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Massimo dragged his beady eyes over her face, and sensing her unrelenting commitment to his downfall, he changed tact. ‘This will be the end of you,’ he hissed. ‘I’ll kill you myself if I have to, just like I did your father. I didn’t even have to think about it. I just ploughed the man down where he sat. He couldn’t believe it. He never saw it coming,’ the man cackled.
Selene sucked in oxygen. Her neck flamed with rage. She felt Kainan’s hand temporarily against her back and pulled from his energy to calm herself down.
‘There he is,’ she slowly said. ‘The true Massimo. You’ve dropped the ‘poor me’ act and unleashed your true dark self. You’re just another honour-free murderer!’
The man before her dissolved into a sniggered laugh, his jowls wobbling. ‘Oh Selene, your heartfelt passion for Dunia and your naïveté have never ceased to amaze me. It blinds you to the truth so that you always underestimate your opponents. That was why I killed Kei’Lano. He was weak. The nebulous concepts of honour and virtue easily swayed him. So too, were you. You both stood in the way of progress, industry, and strength! All your honour will do for this planet is impoverish it. Thank the gods I won’t be here to see it.’
Selene noticed with a slight panic that as the man spoke, he’d inched backward towards the back wall of the grotesque room.
‘Stay where you are,’ Kainan snapped, stepping forward and extending his rifle.
‘Or what?’ Massimo taunted. Then he moved surprisingly fast for his wide girth. He withdrew a small handgun from his voluminous robes. Then, pointing it at Selene, he fired.
Kainan reacted in milliseconds, pushing her out of the way, so the bullet crashed against his meta suit. It fell, with a clink, to the floor.
Teresa let out a scream, and the other guards in the room rushed towards the other co-conspirators and overpowered them.
Kainan instinctively reached out to Selene, who’d fallen to the floor and helped her up.
‘You OK?’ he rasped.
‘I’m fine.’
Massimo tittered wildly at the confusion he’d wrought, then launched himself against the wall and pressed his hand into a shelf.
The edge of a hidden vertical cantilevered doorway appeared and swung open. Kainan and Rina opened fire, and Selene saw Massimo stumble into a dark corridor beyond.
The hulking Sable Rider leapt over the desk and rushed the door. But he was too late. The heavy cantilevered door swung quickly shut with a thud. Kainan threw his armoured shoulder against the surface, but there was no give. He leant back and fired a series of rounds on the edges of the door, but the rounds bounced off, and everyone standing behind him ducked to escape the ricochet.
‘It’s impenetrable,’ Kainan growled. ‘Where the fokk does that corridor lead to?’
He whirled around and pointed his rifle at Teresa. She cowered against the silk couch, screaming.
‘She’s no use,’ Rina ground out.
Kainan swung the barrel of the weapon towards the two ex-civil servants.
Emil shook his head desperately. ‘I don’t know. He wouldn’t say.’
Marko blanched at the hulking soldier. He lifted a trembling hand and pointed outside, towards the southern end of the property.
‘You’re sure?’ Kainan thundered.
‘Yes! He told me as much. He wanted me to go with him.’
‘What about me?’ screeched Teresa. ‘I’m his wife. You were only his lover!’ she sobbed.
Kainan ran past the cringing trio and their petty drama.
The Sable Rider burst through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of the study, vaulted over the marble balcony and loped due south over the immaculate grass and pristine garden. Rina and Selene were close behind him, and they made it to the southern boundary, to a wall overlooking the Makori’s neighbour.
‘Nothing!’ Kainan grunted. ‘There’s not one external building or exit I can see.’
‘Look harder,’ Selene urged. ‘Maybe the exit is built into the ground.’
The trio started a sweep of the grass lawn and garden when they suddenly felt a rumble shake the ground, followed by a loud whine.
Kainan whirled around in a circle, trying to determine the source of the sound.
