Chapter 59 #2
She flashed a warm smile. “Were you expecting a spoiled, pampered idiot?”
“You’re not meeting my expectations, no.”
“I’m ever so sorry. I do hate to disappoint,” Evelyn said. “But I think you know a little something about covers and books, hmm?”
They were interrupted by the sound of the front doors opening and closing.
Pearl’s entire countenance shifted, returning to a ramrod straight posture and a blank expression.
Emil Bellica entered the room. He was in one of his ever-present charcoal gray suits, trousers pressed, shoes polished, pristine.
He acknowledged them with a nod of his head and headed to a sofa.
As he sat, he gave a tug to his trousers.
He waved an arm at the seats surrounding him as he crossed his legs. “Ladies, please. Sit.”
“It’s customary to acknowledge the queen of a planet when one enters the room, Minister,” Evelyn said, her voice so icy she barely recognized it. She wasn’t sure where the tone had even come from.
Emil’s lips thinned, and his eyes took in her clothing, her hair. He radiated his disapproval. “Of course, Your Majesty. My sincere apologies.”
Neither Pearl nor Evelyn took the offered seat. Evelyn remained by the sideboard, going for “idly leaning” against the furniture and not using it to keep her trembling knees from giving her away.
Pearl stepped into Emil’s line of sight. “Our contract is complete. One missing person, delivered alive and well into your hands. We require the balance paid in full at this time.”
Emil turned his focus to Pearl and gave a curt nod. “Of course. Let us finish our business, and then Queen Alpertti and I can discuss moving forward.”
He pulled a sleek communicator from his inside jacket pocket and started swiping at the screen.
“There’s very little to discuss, but I agree. Pearl, it’s been lovely to chat with you. Thank you so much for the transportation from the Senate building. I couldn’t have dealt with the mob of people on my own. You’ve been a gem.” Evelyn shot a cheeky smile at her.
Pearl snorted. “My pleasure, Your Majesty. Sincerely wish we could have met under other circumstances.”
Evelyn watched her turn on her heels and walk out of the palace without a backward glance, leaving her alone with Emil.
Pearl was looking forward to getting back to the ship and locking herself in her quarters with a bottle of vodka and a stack of trashy magazines.
She wanted to get weepy and read about celebrity weddings and movie premiers and cheating spouses and twelve-headed goats on Sirius Seven.
Decompress before the next hunt. Wipe her memory for the foreseeable.
She had hated this job more with every passing moment.
Her constant mental proximity to the crew of the Rising Dawn, to him, had been emotionally draining.
It had given her a distraction from the reality of Evelyn as a person.
Keeping assets, targets, as goals and not people was critical to this sort of work.
To add that Emil was as personable as a pile of pencil shavings didn’t help matters at all.
It’s over now.
She trusted her glower to do the majority of the work for her as she made her way back to the ship.
She’d only had to brush the hilt of a blaster once to get the stupidest of the people roaming the square to get out of her way.
The rest of the walk back to the rooftop of the structure they’d set their cloaked ship down on days ago passed by without her notice.
While she waited for Ivan to return, Pearl kicked her legs up on her desk and scrolled through the files they’d copied from the medivessel.
It was her least favorite part of any contract, cleaning up the excess data they accumulated in the midst of a chase.
So much more mercenary work happened behind the screen of a data center than people realized.
Then again, maybe it shouldn’t surprise her.
People never wanted to read the fine print, do the detail work she and Ivan were hired for.
They also often failed to read the fine print in the contracts that Anika had them sign.
When Emil had directed Ivan to find the breach in the system on the medivessel, he’d agreed to letting Ivan back up the entirety of the system.
Every file that had been stored on the ship’s servers was now on their data center, and Pearl was skimming through them, looking for any information that they could capitalize on.
As a rule, they didn’t blackmail their own clients. But if they could leverage a crumb of information to start a new contract? That was just sensible business practices in Anika’s estimation.
Most of it was incredibly boring. Reports.
Years and years of the target’s steady vital sign readings.
The Tanalian princess had been kept in stasis, the ever-evolving technology preserving her body as the decades waned on, keeping her in perfect condition.
Emil was serious about the maintenance of his assets.
So now she was combing through the files. She clicked. She read. She deleted the irrelevant data as it became obvious. She had amassed a small pile of files to re-read at a later date when she opened one that made her blood run cold.
The gangway swung down as she was double-checking the data on her screen.
“Come read this,” she said, waving Ivan over to her view screen. “Does this say what I think it does?”
He pocketed the butterfly knife he’d been fiddling with and leaned over her screen. Pearl didn’t know how he managed to walk and maneuver the blade between his fingers, but he hadn’t cut himself yet.
He scanned the data. “It does.”
Pearl opened up a communication window and dialed their boss.
She pushed up out of her chair to pace as the connection established.
The screen swirled into focus, Anika seated behind her desk.
She was removing a hairnet and was still wearing her Mystic Morsels apron; she had probably been overseeing operations at the factory.
“I saw the credits hit.”
“Yeah, he’s paid in full. But that’s not the exciting part. Well, it is. I’ve hated this gig,” Pearl said.
“I believe that’s why it’s advised not to fish in the company pool,” Anika said, smirking.
“Yeah, yeah. Point is, Mr. Bellica has been a very naughty boy.”
She outlined the files for Anika. She leaned back in her chair, steepled her fingers. By the time Pearl had finished, her boss’ eyebrows were so high they’d disappeared under her bangs.
“And you think this can be leveraged?”
“I interacted with the asset. She’s much sharper than Emil was willing to give her credit for. If she can use this to bury Bauder, she’d be willing to pay for it.”
“Then I suppose you’d best go make sure we can bill for this information.”
Pearl left the ship, climbing out the hatch before the communication had disconnected.
She was going to have to run to make it back to the palace before Emil let his sophisticated veneer snap.
She saw Ivan’s shadow following her as she climbed down the emergency fire stairs at the back of the buildings.
“You’re never going to get over that idiot at this rate.”