Page 154 of Decadence

Sure enough, just as Ikriss reached the entrance, the doors opened and Conor and his small entourage of three suit-wearing thugs walked out and onto the street, where a black car was waiting for them.

The rear door slid upwards, and Conor slipped into the back seat. His men waited outside until he was comfortably seated.

“I’m tired of all this fuckin’ snow, Sven,” one of the men said to the other.

“Quit whinin’, idiot. It’ll be summer before you know it, and then I’ll have to listen to you bitching about the humidity for three months.”

They were distracted; complacent.

Clearly, they were not used to encountering threats in their own domain.

As the vehicle’s door began to close, Ikriss moved extremely fast; faster than any human could. He darted past the guards and slid into the seat beside Connor. The guards whirled and reached for their weapons, but it was too late.

Ikriss pulled the door shut, slamming it with a thud.

Connor drew a gun from inside his jacket and pointed it at Ikriss’s face. “What the fuck? You? You’re th-that guy… Sienna’s…”

“If you fire that gun at me,” Ikriss said mildly, “you will have the entire fleet of the former Kordolian Imperial Military raining plasma death upon your pathetic existence.” He removed his glasses.

The color drained from Connor’s face. “Kordolian?”

One of the guards was frantically banging on the side window. The one called Sven came around to the pilot’s seat and started to open the door.

Ikriss pulled his plasma gun from the holster against his ribs and pointed it at the guard. “Get out.”

“Jesus, just do what he fucking says,” Connor blurted. “I don’t want to be cleaning your brains off my goddamn Italian leather.”

Sven quickly pulled his head out of the door and slammed it shut, sealing Ikriss and Connor inside.

“If this is about the abductions, believe me, I had nothing to do with them. Your guy already came and interrogated me. I told him everything, I swear. I thought there would be no more trouble from you people as long as we stayed the fuck out of it.”

“I know you had nothing to do with the abductions. I’m not here for that.”

“Then what do you want?”

Ikriss calmly lowered his gun. The boy was a fool, but he wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t going to put up a fight. “The structure that houses Sienna’s establishment. You purchased it.”

“I just signed the contract, a few hours ago. How the hell did you know I bought it?”

“That is none of your concern.” With the help of Riana, Ikriss had been keeping an eye on the owner of Sienna’s building for the past few rotations. He was just about reach out to the previous owner—an elderly woman living on an island called Taiwan—when Riana informed him that it had changed hands.

That made his life easier. An elder human would need convincing. With this would-be princeling, he could simply threaten.

“That building’s earmarked for development,” Conor said quietly; the last gasp of a dying fish. “Plans have been approved by the City Council. You can’t do anything to stop that proc—”

“You will sell it,” Ikriss said simply.

“You can’t just—”

“I do not wish to waste my time and energy trying to convince you of the inevitable. This is your last chance to make a decision that will be in your best interests.”

A series of emotions flitted across Connor’s face—anger, disbelief, denial, fear, acceptance.

His shoulders slumped. He raked a hand through his dark slicked-back hair. “You’ll grind me into dust if I don’t agree to this.”

“Something like that.”

Connor cursed viciously in some language Ikriss had never heard before. “What fucking choice do I have? Sure, no problem. I’ll sell it to you. You just gotta pay me what I paid for it—eighty seven million credits.”

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