Justin Xiang pounded thunderously on the plasteel door to the suite shared by Romano Liao and Tsen Shang. Tsen swung the door open quickly, but his welcoming smile died instantly as Justin pushed his way past into the suite's parlor.
Justin turned back to face him, rage contorting his face and blazing through his eyes. "Where the hell is she?"
Shang stared at him. "What is this about?" He reached for Justin with his right hand, but Justin savagely parried with his metal hand.
"No, Tsen. This is between that scheming bitch and me." Before Tsen could oppose or restrain him, Justin had spun about and marched across the handsomely appointed room toward the far door. With a savage kick, he knocked down the door, then he hung in the darkened doorway like a madman, with one hand on each side of the portal.
Two candles burned on the outside panels of a three-way mirror. Her silken robe puddled at her feet, Romano Liao stood admiring the triple reflections of her naked form. Light from the open doorway washed over her, but Justin's hunched shadow clung to her back like an inky stain.
Contempt glowed in her green eyes as she stared at Justin's silhouetted form. Justin detected not a shiver, not even the shadow of a tremor to betray the outrage she must feel at his intrusion. Lifting her chin so that her eyes became half-hooded, she murmured, "I assume, Citizen Xiang, that you have a reason for this . . . visit."
"Oh yes, Lady Romano, a most urgent reason." Justin's voice came low and controlled despite his fury. Shaking his head in disbelief, he met her gaze with a fierce directness. "How could you have been so utterly stupid?"
Her eyes narrowed at his accusation, but she restrained an outburst. Brushing her red-brown hair back from her shoulders, she turned slowly to tease him with the sight of her naked body. As she moved to the side, Justin's shadow no longer shrouded her in darkness. Smiling coyly, she dropped her voice to a seductive whisper. "Am I not more desirable than Candace?"
"This is no time for your games, woman!" Justin's left hand tore free a long section of the doorway's wooden trim. As he stepped into the room, his shadow covered her again. "You senseless idiot! Do you have any idea what you risked? Little matter if it worked—which it didn't—the advantages you sought were phantoms!"
Justin's left hand came forward as he threw the chunk of wood at Romano. She flinched, ducking beneath it. The missile sailed past, shattering the mirror's central panel into a cloud of glittering crystals.
Furious, she snarled at Justin. "How dare you call me an idiot, you halfling whelp! You lack the fortitude to carry out the actions that must be taken! Don't fault me for your lack of courage."
Justin closed on her within the space of a heartbeat and lashed out viciously with his right hand. The backhanded slap smashed against the side of her face, sending her reeling off to his right. She crashed onto her bed, arms and legs splayed akimbo, and lay there staring up at Justin in terror. She pressed her hand to the hot red welt on her cheek.
A feral grin peeled Justin's lips back from his white teeth. "Yes, Lady Romano. I dared strike you. How fitting it is for you to lie there naked, for you are nothing more than a babe—hardly as innocent, but just as naive." Justin shook his head heavily. "And just as unquestionably self-centered."
Another shadow, this one long and lean, stretched into the room. "What is the meaning of this, Xiang?"
Justin half-turned toward the doorway, thrusting a finger back at Romano. "The meaning of this, Highness, is to teach your daughter a lesson in restraint. This halfwit arranged for an assassin to make an attempt on Quintus Allard, here, tonight, not but an hour ago!"
The revelation shook Maximilian Liao. Justin smiled and turned back to Romano, who mewled in terror at the angry shiver that rippled through her father's silhouette. "Yes, Romano, this little game of doing the things you believe your father would wish ordered has done more harm than good. You alone saw the wisdom of killing Davion's Intelligence Minister. Did you strike at him because he capitalized on your mistake of ordering the attack on Kittery last year, or did you have some other brilliant plan in mind?"
Romano swung her legs together and sat up. "Killing Quintus Allard would deal a crippling blow to the Federated Suns."
Justin nodded emphatically. "Yes, perhaps it would, but not here. Not now. Don't you see what you risked?"
Romano's chin came up defiantly. "I risked one individual, a pawn, nothing more. He was insignificant compared to the gain."
Justin glanced back at where the Chancellor leaned heavily on the door jamb. "But the loss, my Lady, the loss could yet mean the end of House Liao."
Romano frowned. "How? What loss?"
Are you truly that stupid, or are you utterly mad?Justin laughed cruelly. "ComStar guaranteed the safety of everyone here, Romano. They vowed no harm would come to any guest. Our security is in their hands."
Romano bristled. "They would never dare harm us!"
"Maybe not," Justin growled. "But they would issue an Edict against anyone violating their precious peace. Yes, my Lady, you have risked placing House Liao placed under a total Interdiction!"
Justin watched as Romano's irrepressible belief in her own superiority struggled to deny the horror of a ComStar Interdiction. No messages in or out through ComStar channels. Aside from a relay system that could take months to travel from one end of the Confederation to the other, we would have no way to send messages between worlds. Without ComStar and their HyperPulse Generators to send messages, we could not order our troops. The only word we might get of Davion or Marik advances upon our borders would come from the mouths of fleeing refugees.
Justin nodded as though he were reading her mind. "Yes, Lady Romano. Hanse Davion could gobble up our worlds and we'd have no way to allocate reinforcements. Our agents, who use ComStar to send us confidential dispatches, could no longer communicate with us. If ComStar places us under Interdiction, the only thing we could do would be to make wagers on which House would capture Sian first."
Justin advanced and roughly took Romano's chin in his right hand. He forced her to lift her head and stare into his eyes. "And one more thing, my Lady, something I never want you to forget. The man you tried to have killed tonight is my father. He may be a thorn in our side, but it is not yet time for him to die."
Romano tried to twist her head from Justin's grasp, but he held on firmly. "I want to humiliate him as deeply as he humiliated me. I want him to know his efforts have been thwarted by the son he betrayed. When I think he's been frustrated, when I think he's been humiliated, when I think his spirit has been broken—that will be the time for him to die—not a second sooner."
Justin thrust Romano back down on the bed. "And when that time comes, I will kill him. He is my father. That is myright!" He stood over her menacingly. "Don't get in my way, Romano."
Justin turned on his heel, stepping past Maximilian Liao, and strode back into the suite's parlor. Tsen Shang stared at him, stunned, then started toward the bedroom's doorway.
"No, Tsen. Not yet," Justin said. "Come with me now. Let her live with her blunder while we try to make it right."
Shang hesitated, but Justin snapped a harsh command, forcing compliance. "Now, Shang! Now!" With leaden feet, the Maskirovka analyst followed Justin from the large quadruplex building reserved for the Liao guests.
Halfway to the beach, Justin turned to the tall, slender Shang and stabbed a finger at the man's chest. "You get this one chance, Tsen, to tell me that you knew nothing, had not even a hint of this ridiculous assassination attempt. . ."
Tsen drew back like a cobra preparing to strike. "And if I do not choose to answer your accusation . . ."