The man who looked at her from the photograph now wouldn’t show off. Tempered by a decade and a half in the kinsmen family feuds, he would watch, calculating the odds, until the right moment came, and then he would seize it without hesitation and squeeze out every advantage. He had survived four known assassination attempts and likely a dozen or more that remained secret. She tapped the notebook screen, calling up the only recorded attempt. She had viewed it twice already.
The premiere of Gigolo. A brightly lit street. Red carpet stretching into the mouth of Miranda Theater. Adoring crowds shouting their worship at the stars and their escorts.
A sleek, bullet-shaped aerial slid up to the ropes. The door swung up. A metal step unfurled from the underside of the vehicle, permitting the passengers to exit in comfort. Celino stepped out. Tall, lean, and overwhelmingly masculine in the traditional Carvanna black doublet stretched by his broad shoulders. He had matured well. Too well, Meli reflected.
He bent lightly, offering his hand, and immediately feminine fingers rested in his palm. A woman stepped out. She wore a glittering silvery sari that stopped a shade short of vulgar. In spiky heels, she stood only a couple of inches shorter than Celino, six two to his six four. A fountain of blonde hair spilled down her back all the way past her butt.
Celino led her down the carpet. They seemed perfectly matched—her glamorous light to his brooding darkness. A painful needle pierced Meli’s chest. Old dreams, she reminded herself.
She sensed the attack a moment before it came. Celino’s head jerked as the crowd on the right erupted and four men dashed at him. The magnetic disruptors installed by theater security made any metal projectiles unusable, and the attackers opted for dark red monomolecule blades.
Celino thrust his date behind him with a powerful shove and attacked so quickly, he blurred. He was preternaturally fast. Meli tapped the screen, slowing the recording by twenty-five percent. He held a simple metal knife. His swipe drew a bright red gash down the first attacker’s throat—beautifully done. A vertical gash opened a bigger hole in the carotid without slowing down the strike. It was nearly impossible to hit the artery that way—like aiming at a piece of lubricated IV drip dancing around in the wind. Meli had factored in the enhanced strength and speed, but Celino seemed to have enhanced reflexes as well. Or perhaps a targeting implant. Or both.
The second cut grazed the second attacker’s arm pit, severing another vein. The third assailant received a sideways swipe to the kidneys. That strike took a quarter of a second longer than Celino had planned. She saw him change his strategy in mid-move, hammering a kick to the fourth man’s neck. She rewound half a second, slowed the feed to half speed, and watched Celino’s black boot connect with the man’s neck. She couldn’t hear the telltale crunch, but she saw the man’s neck line jerk sharply. Celino’s kick had broken the vertebrae of his attacker.
She shut down the notebook. In a purely physical confrontation, Celino would kill her. She had absolutely no doubt of that. She was a small woman—he towered over her by a foot, outweighed her by at least eighty pounds of hard muscle, and he had enhancements she couldn’t match. Judging from Celino’s performance, very few people would be able to match him blow by blow. Add to it bodyguards, who always accompanied him. And Marcus. One couldn’t forget Marcus. Only one generation removed from old planet, Marcus was ill suited to traditional enhancements. Instead he had done horrible things to his body in the name of service. A walking poison, he killed with a mere touch. Celino had saved him years ago and Marcus was devoted to Celino like a dog.
To kill Celino Carvanna, she would have to get close to him and separate him from his guards.
Father was right. None of the people at Galdes disposal could take out Celino Carvanna. In fact, of all the millions that inhabited New Delphi, she alone was uniquely qualified to take him on.
Father, in his wisdom, also reasoned that she would do it. If not for the sake of Galdes, then for the sake of sliding the tomb stone atop her broken heart. He believed she would hate Celino Carvanna. After all, Celino had humiliated the Galdes family. He ruined her life, obliterating her future. Of course, she had to hate him.
Meli recalled the file. Celino chose to oversee a number of projects for Carvannas, including Raban, Inc. and Sunlight Development. He was active and ruthless, and his leadership brought his family to its prominence. He made the Carvanna millions. For all practical purposes, he was the Carvanna family. His death would plunge his clan into chaos and destroy the value of their stock.
Angel had managed to obtain Celino’s calendar for the next two weeks, at astronomical cost, no doubt. Celino scheduled an inspection of the new development to the south. That meant a flurry of meetings and formal dinner engagements, which, if the new Celino was anything like his younger self, he would loathe it with great passion. He was both too active and too smart. Time may have taught him patience with less agile minds, but it could hardly teach him how to escape boredom in their presence.
She had reviewed his recent development projects. Celino built beautiful places, full of sunlight and flowers, all of the modern technology seamlessly married with the provincial earthiness. Meli smiled. One could remove a man from the provinces, but one couldn’t take the provinces out of the man. He would strive to escape tedium of formality, which meant he would likely stay in his villa on the Terraces and lunch below, among the cafes.
Revenge was sometimes best served hot.
Celino strode down the tiled curve of the Red Terrace. Built into the side of a towering cliff, now honeycombed with metal and plastic-sheathed tunnels, the Terraces consisted of seven platforms, layered one under another, each about a mile long and two hundred yards at their widest. The platforms jutted in gentle curves from the former cliff, housing small shops and eateries. The bottom terrace sat roughly three thousand feet above the plain, while the Red Terrace, where he stood, was situated three levels above it. He wasn’t sure about the exact altitude, but the view was magnificent.
The residents of New Delphi were used to heights, but even Celino, as he stopped by the faux wooden rail, was momentarily overcome by the enormity of the landscape. Far below him a vast plain rolled into the distance and beyond it blue cliffs rose, made ethereal by the ocean of air.
Celino resumed his walk, aware of Marcus following like an unobtrusive shadow a few feet behind. Two of his men, Romuld and Ven, stalked behind Marcus.
The breeze brought a whiff of a shockingly familiar aroma. He stopped. He smelled crisp dough with a slight buttery taste and a tantalizing scent of roasted passion raspberry, the only variety of the old planet berry that grew in the southern provinces. The aroma swirled about him and instantly he was five years old, stealing the still warm cone of pastry from the dish and eating quietly under the table, thrilled at his own sneakiness.
“What is it?” Marcus asked softly.
“Passion cones.” Celino accelerated, heading toward the source of the scent, until he reached a small cafe with a red overhang. A sign proclaimed A Taste of Dahlia. He rarely entered unfamiliar places. Why risk an ambush?
Celino glanced past Marcus at Ven. “An order of passion cones.”
The bodyguard ducked into the shop.
Celino shrugged. Funny how the memory played tricks. He could practically taste the pastry from the scent alone.
Ven emerged from the cafe. Empty handed.
Celino stared.
“The owner says the cones aren’t his to sell,” Ven said. “I told him to name the price, but he refused.”
Celino growled. He wanted the damn cones. He strode into the shop.