The Don sighed.
“So, what’s your move now, Dad?” she asked, emphasizing the word “Dad.” “You bring me up here to torture me with your shit? And then you’re going to kill me?” Years of pain tainted the timbre of her voice.
“No,” the old man confessed. “I’m not going to kill you. I thought I would,” he qualified quickly, his ego rising. “But over the years, I’ve come to realize that there is nothing like family. You’re my daughter. And despite what you’ve done in the past to hurt me, I want you to come home.”
“That’s very big of you,” she shot back sarcastically. “Not going to happen. I’ll take the bullet, thanks.”
“But Karina, don’t you see? I’m extending an olive branch. I want us to be together again. To be happy.”
She shook her head, her chin still held out obstinately. “No way I can be happy with you around. You’re a tyrant.”
“I’m not!”
Something on his desk buzzed, pulling his attention. Karina struggled to see if she could get free from the braces, without any luck.
Calzone hit his ear. “Yes?”
Someone on the other end of the line was telling him something. Suddenly, his eyes shot back to Karina. “Ah. I see. Yes, throw him in the dungeon for now. I’ll talk to him later.”
He hit the implant behind his ear again. “Seems we have company.”
Docking Bay, Bronislovas Trading Outpost, Kirox Quadrant
Ronnie’s beaten-up shuttle clunked into place in the docking bay. “You know, if we turn back now, we may stand a chance…” Ronnie suggested, his voice wobbling with stress.
Sean shook his head. “We’re going in.” He flicked a few switches, locking the ship in the dock so that the door switches would go live. “You stay here if you want, but this ship needs to be here when I get back. It’s our only escape.”
Ronnie nodded. “And your plan is to just walk in there?”
Sean was up and out of his seat, heading for the door. “Something tells me it will be easy to walk in there.”
The side door opened to reveal a small welcome party of family goons standing just inside the docking bay door. Ronnie took one look and scuttled back into the ship to hide. Sean, however, stepped down the stepladder as casually as if he were showing up to a friend’s place.
“Hello, fellas,” he called out to them. He noticed that one had a black eye. “Nice shiner. Where’d ya get that? Not from a girl by any chance?”
The cyborg glared back at him while two of the others moved forward. Sean put his hands in the air. “It’s all right, fellas. I want to be here. Take me to your leader.” He smirked to himself.
The two on either side of him put him into an arm brace, restraining his hands in front of him.
With a hint of humor and a big dose of complacency, he sidled up to one of them and, in a low voice, started talking to him. “Tell me, you haven’t seen a girl around here. Average build. About yay tall.” He held his hands up, despite the arm brace holding them together at the wrist. “Goes by the name of Karina? Packs a mean left hook?”
The flunky’s pupil dilation showed signs of recognition, but he said nothing. He took one of Sean’s arms, and another guy with guns on both legs took his other. Both had strong grips, and judging by the strength of them, Sean guessed they had some enhanced cyborg capabilities.
He heard a scuffle behind him and one of the muscle heads talking to Ronnie. They must have pulled him from the ship. “Boss will be very interested to see you,” he heard as he was pushed out of the docking bay door. “You’re in big trouble.”
The same voice called after them. “I’ll let him know about both of them.” The man on his left grunted something in acknowledgment, and they continued on their way.
Sean tried to turn back to see, but the third guy behind him pushed him forward again and blocked his view.
His sheer strength wasn’t going to get him out of this one. He was going to have to rely on something he knew from previous experience these guys wouldn’t have: wits.
Compliantly, he allowed himself to be led through the corridors from the docking bay, deeper and deeper into the station.
From the looks of the people around, this was a trading outpost. Humans and a host of other humanoid races passed by with crates and carts. Some also passed by with nothing but their digital holos, which would allow them to trade and communicate and move funds at the flick of a finger. They were dressed for comfort and show. Not for battle or practicalities.
And yet, no one batted a scaly eyelid at the fact that he was being restrained and moved through the station by two un-uniformed meatheads.
Sean wracked his brains to the last time he was here. The family certainly had all the control they needed back then. Maybe their operations weren’t even covert now. Could that be? That their dodgy dealings were out in the open?
He continued absorbing all the intel he could on the way, remembering each twist and turn so he could make his way back once he found Karina.
If he could find Karina.
The fact that she was taken and not killed on the spot suggested she was wanted alive, at least. But for how long? Not even Ronnie had been able to tell him that.
Ronnie had been taken in another direction, also in cuffs. He was on his own. And finding Karina on this trading outpost was going to be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Where’s a friendly AI when you need one? he mused to himself dryly.
Calzone’s office, Bronislovas Trading Outpost, Kirox Quadrant
The Don pressed his lips together. “You might be interested to know that it looks like your spy friend has come to save you,” he announced.
A tiny smile played across Karina’s lips.
Her father spotted it. “Ahh, so that makes you happy? That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile since you came back!”
Karina wanted to protest that she wasn’t back but bit her tongue.
He rocked gently in his chair. “Tell me, is this the same man who took you away from me?” She could see a new wave of anger boiling up in him.
Karina nodded her head. “Yes. He saved me from you.”
He deflated again, crushed. “Saved you from me? What are you talking about?”
Karina resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She’d been dealing with her father’s ridiculous ego all her life. Explaining logic or the real world to him had never had any positive effect. If anything, it only tended to push him to dig his heels in even more. “You were going to have me killed, remember? For being insolent or something.”
He looked off into the distance, searching for the distant memory. “Yes… you may be right. I was a lot more… volatile back then. But things are different now. It used to be that we were fighting tooth and nail with the Bertolis just to survive. But now… now we’re the big man!” He sounded proud.
Karina tempered her natural response to his pride. “So, you’re not going to kill me anymore?” She doubted very much he would catch the sarcasm in her voice.
“Kill you? No, my daughter. I’ve missed you… it turns out.”
Karina rolled her eyes.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” he continued. “And though I’d like to kill you for deserting me like that… no. It’s all water under the bridge. I’m going to start being a better father to you.”
“Really,” she responded flatly.
There was no way he could miss the sarcasm there.
“Yes. Don’t you see? If I was the same man, you’d still be in chains in the dungeon.”
Clearly, sarcasm is forever lost on him, she noted to herself. Like emotional intelligence.
“Oh yeah?” she pressed out loud. “And where did you put my friend?”
Though he was missing her points, he didn’t miss a beat in his response. “In the dungeon, of course.”
Karina shook her head. “So, you haven’t changed.”
“I have.
I want you to be happy.” He sat down on the sofa near where she stood and patted the seat next to him. “So, tell me, Karina Calzone. What would make you happy?”
Karina wandered around the room, looking at the various artifacts his wealth and power had acquired for him. This room wasn’t part of his operation fifteen years ago. “It would make me happy for you to let me and my friend go,” she suggested, her gaze wandering, taking in any piece of information that might help her predicament.
“My daughter,” he said. “You’re free to go whenever you want.”
“And my friend?”
“No,” he said firmly. “He helped you escape.”
Karina’s hands were up at her face in frustration. She tugged at her hair, peeking out from behind her cuffs. This man had always lacked in the brain cell department. Luckily, she had inherited her mother’s intellect.
“Okay, Papa, let me go back to the dungeon. I’d like to be with my friend.”
“Very well,” he replied childishly. He moved his finger for the guards to take her. Then he stopped.
“Hang on,” he said, stopping the guard with another move of his finger. “This ‘friend’ makes you happy?”
“Yes, Papa.”
“Is he handsome?”
Karina frowned and screwed up her lips, trying to come to terms with the bizarre question. “I guess.”
“Is he a gay?”
Karina shook her head, shocked. “Erm. No. I don’t think he’s gay, Papa.”
“Well, then it’s settled. You and he will be married.” He jumped up, grinning and excited. He walked over to her and held her cheeks in his thumbs. “My little girl is getting married!”
Karina’s mouth dropped open, and she pulled away from him. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. That’s the leap you make? Dungeon to marriage?”
The demented old man shrugged. “It’s quite simple, as I see it. This man—”
“Sean,” Karina interjected.
He began again. “I want my baby to be happy. Sean makes you happy. You will marry Sean.” He pinched her cheeks and wiggled them like she was a doll or a dog. “Simple.”
Karina managed to pull away and started to protest the madness.
Calzone barely heard her. “It will be a marriage for the sector to remember. Harry!” He called over the guard that, seconds before, had been about to take Karina back to the dungeon. “Send Ricardo in here. We must start making arrangements immediately. I think we should hold it at the station church. This Saturday. It will be a wonderful event. The envy of every fairytale princess.”
Don Calzone continued to prattle. Karina rubbed her cheeks where he’d been pinching them and then wiped her face with her hands again in frustration.
“I think I preferred it better when you were just going to throw me in the dungeon,” she muttered.
“Oh, that can be arranged,” he shot back, his voice suddenly cruel. He motioned for her to be taken. “Take her back… until she realizes I just want what’s best for her.”
His voice softened again, and the optimistic excitement of a new project returned. “Hurry up and come around to this,” he told her, a finger on her chin. “There’s so much planning to do, and it would be more fun if you were up here helping me with it!”
Then, he giggled like a lunatic and sat behind his desk as his entourage came in and started the busy work of planning her wedding.
Chapter 8
Dungeon, Calzone’s offices, Bronislovas Trading Outpost, Kirox Quadrant
Her head still spinning, Karina allowed herself to be led back to her cell in the so-called dungeon.
As she and her guard approached the corridor, it suddenly dawned on her that she was probably about to see Sean. After all these years, and having just pulled the most stupid stunt of her whole existence, she was going to have to face him.
She felt the anxiety rising up in her chest. She felt embarrassed. And stupid. And wished there were some way to make everything right again, before she had to face him.
But then, this wasn’t a day where she was getting anything she wanted.
The guard pushed her forward. “Hurry up,” he grunted. “Haven’t got all day.”
Movement caught her eye in the cell to her right. She was frog-marched straight past it and back into the one she had been in before. She didn’t dare turn around to look. There was no doubt the person in there had seen her, though. She could hear the movement as he reacted.
The guard clamped the ankle restraint around her again and tugged at it. Satisfied it was secure, he turned and left, clanking the cell gate behind him and then reactivating whatever godforsaken security field they had installed with a swipe on the panel on the far wall as he left.
“Are you having as bad a day as I am?” a voice asked from the next cell. It was male and deep. She’d recognize it anywhere.
“Sean Royale,” she said slowly, wondering where the hell this conversation could possibly go. “As I live and breathe.”
There was a pause. “Well, let’s hope we can keep that living and breathing thing going. Word on the street is that folks who end up in here don’t end up doing much of that after a while.”
Karina chuckled lightly. “It’s good to hear your voice, Royale.”
“Yours, too.”
There was another awkward silence.
Sean spoke again. “Don’t suppose you have any ideas on how to get out of here?”
“I have a few,” she confessed. “None that you’d like, though.”
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”
“Because just like any man, I think you value your freedom, and ironically, that’s going to be the one thing you’ll have to give up…”
* * *
“You’re kidding me?” Karina could hear Sean pacing in the next cell. “You’re saying that not only did you lure me here under false and very dangerous pretenses, but that now our only way out of this is to go along with your father’s ridiculous idea for winning his daughter back.”
Karina was tired of talking. It had taken a while to explain everything to Sean, and if she were honest, it was a relief to hear him talking. He’d been silent throughout the whole explanation.
Now he ranted. “I can’t begin to fathom what possessed you to go down this route in the first place. Why didn’t you just come to me? Tell me what she was doing?”
Karina sighed. “I thought that if I did this one thing, then she’d truly leave me alone. For good.”
Sean sighed heavily. “From what I’ve heard about her, that woman ain’t one for letting things go. I mean, case in point. She sends you to ensnare me!”
Karina sighed and covered her face with her hands again. “I know. I’m sorry!”
“I also can’t believe this guy is your father,” he huffed. The pacing continued. “Had I known that…”
“What? What would you have done? Left me here to rot?”
Sean sighed again. “I… I don’t know. Probably not.” The pacing stopped. His voice dropped. “I just wish I’d known.”
Karina rolled her eyes, lying on her back in the next cell. “Well, I wished I had a pony growing up, but we both know that all I got was the normal things a mob princess got: death and the constant threat of death.”
“Well, moping around won’t help us. If the only way out of this is to agree to his terms, then I guess that’s what we need to do.”
Karina was silent.
“Karina? You still there?”
“Of course I am. No. Wait. I just popped out for a mochaccino.”
“Sarcasm never suited you.”
“Well, neither does having my freedoms taken away from me.”
“Touché,” he said. “So, erm, before we agree to do this… tell me… you’ve kept yourself in shape, right?”
Karina’s blood started to boil. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me?” She kicked up off the bench. “I swear, Sean Royale, I wouldn’t marry y
ou if you were the last man in the fucking galaxy. Or if our lives depended on it. And as for me keeping myself in shape, get your ass in here and I’d show you how goddamn in shape I am when I rip you a new one. And another thing—”
Chuckling emanated from Sean’s cell.
Karina stopped, her need to put a fist through something somewhat tempered by only having metal bars and stone walls around. “What’s so fucking funny?”
“Nothing. I just thought I should get that one in before they released us.”
“You what?”
“Just that. It was too good of an opportunity to miss.”
“You’re just fucking with me?” she asked.
“Erm, yeah.” He paused. “Mostly.”
Karina continued to fume. It was her turn to pace. “Sean Royale, I swear the minute we’re out of this, I’m going to—”
Just then, there were footsteps coming down the corridor.
Sean whispered across to her. “Let’s just go along with it. Tell them you’re ready to speak to your father and get us out of this hellhole.”
The flunky arrived back at the bars. “Your father sent me down to see if you’ve made your mind up about cooperating yet.”
Karina stood quietly in the middle of the room, her hands clasped in front of her and her eyes lowered to the floor. “I have. And he’s right. Sean and I should get married.”
Aboard The Empress, Kirox Quadrant
Molly fidgeted in frustration. It wasn’t just on account of all the waiting around, but from all the emotions she was trying to keep a lid on, too. She thought about going and sitting somewhere to meditate. She knew that would be the right move. Or at least what Arlene would recommend.
She just felt defiant, though. Joel had fallen asleep again, and Jack and Pieter were playing some kind of game that was keeping them engrossed. She stood up, stretching her legs and back as best she could in the cramped area. Then quietly, she slipped over Joel’s outstretched legs, out into the main walkway, and up to the corridor that led to the cockpit.
She appeared in the cockpit next to Brock, who seemed to be working hard at the console panel.
The Ascension Myth Box Set Page 179
