Free Dark Moon by REBECCA YORK Page A

personally reviewing the sex sessions that included the dead man.”
    “What’s his name?”
    “Joseph Naguro.”
    “I can’t remember anything special about him.”
    In the five years he’d been operating the Windward , Bruno had had problems from time to time, but never at such a sustained level. It was as though people who should know their place were thinking they deserved unwarranted consideration.
    “Do you think Cole Mason and Emma Ray have anything to do with it?”
    “I think they were at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
    “Maybe. What were your impressions of them?”
    “He kept his cool in a tense situation.” He laughed. “Well, he got a little smart aleck in his remarks.”
    “How do you interpret that?”
    “His response to being pushed to the floor and having a gun held on him.”
    “Was he in danger?” Bruno snapped.
    “If the rebels had gotten into the reception area, he would have been.”
    “Maybe we didn’t check out Mason carefully enough. Go over his background. And Ms. Ray’s. I mean more than what we’ve already got.”
    “Yes sir. Is there anything else you need at the moment.”
    “I think we’ve covered it,” Bruno answered. When his security chief left, he repressed the urge to pick up the glass on his desk and throw it at the bulkhead. But that would make a mess someone would have to clean up, and he didn’t want anyone to know he was upset by this latest incident.
    He looked around his office, loving the furnishings and artwork he’d picked out. The juggler across from his desk was a genuine Picasso etching. The huge abstract on the sidewall was a Jackson Pollock. And he’d taken a very nice Salvador Dali from his father’s collection.
    He’d outfitted this ship for his own pleasure and turned it into as close to a kingdom as you could get without being born into royalty. Now some of his subjects were trying to fuck that all up.
    He grimaced, then pressed a button that brought up a flat-screen TV on the far side of the desk. He had a library of tapes that always soothed him. He’d watch one now.
    Rather than tie one of his slaves to the whipping post. Another decision not to give anything away.
    Relatively few people in the world knew who he was and how he had gotten where he was today. Those who did thought he had always had it made. But it hadn’t started out so well. Bruno had been sickly as a child. He’d eaten a lot of bananas trying to keep everything he ate from going through him. Just as his digestion had gotten better, he’d started school and turned out to be a slow learner. He’d needed endless tutoring just to get the hang of reading. His older brother Dieter had been robust and quick at his studies, and his parents’ favorite son.
    He’d ached for what his brother had. The good health. The easy time in school. His charm. He’d used all of those to get what he wanted, and it had looked like he’d succeeded.
    Until he’d screwed up in his early twenties, driven drunk, and plowed his Mercedes into a lady crossing the street. Papa’s money hadn’t kept him out of jail for manslaughter. And Bruno had used those two years to prove he was the model son. Dieter had come back from his prison term angry at the injustice of what had happened. And angry when he saw he’d lost his place as the favorite. Which had only worsened his position.
    Papa had bent over backwards to be fair. He’d left his two sons the same inheritance. But Papa had drawn closer to Bruno, given him good advice. Which he’d taken. And prospered.
    For all his early promise, Dieter had never done anything important on his own. In fact he’d made some very bad investments. Bruno had pretended sympathy and been glad to bail him out when he’d been secretly gleeful that his brother had made a mess of things. Instead of succeeding—through hard work and guts.
    After dragging his thoughts away from the past, Bruno scrolled through his private film library and found one of his