their cell phones out,
videotaping this insanity. As for me, I’m fuming that I’ve been . . . what.
Watched? Followed? By not only Jens’ lackeys, but Jonah’s, too?

“I’ve been tolerant, I
think,” Jonah continues in that same, calm voice, “of these transgressions out
of respect for the service you’ve shown the Guard over the past thirty years.
But today . . .” He shakes his head slowly. “You must’ve known I’d hear about
what you did at the park.”

Alex is such dead meat.

“All of your efforts to get
your job back, spinning your wheels fruitlessly—you can officially kiss that
hope goodbye,” Jonah continues. “You’ll never helm the Guard again, let alone
work on a single mission for them in the future. You did this to yourself,
Belladonna. I gave you ample warning about what I’d do if you went against my
orders.”

Jens sets his napkin down
and stands up. Despite being an Elf, he is not as tall as Jonah, so he’s forced
to look up while talking. “You think you’re so—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Kellan
suddenly snaps. “You do not get to talk to the Council like this. Remember?
It’s what you used to warn us about all the time.
Never contradict Council
orders. The Council is to be respected at all times
.”

Fabulous. Now Kellan is
fighting my battles in public. Jens’ focus swivels to him eyebrows high in
amusement. “What a good little soldier you are, Kellan Whitecomb.”

Kellan lunges forward, but
Jonah holds him back with a single outstretched arm. This keeps getting worse
and worse. What do they think they’re going to do, beat Jens up simply because
he’s accused me of something they know not to be true?

Just what will they think
when they learn I actually have killed? It’s too horrendous, too shameful to
even contemplate.

“Your memories of that time
you spent with your brother’s fiancée in that cave a few weeks back are most
interesting,” Jens is saying to Kellan. His piercing eyes find Jonah. “Wouldn’t
you agree?”

My stomach drops onto the
floor below me as I can feel the stares of the people surrounding us. “Good
call on dinner,” Callie murmurs to her mother.

But Jonah isn’t done.
“You’re grasping at straws,” he’s saying. “You have no proof of your
allegations, nothing but a three hundred year old grudge the Belladonnas have
cultivated. And yet, you continue to persist, thinking
you
can be the
one to avenge the family, especially now you think you’ve found a young Creator
to prey upon—and to what end?” Jonah’s smile is cold. “The complete disgrace of
the Belladonna name.” He angles his head towards his brother. “Please escort
Jens Belladonna to the Transit Station and ensure he goes through a portal. If
any Guard are discovered abetting or aiding Belladonna in any way, or
facilitate his return to Annar without my explicit permission, they’ll be held
to the same punishment.”

The whispering in the room
is frenzied. Caleb whistles,
Wow
. I am a basketful of emotions too mixed
up to distinguish any one fully.

“This isn’t over,” Jens
tells Jonah. He’s still amazingly unaffected by what just went down. “I will do
what’s best for Magical-kind.”

“As will I,” Jonah says in
return. And Jens goes quietly, not resisting Kellan in the least. As he passes
by my table, five fingers are raised for the briefest of moments. My fists
clench into balls at the same time I feel like one finds my gut.

Red wine sloshes across his
shirt. And this is the thing, of everything that went down in this room, that
finally startles Jens Belladonna. He jerks back in surprise. “Slippery glasses
in this restaurant,” Callie says, offering Jens a smirk that is in no way
apologetic.

Jens runs his hand across
the stain, smearing it. It looks like blood. Kellan shoves him forward before
he can say anything to us. “Asshat,” Callie mutters to his retreating back.

“Language!” Astrid exclaims
as Jonah makes his way to our table.

Callie rights her glass and
fills it. “Hypocrite, thy name is Mother. Didn’t you call him an asshole just
ten minutes ago?”

“It’s different,” the
Council’s lead Seer mumbles. Jonah sits down next to me and takes my hands.

“Are you okay?” he asks
quietly. “Do you want to leave? We can leave if you want.”

I can’t believe what just
happened. Jens Belladonna just got his ass handed to him, again, by my
Connection. Even more, Jonah just made a huge scene in a crowded restaurant
while I sat here, in forced helplessness, with his mom and ex-girlfriend. To
top it all off, his brother tried to attack his former boss. I don’t know if I
ought to be disturbed, grateful, mad, or some kind of mix in between. I decide
not to choose.

I wish I was numb. Gods my
head hurts.

“Of course she isn’t okay,”
Callie tells him. It’s the first time she’s actually directed any words towards
Jonah all night. “She’s at the family dinner from hell thanks to you and your
brother. You two just acted like cavemen; it’s a wonder you didn’t grab her by
the hair and drag her out of here.”

Jonah is ready to argue
this, but it’s Astrid who cuts him off. “What Callie is trying to say is that
we should try this again another night, sweetling. Besides, Kellan has already
left.”

“Because of
his
high
and mighty Council orders,” Callie snorts.

Jonah does say something
now. “Jesus, Callie! Will you quit already?”

One of her fingers traces
the rim of her glass as she stares back, defiant. And I am suddenly so tired,
so just . . . done with all of this. I stand up and grab my damp purse. Jonah’s
on his feet immediately.

“Thank you for dinner,” I
tell Astrid. The waiter is hovering in the background with a tray of plates. We
hadn’t even gotten to the main course.

She stands up and hugs me,
telling me she’ll call us tomorrow to check in. Callie sighs and comes around
the table and hugs me, too, which is surprising. “Sorry,” she whispers in my
ear.

I squeeze her in response.

Jonah is quiet for much of
the walk. About a block away from our building, he says, “Can we talk about
this?”

I bark out my laughter. “Oh,
now you want to talk?”

He sighs. “Chloe—”

I stop mid-stride. “Have you
had me followed without my knowledge?”

This surprises him. “No. I
had Belladonna followed.” I wait, arms crossed. He continues, “I’m not going to
apologize for wanting to keep you safe.”

“Right.” I laugh again.
“This was all about
keeping me safe
. How obvious.”

Now he’s pissed off. “Yes,
as a matter of fact it is. I’ve had reliable intel that Belladonna was not
going to stop coming after you with his allegations. He planned—”

“Planned
what
?”

He’s mere inches away now
and so angry I can see him vibrating. “To kidnap you.”

I blink, suddenly unsure.

“You don’t understand his
family history, Chloe. You don’t know the grudges they’ve held against Creators
for a long time.”

I want to scream. “Maybe I
would know if, oh yeah, somebody actually told me this stuff!”

“And how would that
conversation go?” he asks me. “Should I have said:
Hey, Chloe, guess what? I
got word that Jens Belladonna, who had a Tracker on you for weeks, is planning
on possibly kidnapping you and torturing you soon until you admit to doing
something you didn’t do. But, you know—whatever. No big deal.
”

“Yes,” I insist, even though
I know better. I would have freaked out over him telling me that.

He laughs; it’s bitter. And
then he turns away from me and heads in the opposite direction of our
apartment. I stay where I am on the sidewalk, utterly confused over what to do.
Before I can decide, half a block away, he turns back around and comes back to
me. “You know what? No.
No
. I did the right thing tonight. I am not the
only Council member who wants Belladonna’s ass out of Annar. Most of the Guard
wanted him gone, too. Had you talked to anyone there, they’d have told you that
there’s been dissonance for some time now under his leadership. And no matter
what you say, no matter how you complain, I’m not going to ever be sorry that
my first instinct in any situation is to protect you.”

But I dig my heels in. “You
know how I hate being kept in the dark. You know how it tore me apart when my
parents did it to me. And now it’s what you’re doing!”

“Really? That’s how you see
it?” he asks, voice cold.

“You keep things from me.
Look at the whole Hawaii thing!”

His eyes widen. “Not telling
you about a possible kidnapping threat is not the same thing as neglecting to
tell you about my real estate portfolio!”

My eyes flood with tears.
“Maybe to me it is.”

“Maybe you’re keeping things
from me, too,” he counters. “Like whatever happened at the Guard party with
Miscanthus and Lightningriver. Like what happened today when you spoke with
Belladonna that got you so depressed you could hardly function afterwards. Like
what you’re doing with Callie. When did that happen, Chloe? When did you decide
that Callie Lotus is a better person to go to than me?”

Touché
,
Caleb murmurs.

“Are you trying to punish
me?” he asks.

“No!”

But he’s totally worked up
now. “Because that’s how it feels.”

I guess I hadn’t even
thought about what my relationship with Callie might mean for Jonah.

“But like that matters,
right?” He shakes his head. “No, of course not. It only matters that I’m the
one who’s the open book, that I make sure you’re totally comfortable with
everything. Who cares if your secrets and actions hurt me, right?”

This isn’t what I wanted
when we started this conversation. “Jonah, I’m . . .” Sorry, is what I want to
say. But it seems like I say that phrase way too often to him.

“I’m not going to apologize
for what I’ve done tonight,” he says again, more quietly now.

I nod my head slowly,
accepting this. We walk home in silence.