AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Venera is how we win.
A grunt behind Sergey alerts me to the stick-thin lab tech waiting at attention just behind him. His eyes are watery and timid and his lab coat is stained at the hem.
The moment my gaze lands on him, Sergey waddles aside like a well-trained seal. He’s seen enough of my temper to know it’s best to stay out of reach.
I saunter closer to the man who cleared his throat. “And you are…?”
His eyes twitch. Left and right. Left and right. “Mattias,” he says at last.
“Do you have something you want to say to me, Mattias?”
Now, his jaw twitches, too. “We need to focus on correctingallthe side effects, sir. Not just the ones that will affect your bottom line.”
I almost want to laugh. Not very many people have the balls to challenge me to my face.
In my peripheral vision, I catch my second-in-command, Kirill, straightening up. He senses danger. So do the other two lab aides. Like Sergey, they distance themselves from the upstart immediately.
“Seems like you disapprove of my decisions, Mattias.”
He holds his soft chin up high. “Maybe I do.”
My glare doesn’t seem to have much of an effect on him, but the slow smile that curls over my mouth certainly does. Fear flits across his eyes and he takes a half-step back.
“I’m going to offer you one chance to step back in line.”
His jaw clicks in place. “I—”
“Too slow.”
I pull out a gun and shoot themudakright between his squinty eyes.
Cue screams. Cue chaos. Cue bloodshed. All the usual music.
The other aides go scrambling in every direction, hurling themselves under the lab table and behind flimsy wire shelves. Sergey is the only one who remains standing, but judging from his sheet-white complexion, it’s a shock reaction to the fact that one of his underlings is lying on the floor with a hole where his face once was.
When I turn to Sergey, he springs back, nearly upending the table with all the Venera samples. “S-Sir…”
“Calm the fuck down, everyone.” Kirill’s tone is equal parts impatience and amusement as he addresses the terrified room. “That smug motherfucker had a target on his forehead the moment he decided to sell sensitive intel to our competitors.”
Sergei’s eyes bug out. “Mattias didwhat?”
The lab techs have glommed onto the workbenches that hug the walls of the lab, chins wobbling like toddlers who’ve shit their pants.
Good. They’ll work harder after this. Fear is an extremely effective motivator.
“Did any of you know about this?” I ask them.
I know they didn’t. I’ve had full-scale background checks done on each of them. I know where their mothers live, where they hide their money, where their childhood pets are buried. I know things about them they’ve forgotten about themselves. Now that Mattias is dead, the whole crew is squeaky clean, but I need to make sure they stay that way. I can’t afford another breach like this one.
“N-no…!”
“I swear, sir. I had no idea.”
“We would never.”
“Please…”
“Enough!” I barely raise my voice, but both of the stuttering scientists clamp their mouths shut. “Let this be a warning. Traitors will be shown no mercy. Iwill be judge, jury, and executioner and I’m not exactly impartial. Is that understood?”
