Hirotoshi nodded once. “Then as you say, all that is left is to deliver the punishment.” He hesitated as he peeled off to go around to the back of the house. “I would not show these people even a drop of the mercy you are granting them. To die in their sleep is an easy escape considering the pain they have caused.”
Tabitha watched Hirotoshi until he was obscured by the side of the house before she approached the front door. Yeah, well I don’t want to waste time on them. This is in, out, and boom. Done.
The front door opened as Tabitha approached and the sallow-faced man came out. Tabitha shot him without pausing and he hit the floor, dead before he’d even registered her presence. Well, that saved me the effort of kicking the damn door in.
Are these charges sufficient?
Just make sure you cover all the structural points in the basement. Tabitha opened the small box. Jean told me they have a small blast radius but a hell of a bang, and we’ve got plenty of them. Remind me to thank her when we get home.
She darted through the front door and made a lap of the house at vampiric speed, depositing the almost-invisible discs from the box on every available surface as she went. She made sure she paid extra attention to the rooms where she came across sleeping gang members.
A few of the people sprawled around the rooms stirred, but Tabitha made it out of the house without disturbing anyone. She headed for the front of the house, where she found Hirotoshi waiting for her on the street.
Tabitha walked over to Hirotoshi. She took the remote detonator from her pocket and pressed the trigger without a word.
The two stood in silence while the house collapsed like a souffle. The roof caved in and dropped into the top floor, which gave way as the ground floor vanished into the basement in a massive cloud of dust and debris.
The mantle of dust settled on the crater where the hideout had been.
There was no movement from the rubble.
Hirotoshi glanced at Tabitha, waiting for her to make a joke as she usually did in these situations. “No zingy one-liner?”
Tabitha turned away from the scene of destruction and walked toward the pickup point, her voice sad as she said, “I told you, no speeches.”
Chapter Seventeen
System of the Six, Planet Vietania, Plomerilia, Palace Security Office
Jolie watched the news report a second time, and then a third. She put the datapad she was using on the table and pushed it away as though it were hot. The man in the photo was definitely Marius, but the newscaster gave his name as John, crown prince of Zuifra.
Why would a prince pretend to be a common trader?
The whole thing stank of intrigue, and she was going to get to the bottom of it. The name of the planet rang a bell, which made it as good a place as any to start her search. In the meantime, she sent for Simon, her resident hacker, and handed the datapad to him. “Find out if this is true. Cynthia might be in danger.”
Simon frowned as he watched the report. “That’s not good. Want me to dig into the rest of them as well?”
Jolie nodded. “If they’re here for nefarious reasons, then we need to find out what they want before they succeed.”
“Got it.” He hesitated before leaving. “Shouldn’t we tell the queen?”
Jolie shook her head. “Not without evidence. And even with evidence, we’ll need to get guards so loyal to Cynthia that they’ll listen to us when we tell them what’s going on.”
Jolie got to work the moment he closed the door. The name Zuifra sounded familiar, but she couldn’t quite grasp why. She opened her computer and input various spellings until she got a hit.
Zuifra was familiar because she had learned about its founding during her schooling. The planet’s founding colony had come from the Six, having chosen exile over living under Vietanian law. Prince John’s family had splintered from the Vietanian royal family after a civil war over a broken marriage contract, which at the time had seemed arbitrary to Jolie.
Jolie sighed sadly. How differently she viewed the lesson in hindsight. She saw the parallels between the war generations ago and the one that was sure to erupt at the end of her father’s mourning period, no matter which of them took the crown. The population was split between the older generations, the ones who remembered Jolie’s mother and saw Jolie stepping into her shoes, and the young and monied who were enchanted by the persona Cynthia presented to the public.
The situation here and now would be laughable to some. It was to her, and she loved Cynthia. However, the dilemma she had always feared facing had come to pass, and her fatuous sister would run the whole system into ruin if she were allowed to rule.
Jolie loved her people too much to allow it.
She scanned through the history, her mind on the upcoming Senate hearing. She had no clue which way the Senate would rule on the petition to force Cynthia to abdicate in her favor. Jolie hadn’t encouraged the movement. Her place was on the front lines, not sat behind a wall of courtiers and ministers. Still, if it became her duty, she would uphold it.
In some ways, she preferred that her sister take the crown since it freed Jolie for her work. If only Cynthia were more focused on ruling instead of finding a man to do it for her so she could party!
If only they didn’t rely on some romantic and archaic governance system that favored birthright over suitability.
Simon returned, and Jolie was surprised to see a couple of hours had passed while she was reading and thinking. Her hacker handed her the datapad she’d given him earlier with a serious expression on his face. “It’s not as bad as you thought, Your Highness, but you were right about the prince.”
“I know I was right about the prince. We’re probably distantly related.” Jolie closed her own research and began to skim through Simon’s reports. She hissed in disbelief when she got to the bleary-eyed mug shot of Captain Meredith Dakkar that Simon had dug up from the records of a mining outpost she’d trashed. “This reads like a rap sheet.”
Simon lifted a shoulder. “She likes a fight, that’s for sure.”
“A fight?” Jolie laughed. “That’s an understatement. This is more like the aftermath of a hurricane, only the path she ripped goes through all the seediest joints outside the Federation.”
“It looks that way.” Simon leaned over and swiped a couple of pages. “Here, this is where it gets interesting.”
Jolie looked at the page he’d skipped to and read the associated charges. “What the hell? She’s from the Federation? She’s a Grimes Grimes?”
Simon shrugged. “I couldn’t get confirmation on that, but you should treat her as though she is until we know for certain. You don’t want to piss off a Grimes by accident.”
“We’re not going to aggravate her in any way.” Jolie dropped the datapad and rubbed her tired eyes. “Shit. This means that it’s not the Federation. The Empress’ people are involved. This… This could be even worse than I thought.”
Simon was confused by her reaction. “I thought the worst that could happen was that they were assassins?”
Jolie shook her head. “The worst that could happen is that they’re here to take over to ensure a smooth transition whether or not we come to a solution.” She gathered the papers up. “We have to stop it from happening.”
“I don’t get it,” Simon admitted. “Stop what from happening?”
“The marriage, of course,” she told him as if it were obvious. “Prince John is here to woo Cynthia and annex Vietania for Zuifra, or at least that’s what it looks like to me. Whether it’s true or not, they’ve been spending so much time together if it gets out that he’s from the Federation then everything we’ve been working for could go down the drain. It’s an added complication we don’t need.”
Simon gave her a sympathetic look. “I don’t envy you, Your Highness. What are your choices here?”
Jolie snorted and picked up the datapad. “The choice is that I have no choice but to act. If Prince John thinks he’s going to steal this planet by sedu
cing my sister, he’s got a shock coming.”
System of the Six, Planet Vietania, Plomerilia, Palace
John touched his glass to Cynthia’s and smiled. “To us.”
“To us,” Cynthia echoed with a touch of melancholy in her smile. “For as long as we can be us. Until reality interrupts.” She sighed and placed her glass on the table before turning to gaze at the view from the balcony. “My coronation will be here soon enough, and then my life will never be my own again.”
John’s heart soared. At last, Cynthia was opening up to him, and he had a chance to save her from Nickie’s drastic solution. “You don’t like the idea of being queen?”
Cynthia laughed ruefully. “It’s not the kind of thing you choose, silly. I was born to be queen. It’s what I am, whether I want it or not. And it’s hard!” Her nose wrinkled in that pretty way John was beginning to find adorable. “I didn’t want Daddy to die, but he did, and now I have to deal with everything. I’m the next in line, so I have to step up.”
John’s dimple winked as he sipped his wine. “Do you?”
Cynthia turned to look at him. “What are you suggesting? Of course, I do.”
“I’m not entirely sure since I’m completely drunk and at your mercy, Your Majesty.” He took Cynthia’s hand and kissed her fingers. “What life would you have if you could choose for yourself?”
The queen-in-waiting giggled. “I don’t know. I would still want to be a queen since it’s the only thing I know how to do. I always knew that after my coronation I would have to be all serious like Jolie, but I’m a person, too! I want to dance and laugh and love. I want to see the galaxy, or at least some of it.”
Cynthia’s eyes grew dreamy. “And when I’ve done all of that, I want to marry someone who loves me for me, not someone who just wants to be king. I want to have a grand romance that spans the ages. One that the people our children’s children’s children rule will call the greatest love of all time.”
John was lost in her daydream. It evoked something in him so similar to the feeling that had driven him to find adventure that he felt her longing as if it were his own. “Then let Jolie rule. Come away with me, and I’ll give you all of that.”
Cynthia pulled her hand away. “Are you crazy? And let her win?”
John waved a hand. “Let her. What do you care when you’re dancing on the Meredith Reynolds, or kissing me as we watch the birth of a star on some far away station? You would be a princess or a queen or whatever you wanted to be.”
Nickie spoke in his ear. Easy there, Romeo. Great acting, but you’re laying it on a bit thick.
John almost fell over. What the hell, Nickie! Have you been listening the whole time?
Well, yeah. It’s kinda the point of having the comm.
He felt all the blood in his body rush to his face. Cynthia looked at him with mild concern. Shut up before she notices!
Just keep up the good work, hot stuff. Seriously, great acting.
John surreptitiously removed his comm bud, deactivated it, and dropped it into his pocket. I’m not acting. He returned his attention to Cynthia, who was asking if he was okay.
“I’m fine,” he replied. “I just… I’m shaken. I’ve fallen for you, Cynthia. I didn’t expect it, not so soon after meeting you. I want to take you away from all of this. If you will have me.” He took her hands again. “Cynthia McLeod, will you elope with me?”
Cynthia stood, pulling John up to his feet. She let go of his hands and looked deep into his eyes, searching for the lie in his love. “I… I barely know you.”
John grinned. “Does it matter? This week has been the best of my life. Not because of the dinners or the parties, because I met you. Can you honestly say you don’t feel the same connection?” He almost didn’t dare meet her eyes. This was a huge gamble.
Cynthia looked hard at him, then turned her face to the moonlight. It lit her profile perfectly so that John could see the indecision painted across her features. She sighed. “No. I can’t. What if I leave? What does that make me?”
John kissed her. “It would make you happy, and your sister would take care of the people. It would solve the problem I know you care about as much as you pretend not to, and you and I could live our happily ever after.”
Cynthia was quiet for a while.
John sat back in his chair and sipped his wine while the woman beside him decided whether the rest of their lives would be spent together. He was being almost completely honest; he hadn’t expected to fall for Cynthia. His first reaction to her had been less than magnanimous, but the more time he spent with her, the more he realized that she was a product of her upbringing.
She was actually an insightful, intelligent, and caring woman—someone he could see himself spending happy years with. Nickie crossed his mind. There had been potential there too, or so he’d thought. She’d been cold since High Tortuga, which to him was worse than being the focus of her sharp tongue.
John was over that. He was more than a drunken fuck to be dismissed the next day. He might regret not taking her up on her offer, but not so much that he would chase pain to receive another one.
Besides, Nickie would never settle. She was wilder than wild; it would be like trying to catch a storm with only two hands and a fishing net. With Cynthia, he could have a true partnership. She was from his world, and she understood the pressures of royal life. She wanted love as much as he did.
“Cynthia, there are some things you need to know before you agree to run away with me.”
Cynthia sat up, suddenly worried. “What is it, Marius?”
John made a face. “That’s the first thing. My name isn’t Marius, it’s—”
“John,” Jolie cut in from the balcony doors. She stalked over and handed Cynthia the datapad she was carrying. “Prince John, to be exact. He’s a fraud.”
Cynthia turned to John with a look of disbelief. “Is this true? You’re a prince?”
John nodded. “That’s what I was about to tell you when your sister interrupted.”
“See?” Jolie cried. “He’s an impostor. He and his captain are conning us.” She pointed at John. “You’re not going to marry my sister just to get your hands on this planet.”
“I don’t want your planet,” John told her. “I have enough on my hands preparing to rule my own.”
Cynthia looked at John with rapidly-filling eyes. “You lied? After everything I told you?”
John hated the look of betrayal she was giving him. “We’re just here to make sure the Six get into the Federation in one piece.” He smiled sadly. “I told you I wasn’t here to fall in love. When you bared your heart, and it was the same as mine, that was when I knew I loved you. I get it, Cynthia. I might be a prince, but everything else is the truth. The power, the wealth—I don’t care about any of that. I’ll even renounce my title if it means I get to go to sleep every night with the woman I love. With you.”
Cynthia took a step toward John just as the balcony doors swung open again and a troop of guards came out with their weapons raised.
“Arrest him!” Jolie ordered.
The guards advanced on John.
“No!” Cynthia cried. She flung herself in front of John. “You will not touch him!”
The guards paid the queen-in-waiting no attention. They gently scooped her out of the way and took John by the arms. Cynthia screamed at them to release him, but the guards herded John toward the door regardless.
Cynthia rounded on her sister with clenched fists. “You complete bitch! You just can’t stand to see anyone happy, can you? What did you tell them? Make them let him go now!”
“I won’t. Cynthia, he’s a liar! You’re not thinking about anyone except yourself, as usual!” Jolie yelled back. “All you can see is a pretty face and a dick to ride.”
John heard Nickie shouting faintly in his pocket. He shook the guards off and turned back to argue with Jolie. “Not true! I might have been here initially to make sure your family drama didn’t fuck it up for
everyone else, but I love Cynthia.” He struggled against the guards when they grabbed him again. “Unhand me!”
“Take him to the dungeons,” Jolie ordered. “Don’t let him out of your sight.”
The guards nodded and dragged John through the balcony doors as the sisters continued to scream at each other.
System of the Six, Planet Vietania, Plomerilia, Palace Dungeon
John sat down on the metal bunk and sighed.
The guards had shoved him in here and left him in darkness. Their footsteps faded, and a single flickering light came on overhead. He fumbled in his pocket for his comm bud and stuck it in his ear to reactivate it.
Slutty fucking bitch-biscuits! Meredith, find him. If they’ve hurt him, I swear I’ll blow a hole in their fucking castle and rip their fucking spleens from their bodies.
John decided that facing Nickie’s wrath was a slightly more attractive option than her making good on that threat. Nickie, I’m here.
Nickie didn’t hear him; she was in full-on war mode. John was almost glad to be in the dungeon, as far from her rage as possible.
He swallowed and raised his mental voice to be heard. Nickie. I’m fine.
Nickie stopped cursing. John? About time. Where did they take you? Are you okay? Next time I tell you to keep your comm in, keep your fucking comm in, you ass.
John snickered. I thought you didn’t care? He didn’t add that there wouldn’t be a next time. I’m okay. I’m in a cell somewhere on the underground levels.
Can you get out?
I don’t know. He got up to poke around. There was no way to escape as far as he could see. The six-by-six cell was windowless. The ventilation shaft was too narrow even for his arm to fit inside, and the door was bolted and hinged on the outside. He tested the bars on the door’s small viewing window, but they held fast. Damn, this is best-built prison cell I’ve ever come across.
Deuces Wild Boxed Set: Books 1-4: Beyond the Frontiers, Rampage, Labyrinth, Birthright Page 76
