Chapter 25 #3
“Exactly how it sounds. They’re nowhere to be found. Maksym arrived to find security trying to dig up Pye from where Bez had partially buried him. I watched the encounter. It’s quite entertaining. Apparently, this wasn’t the first time they’d had to extract him.”
“That must be what Jace meant by leaving his trees alone,” Kira murmured.
Bez must have turned to alternative treatments when he didn’t find what he was looking for with station medical.
“Just out of curiosity—you wouldn’t happen to know what types of plants were in the garden Bez buried Pye in, would you?” Kira asked.
“Let me check. I’m sure there’s information somewhere.”
Waiting, Kira hooked her wrists over the railing.
It was the presence of the pityrodia augustensis. It bothered her.
For some reason, she couldn’t get the image of a gangly girl, her hair all a tangle, out of her mind. More so than anyone else, that girl had always clung to the background. Never engaging unless forced. Even then, her words had been rarer than kindness.
If that girl crossed her path today, Kira wasn’t sure she’d recognize her.
The others had called her the master’s pet. She’d been kept separate for the most part. Spared some of the brutality the rest of them received on an almost daily basis.
It had bred resentment among some.
Kira had never really noticed or taken an interest. Too focused on her own problems to worry about someone else’s. The only reason she halfway remembered the girl was because Elise had mentioned her in passing once. Her name had been so unusual that it had stuck with Kira.
“Hang on a minute. This is strange. Almost all of these plants are Tuann,” Jin said, sounding puzzled. “I don’t understand. How did they get here?”
Kira had a theory. A wild one. So fantastical that she almost couldn’t bring herself to consider it.
“We decided on Titan as our base of operations because there were no signs of the forty-three’s presence. But what if we were wrong?” Kira asked.
“What are you saying?”
“Patch me through to Alexander.”
Kira was pretty sure she knew who he was supposed to be meeting. And that things weren’t going to go as planned.
“Standby,” Jin said.
Moments passed before Alexander appeared on the holovid. “I’m in the middle of something.”
“This’ll only take a moment. Who are you supposed to be meeting.”
Alexander’s features filled with impatience. “I’m hanging up.”
“Is it Pityrodia Augustensis?” Kira demanded.
Alexander paused, suspicion entering his eyes. “Why are you asking me that?”
“Is that Roake’s heir?” someone demanded from out of sight.
Kira thought she recognized the voice as belonging to the interim lord of House Asanth.
“One moment,” Alexander murmured, the scenery changing as he moved away. “Kira, you have ten seconds and then I’m hanging up.”
Don’t curse him out. Don’t curse him out, Kira chanted.
“Do you know where I was a few minutes ago? In a cargo container someone had turned into a conservatory.”
Alexander’s sigh was loud and long suffering. “If that’s all you have to say—”
“Shut up and just listen, will you? Someone used shaped charges to take out one of that container’s walls. There are signs of hot weapons everywhere. We have a video of Caius and a hooded figure fleeing with a child. Should I go on?”
As Kira spoke, Alexander’s expression slowly changed. First surprise. Then wariness. Finally, concern.
“When you set up this meeting did you actually talk to Pityrodia?” Kira asked.
“She prefers to go by Gus,” Alexander murmured.
Kira would too if she had a name like that.
“From your expression, I’m taking it that the details for this meet flowed through an intermediary. Who was it?”
“Someone trustworthy.”
That wasn’t what she asked.
“Who, Alexander?” Kira repeated, her tone showing she was beginning to lose patience.
Alexander gritted his teeth. “Ryan.”
Kira blinked. Her mouth opened and closed several times. “Ryan’s involved?”
Please, no. Anyone but him.
“Yes,” Alexander ground out.
“Ryan doesn’t involve himself in low level things like this.”
If he ever let himself be known to the wider universe, he was what some would refer to as a king maker. His machinations so deep and convoluted that they had brought more than one government to its knees. Only to be replaced by puppets of his choosing.
Kira suspected he owned more than one Consortium conglomerate. Though she’d never been able to prove that.
Of all her siblings, she hated dealing with him the most.
“Who do you think arranged all this? It was Ryan. Be grateful. He offered this meet to save your ass. Others would have let you hang.”
Jin’s softly mumbled “oh shit” barely registered as Alexander and Kira’s stare down heated up.
“I don’t have to wonder which of those options you voted for.” Kira’s smile was hard. “If Ryan interfered, I can assure you it wasn’t to save me. It was to further his own agenda.”
Alexander could cast blame all he wanted, but she had Ryan’s measure. Anything he did was to service his goals and, by extension, the forty-threes’. If Kira benefited, that was a byproduct rather than the objective.
“All this time and you still don’t understand us,” Alexander swore.
Kira struggled against a wave of irritation. “Let’s fight about what I do or do not understand later.”
This bastard was as stubborn and hard headed as ever.
“I tire of this conversation. I’m hanging up now.”
“Just answer my question— did you speak to Ryan in person?”
“We spoke through messenger. But then, you already know that. It’s the same way he contacts you.”
Kira did know that. Ryan’s pawns had intercepted them on numerous occasions. Usually, to relay orders to cease and desist whatever they were up to.
Of course, Kira and Jin never listened.
Sometimes those messengers were members of the forty-three. Other times complete strangers that Ryan had either blackmailed or threatened into doing his bidding.
Ryan wouldn’t risk himself when he could convince someone else to do that for him.
Kira knew better than to say that to Alexander, however.
“You know him better than me,” she argued. “Would his representative ever be late?”
Ryan may have only been the wannabe leader of the forty-three, but he was a feared wannabe.
Kira hurried along the walkway back toward the stairs she’d used to reach this level. “You need to get out of there, Alexander.”
Rhett and Tinsley were powerful members of their House. Perfect targets for capture and interrogation.
In the worst case scenario—elimination.
It didn’t matter whether their enemies failed or succeeded in their attack. The very fact that there was an attempt would be enough to severely damage the forty-three’s reputation. Any trust they’d built with the major Houses would be gone.
Kira wasn’t sure they’d ever get it back.
“Maybe you should listen to her, Alexander,” Jin urged softly.
“I don’t need to. As difficult as it is for you two to believe, we know what we’re doing. Don’t call again. I’m busy.”
“Alexander? Alexander!” Kira shouted, getting no response. “Jin, can you get him back?”
Static crackled from the squirrel’s throat.
“Jin?”
Shouting distracted her.
Kira glanced around in confusion to find Solal racing toward her across a stack of containers, gesturing wildly.
Out of the corner of her eye, something huge swiftly approached from above.
Kira’s stomach dropped at the sight of nearly a dozen containers in free fall directly above her.
“Oh, this is going to hurt,” she whispered.