Free Blood and Fire by Shannon McKenna Page B

utterly and just kept staring at Bruno Ranieri. Salivating.
    Wanting him for his own sake. Wanting to feel the way he made her feel. So alive. Burning with life force. Fierce, vital, hungry. Hopeful.
    No rule says you have to fuck the guy, a dry voice in her mind said. At least not until you know him better. He offered to help you. Protect you, even. How sweet. You have options.
    Shut up, she told the voice. She didn’t want to think about her options right now. Her brain wasn’t functioning anyway.
    She might as well use the parts of her that were still operational.
     
    The elegant young man dressed in a crisp white dress shirt and figure-hugging black trousers took away the cheese and fruit plate without making a sound. He presented new wine goblets, poured a new wine.
    Neil King spared him an appraising glance, pegging him in time and vintage. Had the briefest of blank moments before retrieving the boy’s name from his memory banks. Julian. Yes, that was it. Seventeen or so. Coming along nicely, if he was trusted to serve King a late supper.
    Julian was one of King’s special series trainees. His gaze lingered on the boy’s height, the line of his jaw, his dimples. Handsome. And admirably self-possessed. Often the young, inexperienced ones got nervous and clumsy in King’s presence. He found it annoying.
    Today, he was in a benevolent mood and giving his full attention to Zoe, the young woman across the table. She’d earned it for her smooth handling of the Howard Parr affair. Or her part of it, anyway. It was not her fault the rest of it had gone so unexpectedly sour.
    Zoe was one of his oldest operatives, from his first crop. In fact, she was the only one left alive of her pod. The cull rate had been much higher in the old days. It was impossible to pinpoint her exact age, since she had been scooped out of the slums of Rio de Janeiro as a toddler, in contrast to his younger trainees, who had begun their training in utero. Zoe had no last name, no birth certificate. Despite the deprivations of her early childhood, she’d shaped up beautifully. And like all his operatives, she was invisible, ready to assume any identity convenient to him. She was his, body and soul.
    He’d kept Zoe waiting for this debrief dinner for almost four hours, primped and ready. It had been a busy day, and it was well past midnight, but when he finally walked into his private dining room, she’d leaped up in barely controlled delight.
    Ah, yes. Control had always been Zoe’s issue. Even so, he was cautiously pleased with her. Babysitting Howard had not been an easy assignment, requiring specialized training and years of tedious undercover work at Aingle Cliffs. But things had ended well. When Lily Parr institutionalized her father, he’d been very tempted to have Howard put down then and there. But something held him back. He hated to go back on a decision. And Howard was truly cowed. And a hit should always be matter of last resort. King wasn’t a ham-fisted Mafia thug, even if he was compelled to do business with them. He conducted his affairs with more delicacy than that. The extra cost was worth it.
    Howard had been committed shortly after Zoe had almost bungled one of her assignments. She’d been in disgrace and in need of a long, teeth-grinding purgatory. What better than babysitting Howard? It was static, boring, possibly endless. Just the thing to teach Zoe a lesson in control while she put in the hours of hard reprogramming time.
    His scheme had paid off. He had salvaged a multimillion dollar investment. Zoe had been patient, vigilant. She had executed her orders flawlessly, with only a few minutes’ lead time. No one at Aingle Cliffs suspected foul play. He’d analyzed the issue of the word-rec bot and had judged that the technical delay had not been altogether Zoe’s fault. Equipment failure. It was impossible to anticipate everything.
    He studied her with pleasure as she chattered blithely on. She was giving him too