“Don’t you like my smile. I’m told it’s one of my best features.”
“That was a smile?” Marika shook her head. “We really need to work on that. Perhaps get Sparky down here… I’ve noticed lean and blond seems to be your type.”
Red arched her eyebrow but then relaxed enough to smile—a genuine smile this time that softened her features.
“Yeah, well. I wouldn’t throw him out of an airlock,” she admitted, a soft flush on her cheeks.
“I knew it!” Marika crowed. “You like him—”
“How lovely to see you here, daughter… or should I call you Mrs. Wolven now?”
Marika stiffened at her father’s voice behind them, and Red’s face dropped into unreadable lines as they turned to face him. As usual, Anton Ingrassia was dressed to kill. His tailored suit was the height of fashion, cut away at the arms and shoulders to display impressive muscular development in a man his age.
“Father. Nice to see you out and about at this time of morning,” she said with a smile and a small inclination of her head. She chose to ignore the question about her name. It was a barb not worth deigning with a reply. “You don’t usually promenade… what’s prompted the change in routine?”
On the surface the conversation seemed polite and cordial, if a little stilted between family members, but she knew better. They were opposing forces on the battlefield, and she was an unknown quantity. This was a fact-finding mission on her father’s part, something that had forced him into action rather than retreating to his web of lies and shadows to direct events.
“Ahh… your recent love story has brought it into focus that it has been a long time since your mother’s passing.” He smiled but the expression didn’t reach his eyes as he swept a glance over Red. The Edanian woman stiffened slightly. “And so many lovely ladies are here… I’m sure I will be able to find a suitable bride, who will give me an heir.”
She kept her expression carefully blank. So he didn’t yet know she’d launched a legal bid for control of the Ingrassia family holdings… interesting.
Any smugness disappeared as he leaned in. A familiar sense of dread crawled along her spine accompanied by flashbacks to similar conversations where she’d waited for his fists to fall, holding her prisoner.
“And your sister… Maxim has seen pictures of her. He says she’s a more than acceptable substitution for you, but he’ll make her pay for the wait. How does that feel… hmm? That you will be the cause of your sister’s suffering?”
She forced steel into her spine. “You are a sick man, father. Perhaps we should get you into the doctors… this level of stress can’t be good for your heart health.”
“What heart?” He chuckled and stood up. “Have a blessed day, daughter.”
They watched him walk away, Dav and Lenar peeling off to follow him like guard dogs.
“Fuck me,” Red gave a short bark of grim laughter. “With family like that, you don’t need enemies. Do you?”
He’d never seen red before, but he was now.
Literally, red washed over Skinny’s vision as he roared. “He had the fucking balls to approach you? In broad daylight?”
Marika smiled up at him, as though amused by his protectiveness. “It was fine, love. He couldn’t have done anything anyway, not in broad daylight. The promenade is filled with cameras, and Red was there with me.”
“That’s not the point and you know it,” he grumbled, dropping down onto the couch next to her. It creaked slightly under his heavier frame. Human furniture was so flimsy.
They were sitting in the living room of their suite, most of the crew assembled with them.
T’Raal leaned forward, still dressed in his “bodyguard” suit, his muscled arms resting on his knees and his long hair around his shoulders. “So… update. Where are we?”
Beauty looked up from where he was lounging against an ornate cabinet, picking under his nails with a vicious-looking knife. “Eric and I gained access to the central data hub in the undercity. We uploaded the legal petition and made sure it showed as having been logged last week, straight to the City’s judicial panels. There is no way Ingrassia can block it now. It will be heard.”
Skinny nodded but the news didn’t ease any of the tension in his shoulders. If anything, the petition put Marika in even more danger from her father. She’d already defied him by running away. Getting married, to him, meant she was no longer her father’s property, but that was a whole different kettle of lavracki to outright challenging him legally.
“Also, while we were in there, I used that hunter-seeker program of Zero’s to search for the sister.”
“Oh?” The hope that flowed over Marika’s face was heartbreaking in its intensity. “Did you find her?”
The tall Warborne shook his head. “Nope. I got a couple of possible locations but that’s it. Seems your sister is used to hiding from people looking for her.”
She sat back and settled in the curve of Skinny’s arm over the back of the sofa. “You’ve seen my father… do you blame her?”
Rumbles of agreement emanated from the rest of the room as Beauty began to brief them on what he’d found out about Ingrassia’s less legal operations. If they were effectively going to war with the guy, they needed to know everything about him. Know your enemy as your brother and all that. He couldn’t remember which legendary warrior had said that—he wasn’t into history—but T’Raal had hammered it into them so often they could all chant it in their sleep. And it made sense. The more intel, the better.
But he wasn’t listening, finding the delicate curve of Marika’s neck far more interesting. She was clad in a light purple dress that fit her like a second skin with little crisscross straps over her shoulders that he itched to slide down later when he took her to bed. He’d pull her beneath him and…
“Back in the room, Skinny?” T’Raal asked and he looked up to find the big Lathar’s light gaze directly on him. The small quirk of his lips said he knew exactly what Skinny had been thinking. “You good with the plan tomorrow?”
He didn’t answer for the moment, trying to figure out how to admit he hadn’t been listening to a word any of them had said. Staring at T’Raal didn’t help, the mercenary leader looking back at him with a raised eyebrow and not offering up any clues.
“Fine,” he sighed. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Marika and Skinny sittin’ in a tree… K. I. S. S. I. N. G…” Sparky sing-songed from the opposite sofa.
Eric, sitting next to him, turned. “Do you specialize in acting like a child or is it some kind of developmental issue?”
“What’s tomorrow?” Skinny asked, ignoring the brewing argument. Eric was a newer member of the team and, if he was honest, Skinny had no idea why T’Raal had let him stay on, other than he was Tank’s brother. The guy wasn’t even the useful kind of human doctor… a healer.
“Tomorrow is the full hearing at court. Marika’s petition will be heard and witnessed.”
He looked at the woman nestled against his side. “So soon?”