by Isadora Hart
"I'm sorry I had to tell you like that," she said to Dala. "It's all just so hectic here and I need to make arrangements and speak to the press and everything fast. I need to get ahead of it."
"Don't apologize. You're doing the right thing. It's just hard. Give me a second." Cassie was put on hold for a moment while Dala spoke to the director. "Okay. I'm about to put you through. Stay strong, Cassie. I know you can handle it. Archie thought you could."
Two tears burned tracks on Cassie's cheeks. "Thanks, Dala. I'll see you at the funeral."
“I’ll put you through to Jensen.”
Then she was patched through to the head of the foundation. "I'm so sorry to hear the news," he said. The director wasn't someone she'd had much contact with herself, but she knew he and Archie had been negotiator and mentor once upon a time, just like she and Archie had. He must have been grieving. His voice betrayed nothing, though.
“It’s not been the best start to the conference,” she agreed. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”
“Better from you and Dala than a call from a journalist. I’m sure I’ll be getting many of those over the coming days.”
“I need to ask you about getting some protection.” She may as well get straight into it. The director was a busy man, and he didn’t need to spend time placating her feelings. “The assassin almost killed me too, and I don’t believe it was accidental. I’d feel safer having someone just to watch out for me, if the budget can swing it.”
“Of course. I’ll sort something out and have someone with you before the day is out. We have companies on hold for situations like this. Unfortunately it’s not the first time we’ve had to deal with threats to our personnel.”
Her fingers laced in her lap. She wanted to ask what had happened last time. “Thank you.”
“So you’re staying at the conference?” he checked. “There’s no shame in saying you need to come home. We have people on stand by.”
“No, I want to stay.” She didn’t want to stay at all; she wanted to go home and cry, and get lost in her misery for a few days. She wanted to be on the ground, where she could help people directly and immediately and have that satisfaction of someone giving her a grateful smile. The last thing she wanted to do was play politics with people she knew were scum.
With people who might be responsible for Archie’s death.
But she and Archie had worked long and hard to get the information that was going to swing this conference in their favor. It was highly secret, and she couldn’t bring herself to give it to someone else in the organization even if they might have been better equipped to use it.
Cassie and Archie had had a plan, and she was going to stick to it.
It was what Archie had wanted, in that last dying moment. He’d told her to win, and she would.
“I can be first chair at the conference. Archie trained me well. I’m ready.”
“I don’t doubt your skills as a face for the charity, I doubt your emotional state right now. Losing someone close to you isn’t the basis for a good negotiating performance.”
She swallowed the automatic response that she agreed with him. She didn’t know if she was ready, or if she could do it. “I’m a professional. I can grieve on my own time.”
Jensen paused. “Then I shall leave it in your hands. Don’t hesitate to call if there’s anything we can do for you. I’ll inform Archie’s widow, and let you know of the funeral plans when I have them.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Jensen, please. There will be someone with you about your safety by the end of the day. Stay put until then. Keep your statement to the press short and to the point, and take the day off. The conference will be delayed for a couple of days, take that time to get your head together. I have to go. I’m sure you can do it.”
Her heart clenched, and she had to clear her throat before responding. She hadn’t realized she needed that encouragement until she heard it. “Thanks, Sir. Erm, Jensen. I appreciate the vote of confidence. I’ll keep you updated.”
He hung up and she was left staring at the ceiling, the temptation to crawl into bed gnawing at her. Just a few hours to mope. Just a few hours to remember all the things she’d admired Archie for.
She stood up, though, and stretched. Not yet. There was still too much to be done.
And the first of those was to draft a speech for the press. She wanted to give it before the day was out and she’d let it sit and the speculation happen. She didn’t want to seem weak, either. Taking a day to recover would be weak. Getting out there and showing that she was grieving, but still a professional, might help stop some of the dismissal she was going to get from other conference-goers that she was just being an emotional woman whenever she said something they disagreed with.
The Intergalactic Union refused to legislate against torture—there wasn’t a lot of legislation, or common sentiment, confirming that sexism was wrong yet, either.
She took her notepad and pen from her bag rather than her tablet. She didn’t handwrite things very often, but right now she needed the distraction of forming the letters on the page, the satisfaction of scribbling out words she’d changed her mind on rather than an underwhelming backspace. It helped stop the thoughts of Archie taking over as she tried to write about him.
The mini-bar was incredibly tempting, but she put that off until later, too. A reward to go with the crying she planned to do.
She’d only been sitting for an hour when there was a knock on the door.
Swallowing, she checked her phone, but there were no messages. Miranda normally messaged before coming to see her, even when they were just in their offices, across a hallway from one another. She was overly polite like that. Maybe it was the police. They’d be coming to speak to her soon.
Or maybe it was another assassin, coming to finish the job.
She stood up and brandished the pen in her hand, looking through the peep hole in the door.
A burly man stood on the other side. It wasn’t someone she recognized, and the police normally traveled in pairs. She hoped someone that gorgeous hadn’t decided to throw their lives away assassinating people for a side who advocated the right to torture people. His jaw and cheekbones were strong and angular, his hair arranged in loose black curls on top of his head. His eyes were intense as he watched the door. She was somehow sure he was staring right at her even though there was a thick slab of metal in between them.
She put the pen down in favor of the knife she always carried in her purse, and then took a deep breath. Assassins didn’t knock on the door, she decided. They didn’t stand on the other side with their arms crossed, no gun in either hand. The other one had been wearing a mask, had lilac eyes. He didn’t.
But she still opened the door with the knife behind her back, more than ready to plunge it into whatever part of him she could if he made a move.
“Cassandra Maxwell?” he asked.
“Yes?”
“I’m Vikram Pallan of Suytov Planet Security. I’ve been assigned as your bodyguard for the rest of the conference, at the request of the Director of the Universal Rights Foundation.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. She should have realized earlier. He was the same species as the bodyguards who’d been flanking the Agalaxian Prince when he’d disembarked earlier that day. They looked mostly human, but there were some subtle differences that told her he had some genes from elsewhere. The first was the sheer size of him. He wasn’t so tall it was unnatural, but he was almost seven feet tall. It wasn’t strange as a one-off occurrence, but the bodyguards she’d seen earlier had been huge like that, too, and it wasn’t a coincidence. The other thing was his skin. She hadn’t been able to tell from a distance when she’d seen the bodyguards with Prince Qugrom, but it was more leathery than that of a human. More toughened. His race clearly had human ancestry, but when humans had found his planet they’d mated with something else there, and he was the result. No doubt there were more changes in his genetic make-up
beyond just appearances.
“Nice to meet you.” Sheepishly, she pulled the knife from behind her back and set it on the table. “Could I see some ID?” she asked. “Sorry. I’m feeling a bit distrustful of everyone right now.”
He pulled out his phone and handed it to her, the ID on screen so she could scan it with her own and verify it as IU-recognized. “Normally this part would be more professional, but we’ve been a bit overrun the past few hours.”
“No worries.” When it was all verified, she stepped to the side and allowed him into the room, closing the door behind them. He seemed to fill up all the space in what she’d thought was a huge room when she first entered. He wasn’t just tall, he was built like a tank. And he carried an armory, too. On his belt were countless knives, and two guns. She felt safer already. “I can’t say I’ve ever had a bodyguard before. You’ll have to explain to me exactly how this is going to work.”
“There’s nothing to it. I’ll just be keeping you safe in the background. You don’t have to pay any attention to me.”
“Where are you staying?” Her room was quite small. She had a couch but it wouldn’t have been very comfortable for someone of his size. She wasn’t sure she liked the idea of him sleeping too far away, either, though. When she was asleep and defenseless, that was surely the best time to strike.
“I’ve been assigned a room on the corridor. I’ll never be too far away if you need me during the night.”
She held her tongue on a comment that if someone broke in with a gun, she doubted down the corridor would be enough to stop someone capping her in the head. “Great.”
He retrieved something from his pocket and handed it to her. “This is a panic button. It sends a message straight to my phone telling me if you’re in danger. You should keep it on you at all times, and press it if you think something is wrong.”
She took the small button from him, fingers brushing against his as she did. He was warmer than she’d expected, hot even at the tips of his fingers. “Okay, that’s actually great. It really does make me feel better.”
“That’s what I’m here to do.”
And she intended to put him to good use. She’d look much more legitimate with a bodyguard following her around like all the other top diplomats at the event, and she’d feel more comfortable negotiating with the people she had dirt on with someone that strong standing beside her.
Even if she was unconvinced that he’d be able to stop an assassin with a loaded gun shooting her dead before he could even get close enough to react, she could put him to other uses while he was here. “I have to go and make my speech to the press soon. I hope that’s all right.”
“You just need to go about your day as you would be doing and I’ll always be behind you, making sure nothing’s wrong,” he said. “I’d appreciate a schedule of what you’ve got planned for the day in the morning, but if you can’t get it to me it’s not essential.”
“I can do that. When the rescheduled agenda for the conference is released I’ll get you a copy, too.” She paused, shifting in her chair. She felt strange, sitting with him in her room and having no idea what to say. She was drawn naturally to small talk, but his looming figure and emotionless mask didn’t seem interested in something like that. He was a professional, and he was there to do his job.
She should be focusing on hers.
So she zoned back into her notepad with the scribbled out words for the journalists and ignored him as he walked around the hotel room and assessed the doors and windows. It was difficult not to notice every time he frowned, every time he seemed to find something unsuitable in her room.
Every time he found a weakness.
She’d be cataloging every one of those points and staring at them when she tried to go to sleep that night.
Eventually, she sat back and frowned. “Could you give this a read?” she asked, handing him the sheet of paper. “See if it’s all right? I’m guessing you’ve looked after loads of politicians. You probably have a better idea of what makes a good speech than I do.”
He took the piece of paper from her. “I’m surprised you handwrite. It’s a long time since I saw someone do that.” His dark brown eyes moved rapidly over the piece of paper.
“It’s a better distraction. Can you read it all right?” She wrote in the cursive style her parents had taught her, and it was rarely used anymore.
“Of course. You write nicely.” He gave nothing away until he hit the second to last line. “Don’t use the word sorry,” he said, handing it back to her. “I’ve heard plenty of people over the years say that you should never apologize for anything in a speech, even with something like this.”
She hummed and scrubbed it out, biting the top of her pen before writing something else instead. “You really are going to be useful.”
Now the final edits had been done, she typed it up into her phone so there would be no focus on how she held pen and paper when she spoke. Nothing was going to detract from the fact she was there to talk about what a great man Archie had been.
“You must have been close,” Vikram said, leaning against the window, his gaze on the people milling around the courtyard.
“Yeah. We were.” She took a deep breath. “I need to go and see our aide. Well, I guess she’s my aide now.” She felt awful for Miranda. She’d been with the team almost as long as Cassie had, and Archie had been fond of her. She always did her job well and was visibly affected when things went badly.
She must have been in her room falling apart. Cassie should have gone with her, but she needed to fall apart a bit, too.
Before they left the room, Vikram touched her arm to stop her, and gestured to her right eye. “You’ve got a bit of black there.”
“Oh, shit.” She’d allowed a few tears to fall. She scrubbed at it with her thumb and then looked back up at him. “Gone?”
He hesitated before rubbing his own thumb against her face, to the right of where she’d been aiming. His skin might have looked leathery, but it was silk to the touch. She wanted to take his hand and feel more of it, see if she was imagining how soft the pad of his thumb felt against her face.
He pulled back. “It’s gone.”
“Thanks.” She wasn’t sure why he was frowning so hard, why he looked so unsure of whether he’d just done the right thing. “Let’s go, then. I just want to get all this over and done with.”
3.
VIKRAM
Vikram followed Cassandra down the corridor of the hotel, eyes scouring everything in sight for anything amiss. This was the bit he was good at, the bit he knew. Protecting and preventing things from happening.
Sitting in her hotel room and talking to her was the difficult part. It was too personal, and the lines were blurred too easily.
He’d never touched a client like that before. He had no idea what had possessed him to do it then. She hadn’t seemed to think it was a big deal. He was over thinking things, as normal.
His mentor had told him that his entire job was about pushing back his instincts until they were necessary, and so whenever he acted beyond his remit it felt like he was letting Ballar down.
They reached another door and Cassandra hesitated only slightly before knocking. He couldn’t quite place her yet. She seemed strong and weak all at once.
“Miranda! It’s me. It’s Cassie.”
Cassie, not Cassandra. He made a mental note.
The door inched open. “Cassie,” said Miranda, opening it wider. “How are you doing?”
Her smile was tight. “Yeah. I’m doing okay.”
Miranda peered around further and saw him. “Who is that?”
“This is Vikram. He’s my bodyguard for the rest of the conference.”
“Wow. The director didn’t send me a bodyguard.”
Cassie gave a small laugh. “It’s just precaution. I’m sure he’ll just be bored trailing me and listening to speeches all day and never having to lift a finger.” She smiled at him, and he wondered why she was differe
nt from everyone else he’d guarded.
Admittedly he wasn’t a veteran of the job yet. He’d been working at Suytov Planet Security since he was sixteen years old, like most of their recruits, but years of that was training. He hadn’t had his first job until he was twenty-three. He’d been held back from being assigned someone for a few years longer than most. He’d struggled with the emotional side of it, to the point where he thought he was going to have to give up, but Ballar had set him straight, and eventually he’d been qualified as a full-time bodyguard.
And all his charges up until this point had been middle-aged politicians who always had at least one other guard as well as him. He operated as a complete shadow in their lives, never speaking to them except when necessary.
He definitely didn’t get smiled at in public by any of his previous charges.
“Did you want to come in?” Miranda asked.
“Not if you don’t want. I’m mostly here to ask if you could get the media together. I’m ready to make my statement about Archie. I don’t want to bug you, I know I’m more than ready to just curl up and be left alone by everyone.”
Miranda didn’t seem as upset by it as Cassie did, though. She was chewing her lip and frowning, but it didn’t go posture deep. They couldn’t have been as close; she was just an aide, not his second-in-command. “I can do that. I can get everyone together beside the big fountain in the lobby for—” she paused to check her watch, “—two o’clock?”
“Perfect. I won’t keep you.” Cassie squeezed Miranda’s hands. “I hope you’re okay.”
“I’m coping.”
“We’ll talk properly tomorrow, when it’s not as fresh.”
They said their goodbyes and Miranda closed the door. “I feel awful for her,” she said as they walked back down the corridor. “When you go out of the field and into the office you don’t expect to see things like that anymore. You feel like you’ve seen enough death for a lifetime.”