Fated Blades (Kinsmen)

Karion rubbed his face, thinking. “Uncle Sabor would be your best bet. He should have enough clout, but he’d only do it if you asked him.”

“I’ll make the call,” she told him.

“I think you should reconsider this plan,” Karion said. “The risk is too high.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Ramona said. “We must recover the tech, and hitting them at the hotel is the only way to minimize casualties.”

Her brother glanced at Matias.

“Just say it,” she said.

“There are fifty-four Vandal ‘asylum seekers’ staying at the Kamen. And an off-worlder.”

Suddenly she was uneasy. “Name?”

“Lukas Dunlap-Whitaker.”

The name lashed her like a whip.

Matias clenched his jaw for a moment, the line of his mouth hard. “Varden got himself a pet secare.”

Karion ignored him. “Lukas lists himself as a mercenary. He isn’t. He is a killer for hire. He’s been doing this for forty years, and he’s very good at it. Two hundred and twelve confirmed kills to his name. Four of them secare. He actively looks for secare jobs. He likes eliminating us.”

Damn it. “Thank you,” she said.

“Think about it carefully. You remember what Ray wrote in his notes.”

“Ray wrote a lot of things,” she said.

“‘The secare are wolves who know only war and murder,’” Karion quoted. “We are not wolves, Ramona. We are dogs. We still bite and rip, but only when we have to, because we made a nice life for ourselves on this planet. That man is a wolf. Some things are not worth dying for. I sent you the roster of the guests on the wall. I’ll wait for your decision.”

Her brother touched his fingertips to his lips, brushed his forehead, and the screen went dark.

She checked the file through her implant, looking at a row of spectator names. Damn. She closed her eyes for a long moment. There was no way to win. Everything she had worked so hard for was teetering on the edge of a cliff, and she didn’t know how to keep it from falling.

“Talk to me,” Matias said.

“First, we still have the issue of civilian casualties. How many people have you killed, Matias? I’m not talking about when you were in space. How many people have you killed on Rada, with your seco?”

“Counting the Vandals?”

“Yes.”

“Twenty-four. Two in an isolated incident of industrial espionage, another three because an idiot decided to make his name by attacking me in public and his bodyguards jumped in, and the rest of the people I killed during the feud with the Vinogradov clan. They tested me after I took over the family.”

“Thirty-one for me. You were expected to take over the Baena family. The attack on you was almost a courtesy. I was seen as a last-minute replacement for Karion. I was tested twice, first by the Rook Trust and then by the Le family. Every life I ever took was in self-defense or retaliation, and even so, I’ve killed enough people for a lifetime already. I don’t want to accidentally hurt an innocent person. I don’t want anyone to be caught in a crossfire. I can’t. It’s not worth it.”

He crouched by her. “I know. I understand.”

“And, we’ve been trying to do this quietly, and there will be nothing quiet about this. I’ve looked at the roster of guests. Adra’s mayor will be on those walls. Park Sung Hyo, the provincial senator. Three kinsmen families . . . there will be no way to hide that we were dumb enough to let our spouses have an affair and run away together with our research. Everyone will know.”

“Perhaps that’s not a bad thing.”

She frowned at him. “How? Even if we win by some miracle, our standing in society will be disintegrated. That means more feuds, more blood.”

“Right now, there are foreign troops on the soil of this planet, brought here by a corrupt senator. They have threatened Rada’s citizens, attacked them, and now they are planning to purchase tech stolen from two kinsmen families. If it wasn’t us, if it was the Escanas, or the Vinogradovs, or any other kinsmen family, and you knew they were about to face off with the Vandals, would you help them?”

“Of course. We are all Dahlia kinsmen.”

“Would they earn your respect, even though they had been betrayed by people they trusted?”

“Yes.”

He smiled at her. “It’s Adra. Everyone appreciates a good show. Dancing in Kamen Plaza or two kinsmen secare taking back their property and honor from the foreign eradicator troops. Which show would you rather watch if you were Adra’s mayor?”

A faint light appeared at the end of the dark tunnel in her head. She started toward it. “We’ll get points for style, if nothing else.”

“It’s not the betrayal,” Matias said. “It’s how we handle it. It’s our mess. Hiding it is no longer an option, so we will take care of it in front of everyone. We do not hide, we do not sneak—we do it, and we make sure nobody who watches it ever forgets it.”