“Tiffani, my dear, I am so very pleased to hear of your good fortune. I am sure you are eager for the commander to return home to you.” He lifted the delicate cup to his lips and beamed at me like I was his favorite fucking daughter, the brightest star on the planet, the luckiest, happiest girl around.
If I hadn’t known the truth, I would have believed every fucking word. The guy deserved an Academy Award. Keeping revulsion from my face would earn me one of my own.
“Thank you, Councilor.”
“Please, dear, we’re family. Call me cousin, or Engel.” He reached for my hand, placing his giant, gnarled one over my wrist as I was about to pour him more wine. He wore gloves, which made me want to scream at him to take them off so I could rub the tainted necklace all over him.
Little did he know, the one he kept eyeing about my neck wasn’t the same one, but a replica. The real one was in a box in Warlord Dax’s private safe. The remnants of Rush still on it. The evidence of his scheme out of his reach.
He squeezed me gently, as if offering comfort. The whole Atlan no touching rule, apparently, didn’t apply to him. Knowing all the other rules he’d broken, I doubted he respected anyone or anything.
I smiled, and hoped he simply didn’t know Earth girls well enough to read the disgust and hatred boiling just beneath the surface. “You honor me, cousin.” I changed the smile from what I hoped was welcoming to wistful and lifted my hand to the treasure he was truly after. “As you did with this generous gift. Thank you again. I know Deek will be pleased to hear about your concern. I am very flattered that you stopped by to check on me, but I assure you, I am fine.”
“Yes, dear. But you are family, and I couldn’t bear the thought of you all alone in this giant fortress waiting for him to return.” He lifted his palm from my wrist and reached for the necklace. Scumbag. “May I look at it? Would you mind? I’d like to hold it. With the commander coming home soon, I find I am feeling sentimental.”
Jackpot.
“Of course.” Lifting my hands to my neck, I quickly found the clasp and handed it to him, coiling the length in his open, gloved palm.
“Thank you, dear.” He leaned over the gold and graphite links, inspecting them and stroking each link in turn with his fingertips, as if rubbing something onto each and every piece.
And then it dawned on me, he didn’t have to steal the necklace to get rid of the evidence; he simply had to neutralize the drug. Once it was gone, there would have been no way for us to prove anything.
He took his sweet time pretending to study it and I smiled all the while, sipping my wine and watching him until he paused with a frown and looked up at me.
“This is not the necklace I gave you, dearest cousin. Where is the other one?”
“It’s not?” I made my eyes as wide as humanly possible and leaned forward to look at the necklace. “I haven’t taken it off since you gave it to me. I haven’t even changed my clothes.”
I looked down at my party dress, now rumpled and ruined. As soon as Engel was behind bars, I was burning the thing. It had been so pretty when I first put it on, but now, now it reminded me of how much evil there was in the world. No, in the universe.
“How can you tell?”
“No, it is not the same.” He tried to smile at me, but I could finally see the strain around his eyes, the malice breaking through his façade. “The clasp is different. My grandmother’s necklace had her initials carved into the clasp.”
“Oh, no!” I put my hand to my chest in mock surprise and smirked at him as I took a sip of my wine. “What magical chemical cocktail is in your gloves? Whatever will you do if you can’t destroy the evidence? Now everyone will know that you drugged your own cousin with Rush, that you are manufacturing the most hated drug on Atlan and selling it like candy.”
I set my wine down on the table and pulled a blaster Dax had let me borrow—and shown me how to fire, just in case—from the side of my chair, pointing it at his chest. “Poor big, bad councilor man, outwitted by a stupid, fat Earth girl. How humiliating.”
His eyes narrowed as he took me in, his gaze going from the blaster resting in my hand to the open hatred in my eyes.
“What do you think you’re going to do with that, Tiffani?”
“I’m just the stupid Earth girl, right? What am I going to do? Shoot you.”
I waved the blaster at him to emphasize my words and let a few tears slide down my cheeks, part for show and partly because I was so furious with this man that my rage needed an outlet. I actually wanted to kill him, and that made me even angrier. Back home, I felt guilty killing a spider. I’d catch the damn things in a cup and take them outside.