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Perhaps there was hope for her yet.
“Lila, you need a vacation.”
“I’m only saying what someone has already planned, Mother. An assassin doesn’t even have to take the shot tonight, especially if half the journalists in New Bristol follow the boy. They can just keep him in sight and wait for a clear shot. My advice, Father? Get Chief Shaw on it, and advise the Holguíns to keep the boy underground. It’s hard to find someone on thermal through several tons of dirt.”
Her father pulled out his palm and began typing a message. “I’ll have Chief Shaw escort the boy to the Holguín compound and keep a few patrols in the area. The chairwoman can contest our interference with the council later.”
“She will,” her mother predicted. “I suspect two groups are out tonight, Henri. The loyalists want Oskar dead, but the traditionalists will want him alive. At ten million credits, the boy would make for a cheap and grateful puppet, one still young enough to be molded.”
“It beats being a slave, doesn’t it?” Lila asked.
“It’s just a different kind of slavery. We should all be more concerned with the empire’s aristocracy. If they fetch Oskar and take his father from King Lucas, then they could gain control of the empire, so long as they can sway public sentiment and gain the support of their clergy. Warmongers, the lot of them. King Lucas does a fair job of holding them all in check, but if he loses the reins…”
The chairwoman took a sip of wine and fixed her daughter with a stare. “War is generally bad for business, unless you’re the one supplying the bullets and the rations and tossing someone else’s children into the breach. It only takes one excuse to beat the drums.”
“Well, let’s hope they don’t find an excuse.”
“Let’s hope they take up a new pastime and stop playing at politics.”
“You dabble all the time, Mother.”
“Dabbling isn’t what they do. We push through favorable zoning laws and pollution regulations. That’s a lot different than poking at foreign leaders and governments. It’s why we let the senate handle such things. Buffers, if you will. Buffers who have too many children scattered among the highborn and lowborn alike to risk their offspring falling on the front lines of a war without reason. It gives us boundaries, Lila. That’s the difference. Ask Commander Sutton if you still don’t understand.” She drained her glass and nodded at Lemaire. “Are you ready to leave, Henri?”
He tapped out one last message on his palm. “Yes. Lila, would you like to ride with us?”
Lila frowned. The pair seemed to have made up. “As much as I love trying to carry on a conversation while you both paw at one another, I have my own car and a prior appointment.”
“Such a grouch. Maybe she does need a vacation, Bea.”
The chairwoman looked smugly at Lila.
“Come to Falcon Home tomorrow morning for breakfast, Lila girl. Nine o’clock. I have an early meeting, but I’ll wait to eat until you arrive.”
Lila nodded, steeling her face so that she would not tip off her mother. Her father didn’t want breakfast. He wanted her help with Oskar.
And that was too bad, for Lila had every intention of stealing the boy herself.
“I’d love to have breakfast with you, Father.”
“Good. Perhaps I’l
l even try my hand at making pancakes.”
Lila tried to smile. Though she appreciated the effort, she’d eaten burned pancakes too many times as a child. “Hmmm,” she answered diplomatically.
“Fine, I’ll ask Chef Mathieu make them instead.”
“No sausage?”
“No sausage,” he promised, his hand over his heart.
“Well, in that case, I’d be delighted to attend.”
Chapter 4
Lila exited the bathroom, her silken white robe light upon her skin. Two wolves had been stitched in red upon the breast, both snarling and biting in different directions. She dried her damp hair with a towel and sat upon her bed.
She had a blackmailer to catch, but all she wanted to do was sleep. Tristan had promised her a long rest after they caught Oskar. Her mother had promised the same after the auction.
