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“You seemed pretty upset back there.”
“Did I?”
Bryant snorted. “No. Not obviously, I guess. Still. I think you were upset about what Serihk did to Turner. Or you were upset about what happened to him?”
“What happened to him was a terrible thing.” Mal’ik kept his voice calm even while his heart thudded. It was a terrible thing. And it happened to Oliver. And he hadn’t known about it. “I do have to go now. It was nice to meet you.”
Bryant stared at him with shrewd eyes for a moment longer and then nodded. “Yeah, you too. I’ll see you around.”
Mal’ik watched him turn back around to head to the gangway and then spun on his heel and strode back toward his rooms. As soon as he left the hanger, he called Patrick on his earpiece.
“What’s up?” Patrick asked, and his voice sounded sleepy. He’d always been early to bed.
“Why didn’t I know Oliver Turner had been targeted before?”
“What are you talking about? You did know.” There was a grunt on the other end, some rustling, and then Patrick’s voice came in clearer. “It was all in the briefing.”
Mal’ik stopped as he thought back. It had been in the briefing. Turner had had a few attempts on his life and a few attempted kidnappings, which was standard for someone with the kind of money he came from. The most serious attempt had been a bombing. Mal’ik remembered reading that. And he remembered handpicking bomb experts for his team, setting up protocols for all packages, and personnel specifically to sweep for explosives.
Mal’ik had known about the explosion, and he had prepared appropriately for it. The information just hadn’t been mentally filed into anywhere that meant it mattered to him.
“Mal’ik, what’s wrong?” Patrick interrupted his thinking, and Mal’ik resumed his walking.
“Nothing. You’re right. It slipped my mind. Have a good night.”
“Mal’ik—”
But Mal’ik ended the call.
Chapter Five
“Good night, Turner.”
Oliver lay in bed with the lights off and his eyes wide open, replaying every place where the evening had gone more and more wrong, all culminating with that formal, “Good night, Turner.”
No, actually, it had culminated with him walking across the hallway to knock on Mal’ik’s door under the inquisitive eyes of the night guards, only to have one of them tell him that Mal’ik had gone out. It wasn’t until he’d felt the bloom of embarrassment and pathetic jealousy that he’d remembered he wasn’t wearing his scent cream and that the guards could smell all the feelings on him.
He’d been too mortified to manage anything but a terse shake of the head and a quick “no” when they’d asked if they should call Mal’ik before slamming the door shut again.
Oliver rolled over and pulled the covers up to his ears.
His foolishness had started with that petty bout of insecurity when he’d learned Mal’ik knew Emissary Serihk. As though Mal’ik had abandoned him or tricked him. As though Mal’ik was anything more than his temporary bodyguard. And as though his relationship with Oliver had anything to do with his relationship with Serihk or vice versa.
He didn’t know if Serihk had sensed the distance between them or if he’d already been planning to drive a wedge between Oliver and his bodyguard, but his work had been transparent. And effective. Treat the only person on the ship in Oliver’s corner as though he were actually in Serihk’s. Emphasize and accentuate Oliver’s isolation. Oliver had to hand it to the qesh, it’s what he would have done.
And yes, Oliver would have even thrown Serihk’s worst day back in his face, too, if that had been an option for him. But if Serihk had had a day like the one Oliver had had spent trapped and suffocating—Oliver rolled onto his back and flung his covers back down to his waist—if Serihk had had a day like that, Oliver didn’t know of it.
And so Serihk had wiped the floor with him. It hadn’t even been a negotiation. It had barely been a meeting. It had just been Serihk telling him—with a lot of political words and barely veiled barbs—that he was here to stop Oliver and there was nothing Oliver could do about it.
Oliver swung his legs out of bed and scrubbed his hands over his face.
His only comfort was that his father hadn’t been there to see it.
He could still feel the disdainful fury in the look his father had given him as he lay in the hospital, every inch of him stinging with antiseptic. He could hear the blame in his father’s voice as he told him that the deal had fallen through. That the Wate Group had struck a deal of their own.
His father hadn’t been there to tell him that he was going to live or that he would get to keep his leg. He hadn’t been there to tell him he was glad he was alive or that he hoped he got better soon.
He had come to the hospital to tell him that the deal had fallen through.
