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He forced himself to look up. “Bring them up.”
Two files. Engagement and Excise.
“Leave me.”
They filed out of the room, all except Marcus. “Leave me,” he repeated. The Anglican bowed and retreated from the room.
Celino sank into a chair.
“Engagement,” he said grimly.
A picture of his younger self looked at him. He scrolled past it impatiently. A list of the books from his library, each title with his personal notes. She seemed to have added her own. “Celino: liked it but the main character lacked discipline. Meli: agreed.” Next title. “Celino: garbage. DNF. Meli: tedious beginning but worthwhile finish.” By Scarlet Sails, he had written: Pure sap. She added her own note, “Celino, you’re an idiot.”
A list of holofilms, again annotated with two sets of notes. His school notes, pages and pages and pages of them. She studied him as if he was one of the ancient masters and she a disciplined devotee. She had access to his notes. She must’ve made a friend among the Carvannas.
He scrolled. A collection of recipes. A recipe for passion cones. A note scribbled with a stylus on the screen marked the corner. “Don’t forget the lemons, Meli!” He recognized his mother’s small script. His own mother had conspired against him.
No wonder he felt at ease with Meli. She knew him, intimately knew him. She’d read his notes and his ramblings and peered into his mind. Why had she done it? He searched his mind and stumbled onto the answer that shook him. She had done so they would be happy. She had expected to be his wife. She understood he would resent her and so she strove to become more than his burdensome spouse.
He scrolled past years of his school work. His financial machinations. She had analyzed these as well. On Rhomian acquisition she had written, “Brilliant. Proof that Bavani can stick his Way of Management up his arse.”
Other notes followed, punctuating the records.
“Continues to lack in patience.”
“I can’t believe he has done this.”
“Either he’s a financial genius or a ruthless brigand, who simply doesn’t care. Perhaps both.”
He wanted to read on, fascinated, but he wanted to find her more. “Lyon’s schedule, next twenty-four hours.”
It was surprisingly easy to capture Lyon Galdes and both of his sons. They didn’t expect a brazen assault in full daylight. He had led the crew himself. They took the three men just outside Cantina restaurant. Bound and gagged, the Galdes were stuffed into the armored aerial and whisked away without an incident.
In the air he loosened Angel’s gag. “Your sister. Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” the youngest Galdes snarled. “She was supposed to kill you. Why aren’t you dead?”
“That’s what I would like to know.”
He questioned them all in turn and once he slid open the door and held Angel by his legs upside down above a thousand-foot drop, he became convinced they were telling the truth. They had no idea where Meli had gone.
Celino had them tucked away in his compound. Thirty hours had passed since her transmission. He hadn’t slept or eaten and still he had no idea where she was.
He had to think like her. If he were her, where would he go?
It came to him finally. He took a fresh aerial from his garage and headed to Dahlia.
***
The old training hall was dimly lit with portable lanterns. Four interceptors hovered, slowly transversing its length. In the center Meli stood, wearing a light T-shirt and loose pants. Her eyes were shut.
Celino stopped short of the battle line. He didn’t know how she had gotten past the guards, but nothing she did any longer surprised him.
She opened her dark eyes and looked at him. The interceptors came within censor range and streaked to her from four sides.
“I never intended to kill you,” she said. The translucent green ribbon snapped from her hand with ungodly speed and four dismembered metal husks crashed to the floor. “I wanted you to know what it felt like. Angel’s intel is always excellent. The opportunity was too good to pass on it.”
“I was cruel,” he said. “I still am.”
“I know.” She walked across the floor to the first interceptor, picked it up and tossed it into a plastic bin. She still had the same gliding smoothness to her movements that drove him wild. He trailed her on the safe side of the battle line.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“You have my heart. Where would I go without it?”
“Home, Celino.”
“Not without what is mine.”
She paused and looked at him with her velvet eyes. “I was never yours.”
“When I made you climax and laugh, when you fell asleep in my arms, when you smiled at my jokes and reached for me, you were mine.”
“What you think of as love are the last splashes of your dying lust. Don’t you have any dignity? Do you really—”
“—think you can change my mind by begging?” he finished for her. He crossed the battle line and strode to her, his movement stalking and sleek. He knew every inch of the old gymnasium. He was a predator in a familiar territory. She tensed as he came near and he stopped a few feet away from her. “I didn’t come here to beg. You were promised to me and I came to claim you.”
She sighed. “I’ve forgiven you for breaking the engagement a long time ago. I have never forgiven my family or yours for forcing it on us, but I’ve forgiven you. You were fighting for your freedom. I respect that.”
“Then why are you punishing me?”
“Because you wouldn’t listen to me, Celino. Had you married me for one day and divorced me the next, I would be free. I would have proof that you no longer wanted me. That’s what I had come to ask of you that night. One day. You didn’t have to consummate the marriage, you didn’t have to attend the wedding, you had only to sign the damn paper and then, twenty-four hours later, sign another. I would’ve been released. Free to choose a mate, free to make my own future, just like you.”
“You were anyway,” he said, puzzled.
“Nobody wanted me, Celino!” The ribbon struck from her hand, mincing the closest interceptor into electronic gravel. “They were afraid that one day you may change your mind, show up on their doorstep, and demand restitution for stealing your bride. You didn’t even marry. The rest of the kinsmen didn’t expect you to lay claim to me but they couldn’t ignore the possibility that you might do it. Just like you’re trying to do it now.”
