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Authors: Ann Aguirre

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Wanderlust (35 page)

BOOK: Wanderlust
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CHAPTER 51

As catastrophes go, this one is fairly dire.

“Warn the others,” I mutter to Constance.

I honestly thought we were being held indefinitely. I didn’t think there was any such person named Jewel, and if there was, based on what Grubb and Boyle said, he had no intention of meeting with me. We didn’t factor this eventuality into the plan. And we’re just forty-five minutes from departure, too.

I try to calm down. The others will figure out a way around this. Nobody will interfere with a pleasure droid roaming the halls, so she’ll get word to them. I just need to stall for time.

When I come out into the pale, cool corridor, I find Keller waiting for me. “Did you enjoy your party?”

There’s definitely an upside to being portrayed as a brainless thrillseeker on the news vids. Generally, my reputation works against me, but here, it serves us well.

“Very much.” I offer a sweet smile. “You should have come along.”

“Unfortunately, business arose from my employer’s imminent arrival. You’ll wait in the central salon.”

Right.
That shuts me up as nothing else could have. Instead I listen to our footsteps echoing ahead of us. All too soon, Keller deposits me in a large, overly empty lounge, complete with ornate floral arrangements and a rushing fountain in the center of the room. The chairs grouped here and there look stiff and formal, more for show than comfort.

“Would you like refreshments?” Keller asks, suddenly obsequious. “It shouldn’t be long now.”

I feel oddly like the prisoner whose last request cannot be denied. So I refuse everything and elect to remain standing. I’d rather be ready to run.

Keller nods, heading for a hallway other than the one we entered through. I wander the room while trying to pretend I’m not conscious of the minutes ticking away. I hope Constance has gotten word to the others by now.

I don’t hear any footsteps beneath the rushing fountain, but I sense I have company. Pinning on a smile, I turn— and find my mother standing there.
Shit.
I didn’t see that coming.

“They’re holding you, too? Are you all right?” I’m not the most dutiful daughter, I admit, but we’ll take her with us when we go.

As she glides closer, I see she looks different than she did at the coffeehouse. She carries herself with an indefinable air of confidence down to her perfectly manicured fingertips. Today she’s not a trembling bundle of nerves, fearing for her life. Ramona Jax lent me my bone structure, but she fills out a dress better than I do. Rejuvenex treatments have left her smooth-skinned and ageless.

“I’m surprised you haven’t put it together,” she says with a faint half smile.

“Put . . .” And then it clicks. “You’re Jewel. There’s no man behind the mirror, or rather . . .
he
is you. How the hell—”

“Did you think your father’s pathetic little art gallery funded our lifestyle? Honestly, Sirantha, sometimes I think you’re more his child than mine. If I didn’t know you’d gotten your need for adrenaline from me, I’d suspect the worst.”

She’s good, amazingly good, if she fooled March. Maybe she’s like me, completely compartmentalized— maybe that’s where I got the ability. So she can be the terrified victim one moment and a ruthless Syndicate boss the next.

I don’t even know what to ask first. No wonder Jewel didn’t want me harmed. Whatever else can be said of my mother, she possesses enough vanity not to want to erase her own genetic legacy.

Unless she has to.

Looking at her now, I can honestly say I’ve never seen her true face before. She’s only ever shown me the feather-headed socialite. But in reality, she’s pure steel wrapped in shiny paper.

“What do you mean, I got that from you?”

“I always wanted more, too,” she answers. “I was always after the next thrill; I just hid it better, that’s all. I still can’t believe I convinced your father to . . .” Ramona lifts her shoulders in an eloquent shrug. “During a jump. It’s no wonder you love grimspace so well.”

I actually stagger back a step. “I was . . . conceived in grimspace?”

As if I haven’t spoken, she bypasses me in a cloud of expensive perfume, programming a serving droid with a drink order. “Do you still like that dreadful Tokaji Cuvée?”

Fine, I’ll pretend this is a reunion. For now. My head reels with the implications. It’s a wonder I’m not brain damaged, if that’s where I got my start. Mary, Doc would have a field day with this info.

“I haven’t had it in years, too dear for my blood these days.”

“Come, darling, don’t be coy. You’ve done quite well for yourself, considering the initial course you chose.”

Knowing this will irk her, I say deliberately, “I don’t have a single credit to my name, Mother. Simon managed to snatch it all, and now my personal assets are tied up in the Farwan financial debacle.”

She dismisses that with a wave of the hand. “Nothing a good barrister can’t sort out. I meant in terms of prestige, Sirantha. I have use for an ambassador.”

“I’m not going to let you use me,” I bite out. “Those days are done. They have been for a while.”

The bot returns with our drinks, its abdomen opening to reveal a silver tray. I accept mine, but I don’t know if I should drink it. Would she stoop to drugging me? I honestly don’t know.

I hold the glass to the light, admiring the burnished gold of a good sweet wine. I spoke the truth—haven’t had this vintage in years—made from grapes, raisins, peach, apricot, and underlaid with eucalyptus. Everything I drink is either synthetic or some horrendous homebrew that burns like acid going down. Gets you drunk just the same, though, which was my goal back then.

“It’s not tainted,” she says. “I don’t need to resort to such measures. After all, I have you precisely where I want you.”

“Do you?”

“Indeed. Or perhaps you think you’ve accomplished something by sneaking around the villa, lurking here and there like common criminals.”

“It’s better to be an
uncommon
criminal like you?”

“I’m a businesswoman,” she says with unruffled aplomb. “You distressed your father so much, you know, when you left that expensive finishing school. He wanted you to follow in his footsteps and manage the gallery after him. As if he ever earned a single credit without my help.”

“You came from a good family.” I’m struggling to understand. “How did you fall into . . . this?”

I can’t imagine the things she’s done for the Syndicate. Don’t want to. Her dark eyes have no bottom, and to my fevered imagination, it seems . . . no soul. No moral compass that tells her right from wrong. There’s a calculator instead, measuring value versus expenditure.

“I made a few investments with them, quietly, of course, and without your father’s knowledge. He never would’ve approved.”

Outrage sharpens my voice. “You think? Maybe that’s because he had a conscience, and he wouldn’t have wanted to spend credits that came from misery, vice, and murder.”

“He didn’t mind spending my money on ugly, expensive paintings that nobody ever bought,” she snaps. “He had no business or aesthetic sense at all.”

Oh, I hit a nerve with that. For a moment, I let myself enjoy the sensation. She doesn’t hold all the cards like she thinks she does. Our little group possesses skills she can’t imagine.

Nausea sweeps over me when I put it together. “You killed him. Or had him killed. And then put out word that he’d used a Eutha-booth.”

She doesn’t even try to deny it. “His little hobby was expensive and tiresome. And with the expansion to my territory, I needed the freedom to come and go without awkward questions.”

“After so many years together, that’s all he was to you? Awkward, expensive, and tiresome?”

I’m gazing into the eyes of a monster. I can’t let down my guard—the fact that she’s my mother provides no guarantees. I know that now.

“Your father was obsolete,” she says in final tones.

Like machinery.

I tuck this new hurt away with all the others, to be dealt with later. If I don’t get away from her, there will be no later. She’ll figure out some way to use me, or she’ll dispose of me. For her, there are no other options. She prefers the former, but she won’t balk at the latter.

“Well, if you’d kill
him
, of course you wouldn’t hesitate to start a war.” I sound calm, much calmer than I feel. “You really don’t care that thousands of people will die? Do you know what the bodies look like after a Morgut attack?”

“I’m told it’s quite painless,” she assures me. “The first bite injects a neurotoxin that blocks the nerve endings, resulting in paralysis.”

“And there’s money to be made. Weapons to sell. Private security contracts.” I test our theories to see how close we came to the truth.

“At least you sorted out what, if not who. You’re a bright girl, Sirantha.”

I wonder if she had anything to do with the assassination attempt on New Terra. “Did you blow up my Skimmer? What happened, you thought better of trying to use me after we had coffee?”

Ramona shakes her head. “That was a simple misunderstanding. I disciplined the person involved in the error.”

“How many pieces did he end up in?”

“Twelve.” And I don’t think she’s joking. “I’m sorry my men broke into your quarters. They seemed to think I wanted you terrorized for some reason, as if fear ever governs women like us.” She laughs lightly.

I
hate
that she lumps me in with her. If this is how she runs things, I bet she doesn’t pay much in pensions. It also explains Keller’s handling of the poor bastard who fucked up in the nav chair. Thank Mary, that had nothing to do with me.

“You’re one scary bitch,” I say, shaking my head. “I had no idea.”

“You still don’t.” She tips back her head and drains her drink. “For instance . . . I’m having your crew killed as we speak.”

I turn for the door, draw up short at the sound of laser fire. Unless they changed plans after Constance got to them—
if
she did—they’re all gathered together, waiting for me.

Shit.

She smiles. “In fact, they might already be dead.”

 

 

 

CHAPTER 52

l refuse to show fear. “You don’t know them as well as
I do.”

For the first time, I’m glad March isn’t here. I prefer he never finds out how much crazy runs up and down my family tree.

“You’re expecting them to burst in and take me hostage, Sirantha?” Ramona lofts a brow in gentle skepticism. “Keller and his team can handle them. You didn’t honestly think Grubb and Boyle were our best, did you? There’s a reason I culled you from the herd
now
, darling. I didn’t want you caught in the cross fire.”

“I don’t think you realize you caught one of Madame Kang’s best when you cast your net.” A shot in the dark, because surely Keller mentioned it.

The name means nothing to me, but it inspired fear in her hired goons. Maybe it’ll affect my mother the same way.

Her eyes widen, and something swirls in their empty depths. “Lies. All Kang’s girls died when we raided her on Gehenna.”

“Not all,” Hit calls. “She may be gone, but I remember everything she taught me. You sent ten men for four of us?” Her laugh rings out.

From another direction, echoing oddly, I hear Jael’s voice. “You underestimated Jax’s crew. Bet you rue that later.”

“If we let you,” Vel adds.

I can’t tell where any of them are. It sounds like they’ve got the place surrounded, though, and I assume they’re all armed. So does Ramona. She makes a great show of holding up her hands.

“You win,” she says lightly. But fury seethes in her eyes. “I’m helpless now. Show yourselves so I can surrender.”

She’s weak as a boa constrictor, but they’re not stupid enough to fall for that. Dina and Constance remain unaccounted for, but it makes sense if they went ahead to the ship. Neither of them would be much help in a fight.

Jael steps from behind an ornate decorative screen, spattered in blood and gore. And I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life. I take a step toward him, but he holds up a hand.

“No, I need to deal with her first. It pisses me off when people I don’t know try to kill me in my sleep. Well . . . where I would’ve been sleeping, anyway, if I wasn’t such a chary bastard.”

Ramona lifts her chin. “Just make it quick.”

This is where I’m supposed to intervene, stop him from killing her. Instead I turn my back. I expect to hear the quick whine of a laser pistol, but when I glance over my shoulder, I find Jael tying her up. He gags her before she can say we haven’t seen the last of her, or promise to make us sorry.

I’m already sorry she’s related to me. Does that count? I watch him wind the thin filament around her wrists. If she struggles too hard, she’ll cut herself.

“I thought you don’t like leaving anyone alive on your backtrail.”

He shrugs. “I can’t kill an unarmed woman. Call me old-fashioned. But you can shoot her if you want.”

“She’s my mother,” I point out.

“So that means you can’t shoot her?”

For a moment, I consider asking Hit to do it. I certainly can’t. Though I suspect I’ll regret letting Ramona live, I just don’t have that much ice in my veins. I hope she’ll walk away, leaving me out of her schemes after this.

“Pretty much.” I can’t be the reason she’s killed. If nothing else, her hungry, junkie spirit made me who—and what—I am today.

BOOK: Wanderlust
11.84Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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