“And you haven’t kept up yours.” Tian’s temper was quickening now. “Jenna Mir-Brennan needs to die … and you’re to hunt her down and finish the job you botched.”
That was the wrong thing to say. The Master Assassin’s face went still.
Tian was no coward, yet he felt a tickle of misgiving all the same.
Nonetheless, he was more concerned about how his father would react.
Mican Mir-Ferrin was a hard man to please at the best of times. Tian had joined space fleet at seventeen and worked his way up through the ranks to become the youngest commanding officer ever. Some had whispered that his meteoric rise was due to the fact he was a clan-lord’s son—although no one would have been brave enough to say it to his face—but anyone who knew Tian’s father would have laughed at the idea he’d help any of his sons out.
If anything, the clan-lord was harder on his three sons than anyone else.
His expectations of them were virtually unreachable, as Tian had discovered over the years. He’d done as bid, had married Jenna, had bedded the frigid bitch, had established himself at her brother’s side and counseled him to take military action against the Mir-Leliths.
And now, thanks to him, they held Idral.
But it wasn’t enough for his father. Nothing was.
Mican would be livid about this.
“That’ll be another fifty thousand credits,” the Master Assassin said, after a long pause. His voice was expressionless now, as was his face.
Tian’s breathing choked off. “What?”
The assassin didn’t reply. He knew his client had heard him.
“We had an agreement,” Tian rasped.
“And now, I’m changing it.”
Heat exploded under Tian’s ribcage, brushing away the last of his restraint. Taking a menacing step forward, his gaze fused with the assassin’s. “I’ll make sure you never find work in this sector again.”
The Master quirked a silver-blond eyebrow. “I’ll take my chances with that.”
The man’s lazy drawl made Tian want to draw the laser-blade at his hip and stab him through the throat with it. However, striking a holo-image was futile.
“You have twelve hours to transfer fifty thousand credits into the same account as last time,” the assassin drawled. “Otherwise, I’m calling my crew off.”
And with that, he reached forward and ended the call.
An instant later, the image winked out, leaving Tian standing alone in the clan-lord’s solar.
He stood there, merely staring at the empty space above him, where the Master Assassin had been looking down at him just moments earlier.
“I don’t fucking believe it,” he rasped, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.
The bastard was blackmailing him.
Fury whipped through him. Breathing hard, Tian stalked to the large floor-to-ceiling windows and placed his palms on the thick glass, trying to regain control. Outside, scorched red earth stretched away for as far as the eye could see, layers of craggy peaks standing out against a pink sky. It was getting late in the day; soon the twin moons would rise.
Bile stung the back of Tian’s throat. He’d lived on this rock for over two years now and couldn’t understand why his father coveted the planet so. Yes, it had once belonged to his clan, and it sat on the intersection of major trade routes, and for that reason, it was valuable. But the Mir-Ferrin ruling family had been based for the last two generations on Platinum 5, a space station, in the heart of Mir-Ferrin territory.
Tian preferred Platinum 5 and looked forward to one day residing there once more.
He swallowed hard, his fingers digging into the glass. It was cool inside the solar, but outdoors, the heat would be overwhelming. The air had a rank metallic stench from the iron-rich soil, and the valleys and ravines surrounding Mir-Brennan Tower were crawling with creatures that would kill you in a heartbeat.
He can keep this foul place.
His wrist-comm bleeped then, intruding on his rage.
