Release(8)

The night before last, he’d been able to finagle his way into driving Risciter home from a party. He’d tried to shoot Risciter then, but he’d been interrupted by some message from the butler where he was employed, telling him that someone was looking for him. Who would be looking for Keirth Transman? He was a nobody. He was a drifter. For seven years, he’d been driven by only one mission. To find the Duke of Risciter and kill him.

Anyway, the whole thing had been botched at that moment. While he was distracted, Risciter had managed to get away.

When Keirth found out Risciter was planning to leave the planet the next day, he’d pursued him immediately, intending to do it then. But that hadn’t gone very well either.

It wasn’t enough to simply shoot Risciter. Keirth needed Risciter to understand why Keirth was doing it. He needed to look into Risciter’s eyes and have Risciter understand how vile he was. If he didn’t accomplish that, killing Risciter was meaningless.

But once it was done, it would be the most meaningful thing that Keirth had done with his life. Risciter was untouchable, due to his noble status. He was a man who thought he could do whatever he wanted. The law might let Risciter get away with it, but Keirth wouldn’t.

Of course, with the way things were going, it was probably going to be the only meaningful thing that Keirth had done with his life. This girl had seen him. She knew who he was. When he got rid of her, she’d undoubtedly have the authorities hunting him down right away. And they’d know where he was too. He’d have to take care of Risciter as quickly as he possibly could. Then, if they caught him, it wouldn’t matter anymore. Because Keirth would have done what he needed to do.

The heating unit beeped, and Keirth took the containers of soup out. He handed one to Ariana and kept the other for himself. After scrounging up a few spoons from a drawer, he sat down with her to eat the soup. It was hot. He saw her burn her lip on it and jump, startled.

After that, they sat together silently, blowing on spoonfuls of the soup. When Keirth got a chance to taste it, he was pleasantly surprised. For rehydrated food, it was actually quite tasty. Nicely seasoned. He guessed the nobility got the best of everything, even space food.

“Well,” said Ariana, “if you aren’t usually a kidnapper and a thief, what do you do with yourself normally?”

“Why?” he asked, suspicious. “You want to make sure you’ve got a nice profile of me to share with the police when you get free and turn me in?”

“No. I’m only trying to make polite dinner conversation. I happen to be a civilized daughter of the peerage. It’s what I’m good at.”

Keirth laughed. “Being polite is what you’re good at?”

She looked flustered. “I do happen to be more pleasant generally when I’m not being forced to do things at gunpoint or tied up.”

Keirth slurped some of his soup. “I’ll take your word for it, sweetheart.”

“I have repeatedly asked you not to call me that, and you repeatedly ignore me.”

Keirth shrugged.

“You really are awful.” Ariana looked into her soup, and Keirth got the impression she might start crying again.

He didn’t like making her cry. Sure, she was annoying as hell, bossy, and full of herself, but she hadn’t asked to be in this situation. He had sort of kidnapped her. Overall, making women cry was not something Keirth aspired to. He hadn’t had a lot of time for women in his life. Spending his life bent on revenge was sort of an all-consuming passion. And he wasn’t the kind of man who’d take his pleasure with a woman and abandon her. He’d seen too much of that growing up, and it made him physically ill. Overall, though, it meant that he really hadn’t spent much time with women at all. Not since he’d lived with his mother, anyway. He peered at Ariana and tried to imagine she was his mother. It was pretty hard to do, considering the two women had precisely nothing in common. Still, if his mother had been accidentally kidnapped, he’d want the kidnapper to treat her with respect. So Keirth would try. She’d wanted polite dinner conversation, had she? He’d do his best. “I, um, don’t really have a set profession. I’ve done a lot of things. I’ve flown space ships. I’ve worked in factories. I’ve loaded product. Most recently, I was a driver for the duke of Hallon.”

Ariana pointed at him with her spoon. “I knew I’d seen you before.” She turned back to her soup, running her spoon through the liquid as if she was searching for something to say inside her bowl. “So you most recently lived on Hallon, then?”

“Yes,” he said.