Did you think there’d be no consequences? (Moscow | London)

[Natalie Grey]

She was working from a coffee shop when the message she’d been waiting for came through. DeGarmo wanted to meet; he finally thought he had something for her. Her expression stilled; not displeasure, but certainly something guarded as she swiped the message away and sat back in her chair, hands wrapped around her coffee cup. Contemplation furrowed her brow, and she stared at her work screen, but her thoughts were all inward. She remembered what Jay had said that night by the lake, about the powers he feared were involved. They’d never spoken of it since, and so much had happened in the days afterwards that perhaps his desire for answers had buried itself under the trauma. She wouldn’t blame him for that. But her sense of the shadowy game being played above their heads was too insidious to ignore. Being caught unknowingly in its currents had cost Jay everything, and Natalie couldn’t let it lie. Even if she never admitted to him the dangerous game she was playing.

Her eyes swept suddenly upwards as a figure loomed over her table. For a moment fear tightened her chest at the disturbance, especially given the measure of her thoughts. But the tension fled when she recognised the man who presently slipped himself into the space opposite. Little betrayed her reaction further despite her surprise at seeing him here. A heavy coat draped his shoulders against the Russian cold, a mildly discomforted twist pursing his lips as he cleared the condensation from his glasses with a pocket square. It had been years since she’d last seen him, and though grey pierced his neatly manicured beard and new lines tightened his eyes, he had barely changed. Transported unexpectedly to memories of her distant childhood, Natalie said nothing, only raised her brows in belligerent askance. Oscar Chamberlain was her grandfather’s aide, and he was a long way from home.

“You’ve ignored calls, messages and plane tickets. Are you really surprised to see me, Natalie?”

“It's inconvenient,” she said levelly, as though men who ought to be in London showed up at her table all the time. The unexpectedness of his presence had not dimmed, but she parsed through it quickly in the moment; realised what it must mean if Oscar was here. She knew he’d be alone, that there would likely be a car idling out on the street for them. He was perched on his seat for propriety’s sake, and not because he intended to wait long for her obedience. The only irritation he outwardly displayed was in the lenses of his glasses, but it wasn’t what he was annoyed with.

In truth Natalie had been diligently avoiding this reckoning. She’d understood the moment Brandon had made his oblique threats in exchange for his permission that she’d just passed a threshold to consequence – because she was never going to bring Jay back to the Custody unwillingly. Not that she could have remotely predicted how badly things turned out. Her mother had already made Edward’s Northbrook’s fury at her decisions perfectly clear to her, but she’d convinced herself it would wane if she managed to keep her head down for long enough. This made for an unwelcome complication, and poorly timed.

“It most certainly is,” Oscar agreed, hooking the glasses back on his nose, and gesturing with one gloved hand to the exit. Natalie’s jaw tightened, but she did not argue. Instead she closed her screen and slid her wallet from the table. DeGarmo’s message burned in the back of her mind; the tangibility of answers denied. Oscar stood when she did, but was clearly reluctant to trust her trailing behind him. A smirk revealed the measure of his trust. He recalled the recalcitrant teenager she had been, clearly. She shot her response before she tucked the phone away – |Three days. Send me the location| – and then shouldered out the door.

---

They did not return to her apartment; Oscar assured her all her travel needs had been dutifully accommodated for. Resigned to the escort, Natalie was keen to get it all over with, and she made no complaint. Now the soft hum of the engines filled her ears. The last time she’d been on a plane had not exactly been a pleasant experience, and the plush luxury of the Northbrook jet did little to offset the cascade of memory. Her thoughts were mired in the past as she stared out of the window. She doubted her grandfather planned an interrogation, and he would certainly know more of what had actually happened than the sanitised version shared with her mother. But the quiet found all the cracks in her defences. It was one of the reasons she kept herself so busy.

Work on the refurbishment would continue easily without her, but some things could not be so easily substituted. She’d shot Emily a quick message before take-off – |I’ve been summoned to London. I might not make it.| Then she'd shut her phone off. Touchdown was still a good few hours away, and she wouldn’t see any reply before then, but neither was she keen for the concealed disappointment of any response. Or worse, the acceptance. Their friendship was tentative, forged from a dry cleaning bill for a bloody backseat and a concerned phone call. Emily had plenty of older and better friends. It still didn't make her keen to miss something so important.

But as clouds sped by the window, it was Jay she was thinking of.

[Natalie Grey]

She didn’t turn her phone on again until the car was rolling into the estate belonging to her grandfather. Natalie had managed to doze a little, but it was superficial rest at best and had mostly left her in a realm of weird and unsettling lucid dreaming. Fortunately most of it sieved straight through her mind by the time she was properly alert. On arrival Oscar Chamberlain led her to one of the guest suites, not to one of the rooms she’d stayed in as a girl with her sisters. She showered until her thoughts ran quiet, and then sat on the canopied bed, wrapped in a towel. The wallet beeped as soon as it rewakened.

While I’ll be sad at your absence if you cannot be there, I understand completely. You will be missed! If you can’t - let’s schedule a lunch/dinner date for when you get back. I miss your beautiful face!

Followed almost immediately by another message from Emily with a later timestamp:

Oh crap - I just fully comprehended what you sent me earlier. Sorry - wedding brain! Is everything alright? Are you okay?

There was nothing else from DeGarmo, though she supposed she did not expect it. She compartmentalised the frustration, concerned with what the delay would cost her. There was nothing she could do about it.

Emily presented a different quandary, one that made Natalie feel in equal measures warm and guilty, because the other woman offered empathy and understanding in quantities that Natalie didn’t truly deserve. Her internal life was not something she had ever shared easily with others, and truthfully it would have been the same here except Emily had breezed into her life at such a difficult time. It meant she’d seen far too much in person to be convinced by the flippant stoicism with which Natalie usually waved away the things that haunted her. And Emily simply wasn't the sort to turn away from it.

The day after that shitstorm of a night in Moscow, Natalie had used every resource available to her to secure an audience with Nikolai Brandon, determined to uncover where Jay had been taken after his arrest. To know he was safe. Yet once that knowledge was in hand, she’d found herself alone in a city she hated, and trapped by a family obligation she was not sure she could ever happily fulfil. Back at the sterile apartment, chewing over uncomfortable guilt about how she’d manipulated Evelyn – and would continue to do so, from the moment she’d realised the Congresswoman had a hold on Brandon – her wallet had rung. She’d answered because she’d agreed to pay the dry-cleaning costs for the back seat of Emily’s car. But it wasn’t why Emily called.

A Patron’s granddaughter discovered barefoot and bloody outside one the city’s most dangerous nightclubs ought to have been great fodder for leverage, especially given the scandal that already shadowed her past. That was what Natalie was prepared for, as she would have expected from anyone embedded in Moscow’s cutthroat business scene. So she was genuinely surprised when it transpired Emily had called out of concern, simply because she cared. Natalie could be evasive with the truth, but she rarely outright lied, and not when she was asked something directly. After Emily had driven to collect Jared from the alleyway she saw something Natalie had much rather she didn’t, a peek into a layer of self-destruction Natalie never freely admitted to. No one else ever asked what she’d been doing at the Devil’s Lair in the first place, just as no one asked about what had really happened in Africa. Of course, Emily knew too much about that too, through Jared.

They’d kept in touch since, a little distanced on Natalie’s part, though she wholeheartedly supported Emily’s charitable endeavours in lieu of repeating the sorts of confessions she’d shared that first time they properly talked. Emily was genuinely nice in a way few people ever were, and her past was not without its own tragedy and challenges; she was good despite it. If Natalie was tentative with the friendship, it was only because she realised how strongly its foundations were forged, and life had taught her repeatedly how breakable such important bonds could be. She couldn’t do that again.

In any case, by now Emily knew enough about Natalie’s circumstances to realise London wasn’t likely to be a good thing. It brought a wry smile – she ought to be thinking about her wedding, not the troubles of a friend who more often than not was entirely responsible for her own shitty problems, and who couldn’t even manage to make it to watch the exchange of vows. It was touching, though.

I’m fine I promise. Let’s do dinner either way. After the honeymoon, obviously ;)

That fine was a smokescreen, one she knew Emily would recognise, but also one she would accept for now. This wasn’t life or death, this was just… family.

She hesitated over contacting Jay afterwards, at least to tell him she was out of the country. But he had an astronomical talent for misunderstanding, and she wasn’t certain if he’d interpret her having left Moscow as abandonment, despite London being the very last place she was likely to run to. The problem was that admitting why she was here would only burden an extra shovelful of dirt on that open grave he was burying himself in with his guilt. He’d been present when Nikolai Brandon had veiled his magnanimous permission with a not so subtle hint at the potential consequences for her disloyalty, but she knew he would not have internalised it. And it was better that he didn’t. She made her own choices, and owned the consequences.

She dressed in clothes she found hanging ready in the wardrobe, though they were rather more formal than she would have chosen for herself. More like something her sister would wear. Or her mother.

It was early evening outside, the view of the grounds from her window velvet dark. Her grandfather was most likely still in the city, which was at least an hour’s commute. Natalie’s restlessness warred with her desire to get this over with. The faster she could pass the time the better, so instead of cracking the vaults of childhood memory by re-exploring the manor, she sat herself at the antique carved desk and set up a makeshift workstation. Most of her unanswered communication was benign, and could have waited until she was back in Moscow, but she worked through it diligently anyway. One message stood out, though, and it had nothing to do with Belizna.

Since their return Jay had been ignoring everything connected with his family, like it was all too painful to bear. It was why Natalie brushed aside the questionable morality of interfering in his affairs without his permission (not to mention the small detail of it being pretty illegal). Mostly that had involved the slow untangling of his father’s debts in order to ensure the farm, land and other valuable assets were not cut up and sold to cover it. Who knew tractors were so damned expensive? She’d outsourced the task of finding suitable tenants, knowing little about farming but unwilling to allow everything to decay into ruin. Her only stipulation was that the land was well cared for. That process was ongoing, but eventually there would be a small yield filtering into a bank account opened under Jay’s name. Fraud was… surprisingly easy.

The message was from a legal firm. They’d unsuccessfully tried to contact Jay several times since his family’s death, and had finally reached out to her instead because she’d been dealing with settling the final matters of the estate. They were evasive with the explanation, asking for her to put Jay in contact with their representative so they could carry out their instruction. But Natalie had been through all the financials. There was no evidence of a trust fund for either of the children – or at least not one set up by the Carpenters. And the state of David Carpenter’s gambling debts spoke for itself. Cayli's medical bills carved out what little was left. They couldn’t have known about this.

She stared at the screen for several long moments. Then she snatched up her wallet to make a call. It’d be lunch time in the US, or round abouts.

---

When Oscar knocked on the door some time later, declaring it time for dinner, Natalie was pensive enough to go quietly. Shifting gears to anticipate Edward’s admonishments took her longer than she’d like, but as it was she needn’t have bothered. Though the grand dining table had been fully regaled, and the room was large enough to accommodate a generous party of guests, there was only one placement set.

“He’s not here?”

“It took me rather longer than anticipated to find you in Moscow,” he said. “And Patron Northbrook’s schedule is extremely full and finely tuned, as I’m sure you will appreciate.”

“I could have just gotten something from the kitchens myself. This is…” entirely unnecessary. Yet as she glanced at Oscar’s expression, she understood that it was in fact entirely the point. This was the isolation she chose when she relegated the family interests. It was why she was in the bloody guest room. She suppressed the irritation of a sigh. “I see,” she conceded instead, and sat herself down for a lonely meal.

[Natalie Grey]

Apart from the staff the estate was largely empty, and very quiet. Edward spent most of his time at the Patron’s residence in the heart of the city, surrounded by the offices of his government and all the personnel who kept the Dominance running. Natalie only really remembered the odd weekend or school holiday here as a child, usually when her father was busy with work. In fact she wasn’t sure she remembered him ever joining them here in Edward’s country home. Unsurprising, given their cool relationship, even back then.

By late afternoon the following day, growing more and more frustrated with the limbo, she began searching up flight info on her wallet, wondering if she’d been unceremoniously deposited in a gilded cage. It did little for her mood as in uncomfortable idleness she reminisced over old photos, finally finding herself lingering by the piano in the music room. Isobel had always loved their grandfather’s stables. But for Natalie, it had been this room. The piano was an heirloom, something her grandmother had apparently cherished – not that Natalie remembered her. But she did remember her grandfather letting her touch the keys when she was small. Teaching how individual notes could be woven together to create something beautiful and full of meaning.

Emily had responded by now: Of course after the honeymoon!If you need anything - just send a message. I’ll respond as soon as I am able. If you really need something - call. Love ya <3

Natalie acknowledged the message, but had not replied beyond that. She sat at the bench, but did not play.

---

  

The sun was setting in a bloody display of red and gold by the time Oscar finally sent the car for her. London traffic was excruciating, even with the security escort streamlining their route. Natalie was quiet in the backseat, watching the busy world outside the tinted windows. After years spent abroad, mostly in anonymity, it was easy to forget who she was. Even in Moscow it was easy enough to set aside her Northbrook heritage. Here in the seat of Edward Northbrook’s power, though, it was harder.

The office she was led to was part of the family wing, not where Edward would entertain business or governance. His desk was ornate and austere and wouldn’t have looked out of place in some lord’s manor two-hundred years ago, but there were softer touches too. Books lined the walls interspersed with family photos and other personal items. A leather chesterfield and matching arrangement of chairs sat by the large windows, which looked out onto private gardens below. The city skyline was distant. You could barely hear the noise of traffic.

As Oscar closed the door behind her, Natalie didn’t stand on any kind of formal ceremony, despite the room’s stark grandeur. Edward Northbrook was an aristocrat, but his public persona had always embraced a staunch family man narrative, and it wasn’t a lie. Whatever vacuum Alistair left with his unusual coolness towards his daughters, Edward had always filled with his warmth and strength.

He stood by a gilded mirror, adjusting the fall of a suit jacket recently retrieved from a nearby hanger. Natalie hadn’t seen him in the flesh since she left for Africa, and his hair was more white now than before, but age did not diminish him. Edward was the backbone of the Dominance, but he was also the backbone of the Northbrooks. If there were a few more lines on his stern face, they only served to make him seem more indomitable.

His shrewd eyes acknowledged her in the mirror as she came to kiss his cheek. She could feel him absorbing her appearance, calculating it against whatever her mother must have told him. “That was an awfully long journey just so you can wrap my knuckles, grandpa.” She glanced up at him, not hiding the tilt of her smirk as she squeezed his arm and left him to go and sit on the couch. If she was going to have to survive a lecture she’d rather be comfortable for it, so she slipped off her heels and pulled her legs up underneath her as he spoke. He was not remotely disarmed by her irreverence, of course.

“What happened to the American boy’s family was deeply regrettable – let me say that first. But this family cannot afford another scandal, Natalie. If you find him too much of a temptation, then stay away from him. He is a soldier, my darling. Nothing more, nothing less. And he belongs to the Ascendancy. That is all I intend to say on the matter.”

Her chin sank onto her fist, gaze wandering. She gave no indication that the warning affected her at all, though he looked at her a long time in the mirror’s reflection. There was no contrition to offer when she did not feel it, but revealing her anger instead would only open an unwelcome floodgate. She did not know what her grandfather truly believed about the power which shaped their world, but she knew that he accepted it. And used it.

It was easier by far to say nothing. Her family’s ire was nothing new, and she could weather it in isolation – push herself further away if she needed to. Admitting what she had seen, what Nikolai Brandon was complicit in, would earn nothing but a reminder of where Edward’s authority came from. She was not sure what she would do to hear him say it – or worse, to understand how much he might already know. Not when she’d seen those vacant children with her own eyes, life and vitality siphoned from them. Until Jay shot the final mercy bullets and opened up a wound in himself she wasn’t sure would ever heal. Even now she felt the heat of that memory, and it burned up her chest with nowhere to go but back under. It wasn’t something she could share. But swallowing it down made her expression unnaturally still, as uncompromised marble as it’d been every day at her father’s trial five years ago. She was very well practised.

After a moment spent assessing her silence, Edward finished adjusting his cuffs and moved to one of the dark wood cabinets. Crystal decanters sat in an expensive display atop it, and with a gentle clink he selected one from among them, and poured himself a drink. “Of course, that’s not why you’re here,” he added, filling a second glass with two finger-widths of the same amber liquid. She didn’t let the surprise show – not for what he said, but for the second drink. She wondered what Toma had been reporting back, for him to even think to offer.

He came closer, held the tumbler out to her, confident she would take it. Which she did.

“Have you considered what will happen after my death, Natalie?” He retreated to one of the armchairs opposite, sitting back comfortably and crossing his legs like it was a perfectly ordinary question. “My title will not pass by primogeniture. It will not even be a matter of democracy, but the whims of the Ascendancy. Our family is reliant on the benevolence of the Custody. On our reputation, and our connections.” He paused to frown at her, but it was concern in his gaze, not anger, and that was somehow worse. This kind of talk unnerved her – it wasn’t what she had been expecting. And it felt uncomfortably like an intervention.

“Your mother has her charity work. Isobel has her career. And Alice will likewise find her path after she finishes school. You had the Red Cross. I was content to leave you to find your way in Africa, despite–”

“Tanzania,” she said, inflectionless. And then Sierra Leone, though that had been less her fault.

Her eyes moved away. Even with a buffer of whiskey she didn’t want to talk about friendships of the past, burned to ash through her own reckless devotion. And she certainly didn’t want to talk about the school or the children or Azu. Those ghosts were settled most of the time, hidden neatly away, but it was only a surface peace. Probably because she did not want to set aside the pain. It meant accepting her own survival, assured because her mother hired an entire mercenary group to extract her from the danger, not because she deserved it.

“But,” he continued, “if you will insist on finding your place in the heart of Moscow instead. Well, it is a place where your actions will have larger consequences. If your carelessness were to bring ruin to our name in the circles of the Ascendancy, it is not just you who will suffer, but your mother and sisters too. Especially when I am no longer here to protect you.”

Natalie felt slow to catch the reins of the conversation, but as her gaze sharpened – a little glad admittedly, to have something to pull her away from the dark mire of her thoughts – she understood that he must be talking about the opportunity her refusal to return Jay had offered to someone else.

“I assume you didn't bring me here to talk about Scion? The man is a–"

“ – Do you think anyone actually likes Scion Marveet?” Edward scoffed in open amusement. “He’s grotesquely blue collar, utterly uncouth. But he is also soon to be Privilege. Our dealings over Mexico had some mutual benefit, for all that I wish you’d simply done what you were supposed to do. I do not need to tell you that the Ascendancy was not pleased.” He sighed, swirling his glass. “Fortunately Scion is not without his own blemishes. In fact one of his sons is the very livewire whose idiocy happened to force his hand. Rather a sore point. But it gave us some common ground.” He looked at her with a small smile, pointed around the edges, but not unloving for all its accusation. “We do not have to like our allies to work well with them. As I’m sure you’re aware."

He placed his glass aside, let his hands rest in his lap. Natalie felt her stomach sink.

“You’ve refused to live up to the potential your mother and I both know you have. We want you to be happy, Natalie, in whatever form that takes.” He held her gaze, and she did not break away precisely because of how uncomfortable it made her feel. After a moment he checked his watch. “I've made a dinner reservation for us -- I intend to make the most of your visit since I scarcely see you these days. We’ve much to discuss.”

---

Her grandfather promised to have Oscar make the arrangements for her return in the morning, but if she waited for the jet she wasn’t going to make any of Emily’s wedding. She hadn’t slept well anyway, and by the early hours she was in the kitchen scrolling through flight listings and purchasing a ticket. Natalie told herself it was purely for friendship and not because London stirred up things she’d rather not feel. Or because DeGarmo had never responded to her message.

No one stopped her leaving, though she knew she wasn’t supposed to – not without a security detail. Of course no one here knew enough to recognise her anyway; it’d been that long.

Her first breath in the dark of the early morning air felt like the promise of freedom. The streets were mostly quiet, but cities never truly slept. Under the splash of streetlamps it felt like a different world, one that tugged on an old life. Her mother would have a fit to know she’d ever spent time hanging around tube stations in the dark, but it’d be quicker to take the underground from Westminster than to wait for someone to arrange a car and then get stuck in the crush of morning commuters. Even then it was still a good hour’s journey to Heathrow.

Timing would be tight, she already knew it. It was about four hours from London to Moscow, and it was three hours ahead there. The tube rattled around her, carriage empty. She watched her hollow reflection in the dark glass of the window, and tried not to think. Not about any of it.

If her grandfather had simply been angry, she would have weathered it better. But kindness eroded her defenses in a way she felt ill equipped to deal with. Last night at dinner she finally understood his intention to sweep her under his wing; that despite the inconvenience she caused, he was perhaps a little proud that one of his grandchildren finally showed interest and aptitude. And it had been nice to spend time with him, steeped in a familial warmth that had been largely absent from her life since her father’s arrest. But guilt gnawed too, for how much of herself she hid even then; the truth of Belizna, the truth of her fraying loyalties. She’d wanted to believe Nikolai Brandon when he spoke of a better world, just as she wanted to believe her grandfather.

But the damage was done.

***

Coffee and a hurried breakfast improved her mood somewhat. The sun was still barely rising when she disappeared into the vacuum world of the airport, and time ceased its normal meaning. Security was a breeze until they questioned her unusual lack of baggage, negotiated when they eventually realised who she was. And it all went downhill from there. By ten her flight had been showing delays for two hours, and she’d been in the airport four. She wandered duty free for a while before slipping onto a stool in one of the bars. She eyed the bottles, but it was only a coffee on the napkin in front of her.

She wasn’t going to make the ceremony; that was certain now. 

It was already early afternoon in Moscow.

***

It was dark when she arrived back in the city, and it felt like the entire day had passed unseen between her fingers. After clearing security she took the express train into the city. Even the reception dinner would be over by now, and it was only stubborn tenacity that urged her on. Emily was not someone Natalie had ever tried to use for her own ends, and it made her the closest thing she had to a friend, for all the careful distance between them. Emily couldn’t know the truth any more than anyone else in Natalie’s life, but she knew enough. And at least what she saw was not a lie. It meant something.

She checked her wallet a dozen times as the train sped on. DeGarmo’s three days were up. But there was still nothing. A little concern was beginning to burrow in her chest, joined now by a cold, nagging guilt. Natalie had never declared herself a good daughter, the opposite really, but it didn’t mean she meant her family ill. Edward’s words hit harder than she’d like – the consequences for a misstep warring with the fury of every betrayal. He had no idea the fire she was playing with. No one did. She measured the risks for herself, and accepted them. But maybe it was naive to presume the only sacrifice need be her own. It was a problem for later, though.

The store was high-end but still straight off the rack. Natalie’s tastes were simple, but it was the kind of place where money talked and she could divest the problem. When the immaculately coiffed sales assistant enquired for further details – namely what season the wedding was to be – Natalie only offered half a smirk and admitted had about ten minutes to spare for the task.

Less than ten minutes later, it was to Jay she sent the choice: Blue or green? She hadn’t heard from him at all today, and she wasn’t convinced he would have even gone to the wedding. Jared was from a past life, and she vividly recalled how uncomfortable Jay had been about picking up his stuff from the legion before they left for Iowa. When your life shattered so thoroughly it could be a painful experience testing if any of the old pieces still fit, and she had every reason to think he’d avoid the reminder. It was one of the reasons she hadn’t brought it up with him. Natalie knew what it was like to survive day by day, minute by minute; to be caught in a world no one else saw. She’d planned to ask the morning of if Jay intended to go, quite certain he never would have even considered she’d know about it.

When no response came, she pointed at the blue. It was the sales assistant who insisted on the green, probably because of the larger price tag. It was olive, silky, with a beautiful lattice-worked back. Natalie only shrugged, and let the woman pick the shoes as well.

She didn’t bother going back to her apartment, just checked into a hotel nearer to the reception venue in order to shower and change. She pinned her hair loosely, slicked on some deep red lipstick, and called it good just as her wallet buzzed notification of the cab waiting outside.

[[continues at Wedding Bells part 2: The Reception]]