Supremacy's Outlaw: A Space Opera Thriller Series (Insurgency Saga Book 3) by T.E. Bakutis (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📗

would do, hoping he could dash up those stairs in time to save his employer, all the while knowing he probably couldn’t.

“Wonderful girl,” Ryke said, tracing a tiny circle on the glass table with one crimson fingernail, “but she does think more than I’d like. Now, gentlemen. Shall we start with a drink?”

“No,” Cole said. “You ready to deal?”

“Only if you’ll indulge me first.” Ryke flashed another predatory smile at Bharat as she walked her bare fingers toward his side of the table. “That’s the most impressive beard I’ve ever seen, especially on an Advanced. I don’t see many of your kind with facial hair. Do you soften it with oil?”

Bharat didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The entirely aloof act psych had suggested he play was obviously working.

“Miss Ryke,” Cole said, from beside her, “are you—”

Ryke popped a raised fingertip to Cole’s lips. She didn’t look at him. Slowly, smiling at Bharat, she removed it.

Bharat caught an obvious hint of frustration in Cole’s features, a hint that was, just like Bharat’s aloof nature, entirely planned out by psych. Jaxon Cole was a decent actor when he wanted to be. Better than Bharat, at least.

“Now, Mr. Ember.” Elena Ryke stared straight at Bharat, her own impatience as obvious as Cole’s. “Of course I’m ready to deal. The question is, can you prove your merchandise is what you claim?”

Mr. Ember was Bharat’s code name. Mr. Ash was Cole’s. Both names were stupid, in Bharat’s opinion, but as with his decisions during Senator Tarack’s business meetings, it wasn’t like he had any choice in the matter.

Bharat gifted Ryke with one more moment of stony silence before he responded, “Yes.”

Elena Ryke laughed and sat back, spreading both arms across the back of the booth. “He speaks!”

Bharat waited.

“So prove it.” Ryke waited, too.

Silence apparently played like catnip to someone like Elena Ryke. She’d wanted to force him to talk, and now that she had, it felt to her like a victory. An Elena Ryke that thought she was winning this negotiation was an Elena Ryke who would be more likely to accept Senator Tarack’s deal.

“If you don’t believe us,” Cole said, frowning at the side of Ryke’s head, “we have plenty of other—”

Bharat raised one hand to silence Cole. To Ryke, it would look like a commander dismissing the concerns of his subordinate, just as Elena Ryke had recently done with Sasha. It would look like Bharat had silenced Cole in deference to her.

Bharat produced a flat datascreen from his suit jacket pocket — slowly, to make it absolutely clear it was not a gun — and slid it across the table. Ryke kept up their staring contest, picked up the tablet, and then, and only then, did she lower her eyes to browse its contents. One thin eyebrow rose.

“Oh my,” Ryke all but purred. “Senator Angthorn, I had no idea.” Her gaze rose. “And what about the politicians on Phorcys? Do you have these sorts of lurid details on them?”

“You know better than that,” Bharat said. Senator Tarack was perfectly happy to sell Elena Ryke information about Ceto’s senators, but Tarack would be a fool to give Elena Ryke any leverage against Tarack’s fellow politicians on Phorcys.

“Thirty-four senators isn’t all I’d hoped for,” Ryke said casually. “I’d like more.”

Bharat shrugged.

“Especially for what your employer is asking.”

Bharat glanced at Cole. Ryke was testing them, and he needed to test right back. They almost had her.

“Like I said,” Cole continued, “we have plenty of other buyers lined up if you don’t want to deal now. We brought this to you first, out of respect. For your position.”

“Mmm.” Ryke laced her fingers together as she stared at Bharat. “I do enjoy a number of positions. What about you, Mr. Ember? Any favorites?”

Bharat resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Ryke favored women — that was in her file — but she’d flirt with anything with a pulse, at least until she fucked them or murdered them. Still, Bharat made sure to let himself look annoyed.

Ryke laughed again and snatched Bharat’s hand, drawing it toward her. “Now don’t look so scandalized, Mr. Ember. I know you’re quite taken. Your wife, Nadia, keeps such a lovely garden on Tarack’s private island in the Glacial sea, and Gray? He makes such darling little boats.”

Very real fear jolted Bharat’s spine as he ripped his hand away. How did Elena Ryke know the location of Senator Tarack’s private island? How did she know his little boy made boats?

Ryke’s casual bombshell had knocked Cole off his game too — Bharat could see that now — and he wondered if his partner was thinking about snapping Ryke’s neck. Like Bharat was. And if Elena Ryke did know the names and location of Bharat’s family, snapping her neck would get his family brutally murdered.

“Ten million,” Ryke said, as Bharat fought to keep his expression neutral, “for all thirty-four.”

Cole recovered first, probably because it wasn’t his family this woman had just casually threatened. “The price is twenty.”

Ryke dismissed him with another wave of her hand. “I never pay full price.” She paused then, pursing her lips. “Thirteen.”

“Eighteen,” Bharat growled. He’d expected that number to sound calmer, but a woman who enjoyed cutting people into little pieces now knew where his wife and child lived. That casual revelation had not been in psych’s playbook.

“Mmm, no.” Elena slid out of the booth, stood up, and smoothed her dress. “Fourteen million, gentlemen. Take it, or as your colleague suggested, peddle your package somewhere else.”

Ryke strode off, heels clicking, then stopped right beside Bharat. Bharat willed himself not to look as she turned, but he saw her smile at