Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling 14)

Kurevni’s mouth fell open. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll talk about this?”

Ming looked into Kurevni’s fear-chilled eyes. “You’re free to talk, but make funeral arrangements for your entire family beforehand and ask their forgiveness for the agony in which they’ll spend their final hours. The infant won’t understand, but I know emotional beings are sentimental about such things.”

Kurevni threw up over the side of his chair. Trembling when he raised his head, he said, “I’ll drop out of politics on my return home.”

“On the contrary, I strongly insist you stay. Competition is good.” The appearance of it made the populace feel as if they had a voice, a choice, and that, in turn, kept them docile. “Of course, should I find you in possession of confidential information from my camp again, the Kurevni line will cease to exist.”

Broken now, Kurevni looked to Ming for instruction. “Do you want me to shut down the post office box?”

“No, leave it open.” The anonymous source might yet make a mistake. “Clear it as per usual, but open nothing. Call the number you’ll be given and one of my men will retrieve it.”

“I’ll do whatever you say. Just please don’t hurt my family.”

Ming watched the other man leave. That situation was resolved, but it left him with another issue. He now owed Anthony Kyriakus. Ming didn’t like owing anyone anything. At present, there was nothing he could do about this particular debt, but what he could do was use the details of this incident to open a line of communication with the Arrows. It was the squad’s task to keep watch on events that could deleteriously affect the Psy, and riots in Ming’s territory would’ve caused countless casualties as well as triggering serious financial repercussions.

If he did it carefully enough, he could start to rebuild the bridges he’d burned. Having the Arrows back as his personal death squad would make him powerful enough to take on even Kaleb Krychek. And owning Vasic as his pet teleporter would make eliminating Sienna Lauren a far easier project.

Aden would have to die, of course. Ming didn’t understand how a midlevel Tp and field medic had ended up with the leadership of the squad, but as long as Aden lived, Ming’s leadership would be under threat.

To defer suspicion, he’d wait a suitable period after he retook control, and he’d be careful to make it look like an accident.

Decision made, he returned to his office and initiated the comm link. “Aden,” he said when the Arrow leader answered. “I have certain information you might find useful.”

Chapter 60

ADEN WAS TRYING to put the puzzle pieces together when Zaira walked unexpectedly into his Central Command office the next morning. Running his hand down her back simply because he wanted to make contact, he said, “Venice?”

“Nothing to report.” To his surprise, she rose on her toes to brush her lips over his jaw before turning her attention to the comm panel he was using as a work screen. “Why are you staring at random pieces of data?”

He went through each of the data points for her. “It appears to be an orchestrated campaign to sow seeds of mistrust between various groups.” It couldn’t be simple chance; the incidents all bore a similar cunning signature.

“Clever,” Zaira said. “Why waste money and resources on a military attack when you can break alliances or poison the air before the alliances ever form? Push it a bit more and irritation turns to aggravation, then to serious conflict. And while your opponents fight among themselves, wasting their own resources and manpower, the puppet master becomes the most powerful by default.”

That was why Zaira was one of his commanders. Not just because of her lethal abilities, but because her mind saw patterns where even he had trouble. The motive she’d ascribed to this series of events was not only plausible, it explained why the targets spanned all three races.

“Is that admiration I hear?”

Zaira nodded. “Doesn’t mean I agree with it—but the concept is smart, especially how they’re capitalizing on old fault lines and fragile new business overtures.” She tapped the data point Bo had provided about his people’s recent land conflict with the changelings. “Humans and changelings have always been a loose coupling, mostly because Silence separated out the Psy. Create a fracture there, too, and you end up with three isolated races.”

“At which point,” Aden said, “you start creating infighting in each group.” He frowned, split the screen to bring up a Beacon article from a few days before. It was small and he’d noticed it only because of the names mentioned, but now . . .

It appears the former Councilors are no longer keeping to their rumored “gentleman’s agreement” to stay out of each other’s businesses. The Duncan Corporation has just underbid Scott Enterprises on an airjet contract. At a bare fifty million, the contract is minor relative to the turnover of both companies, but it is notable given the identities of the parties involved.

Zaira watched in silence as he contacted Nikita Duncan. Her response to his request for business data was frosty, but when he indicated this might be a larger issue that could impact all her business enterprises, as well as the markets themselves, she confirmed his suspicions.

Hanging up, he told Zaira what he’d learned. “Nikita and Shoshanna were never allies, but they don’t undercut one another since that would drive down prices overall. Nikita did put in a bid for the contract, but it was a deliberately high one.”

Nikita hadn’t spelled it out, but Aden knew the reason for the Duncan bid was to make the other party feel as if they had a viable second choice. Not ethical, but Nikita wasn’t exactly white as snow. “She says the error was introduced at Shoshanna’s end. Someone in Shoshanna’s camp forwarded an impossibly high bid rather than the correct one.”