Page 56 of On A Rift's Edge
After that was set up, Lyall sent Kaveh a curt message about what Kat planned to do.
He felt particularly bad about the last part, but Kat’s safety took priority. Kaveh would bring his young protégé back to the monstertown, and hopefully Arimanius would get bored with his attempts to steal the control object.
Lyall would return to Boston, working for someone he hated. He wouldn’t even have Remi to provide a break from the hostility and boredom. And he’d lose Kat forever.
That was for the best.
The rest of the afternoon passed by with Lyall repeating that to himself over and over. Teo kept whining that he had been poisoned, which made Lyall feel a little better.
Then, at six o’clock, Giana Gatti showed up.
So much for Lyall’s plan to keep a low profile for the next few hours. Arimanius’s wards could distinguish between individuals, and Lyall could access those notifications, even if only the boss himself could set or lift them. Giana’s signature was both distinct and unwelcome.
Remi’s mother had long been one of Lyall’s least favorite people. It didn’t bother him that she had catfished Arimanius, had a son with him, and then parlayed that into both money and Riftworld tech that was like free plastic surgery, only better. That was downright amusing, in fact. But she had never been there for Remi, and when he turned fifteen she had more or less sold him to his father as an operative who could seduce almost anyone.
Lyall would never forget the first time he had met Remi, when Giana had brought him for a visit with his father and only then told him she was leaving him there.
Remi at fifteen had been drop-dead gorgeous, a total brat—and scared to death, even if he hid it well.
Well, at least a visit from Giana meant the don would be distracted and less likely to figure out what Lyall had done.
He came out into the suite’s main room. At one time it must have been impressive, but the furniture and decor that wasn’t hidden by dust covers was pre-Sundering and looked dated and forlorn even to Lyall’s fashion sensibilities, such as they were.
Arimanius stood waiting for his wife. The mafia boss had dropped the Paul Cicero persona that had fooled Kat and his family. He couldn’t truly alter himself, as many riftpeople could. Instead, he used a related species of the organism that made up Lyall’s living leathers to pull a human shape over himself like a second skin. That was gone now, and he stood in his true form, a huge rodent humanoid, with a whiskered face and cold, pale eyes. Like Remi’s, but with the vibrant blue drained down to flinty ice.
“Where are the Twins?” Lyall knew the two loved to curry favor with the don, in the hopes they’d be sent off on jobs that provided added loot. There was a protocol that Arimanius was supposed to have two guards with him at all times.
Lyall had set those damn security guidelines up himself, and as much as he hated Arimanius it infuriated him that the other enforcers were slacking off.
“I sent them to get take-out.” Arimanius had an edge to his voice, the faintest tell that he was plotting something.
Lyall prayed this was all his paranoia. It had been a few hours since he had sent Kat to the wrong location and Kaveh to find him. The young human was safe in the monstertown by now. He had to be. “Fine. Teo isn’t feeling well. I’m assuming Giana’s on her way up?”
“Such an unexpected pleasure.” Arimanius was better than anyone at deadpan sarcasm, even his son Remi. “I had no idea my dear wife was also visiting Arizona. What did you do to our new recruit?”
“Nothing I wanted to do.” Lyall had become good at matching his boss’s flat delivery, and he found himself falling into the same routine. After all, Arimanius had already done everything possible to destroy his life. “I explained the basics of perimeter security to him, and he tried to shoot whiskey. It didn’t go well.”
The door swung open, and Giana Gatti strolled in with all the subtlety of a cougar in heat. Lyall wasn’t that interested in human women, but he had eyes.
She was wearing a designer dress that likely cost more than Arimanius had paid for this building. The pre-Sundering construction was too expensive to modify for climate regulations and rift storms and too expensive to knock down.
“Ciao, darling.” Giana exchanged air kisses with her husband as Lyall stared at his feet and tried not to get sick. She wrinkled her nose as she took in the room. “I love what you’ve done to the place.”
She turned her perfect, savage smile on Lyall. “I also heard you were back. So lovely to see you again.”
“The pleasure’s all yours.” Lyall scrunched up his own nose, noticing an herbaceous scent under the floral jasmine perfume that had wafted in with Giana. “You have a seymour with you.”
“I do indeed.” Giana reached into her purse, and Lyall mentally increased the gap between the cost of her outfit and the value of the office building. She pulled out a twisted ball of dried vines that resembled the one Teo had brought to Kat’s apartment for their parlay. “Such a useful item for heart-to-heart conversations.”
Arimanius reached for it, and Lyall growled in irritation. The only thing worse than endlessly serving a boss he hated and hoped would die was working for one who didn’t follow his security protocols.
Giana laughed, a sultry sound, and handed the Riftworld plant to Lyall instead. “You’re such a dedicated little watch dog. I thought you didn’t enjoy working for my husband. Why did you come back, anyway?”
He suspected she already knew, but since the last topic he wanted to bring up was Kat, he focused on the seymour instead. He couldn’t smell anything off about the plant, but he wasn’t sure why she had brought it.
“I know the two of you are hardly drowning in marital bliss, but I didn’t think you needed a formal seymour parlay to talk to one another.”
“It’s not only for us.” Giana retrieved the plant and held it in Arimanius’s face. A tendril crept up from the center and formed a tight bud with outer sepals that featured spikes dripping with drops of blood. She had already let the plant feed on her. “It’s for our son as well. You do remember Remi, don’t you darling? My child, who you sent out to infiltrate drakone territory—and who never came back.”
