Free The Rule of Luck by Catherine Cerveny Page B

want to get to know her first, then decide.”
    “You may not like what you find.”
    I tilted my head and studied him, puzzled. “What aren’t you telling me?”
    He smiled ruefully and offered a shrug. “We Russians love our tragedies. We embrace our sorrows, then we fight our way free. My hope is you will feel the same.” He sipped his drink and met my eyes.
    I fought not to drown in his blue gaze. “Tell me.”
    “It’s because of your mother that you’re on the no-child list. Through her direct influence, you’ve been blacklisted from the Shared Hope program. And to change that, you may have to go to extreme lengths.”
    I opened my mouth. No sound came out. I tried again. “Extreme lengths?”
    “Unfortunately, yes. When you learn the truth, you may have to kill her.”

Chapter Five
    I sat in my chair for quite a while. Not moving. Not thinking. Just waiting for the punchline, or for the other shoe to drop. Yet when he merely looked at me over the rim of his glass, I knew there was no punchline to this particular joke.
    “I’m sorry. I think I misheard you,” was the safest thing I could think to say.
    Petriv set down his drink. “No, you didn’t. But that would be the worst possible scenario, and not my objective. Any move in that direction would jeopardize the award process and delay my future plans. We want to investigate TransWorld and we only have two weeks until the contract is awarded. After the two weeks, you and I will part ways. You will be paid for your time and your blacklisted status will be revoked. Once we come to terms, I will provide you with the documentation I have in my possession, which should answer any questions you have regarding your mother.”
    “Hold on! First you say my mother’s responsible for my blacklisted status and now you want to talk business like it’s not a huge issue? You can’t lay this on me and not expect me to react.”
    “Agreed, but you’ve limited our lunch to an hour. I apologize if that has caused my powers of persuasion to include high drama and threats.”
    Fuck. He’d torn the ground out from beneath me once again. I took a breath and fought to get myself back on track. I could freak out later on my own time.
    “I appreciate your candor. I still don’t know what I can do for you. If she hasn’t contacted me in over twenty years, I can’t see why she’d take an interest now that I’ve been approached by the leader of the Tsarist Consortium.”
    “I’m flattered you think so, but I’m not entirely in charge. At least, not yet.” His tone was light, but I heard an edge to his voice. All was not well in the Red Mafia. “At this juncture, what’s important is your card reading skills. That will open doors to places I can’t enter.”
    “I find that hard to believe.”
    He smiled. “Not everyone is as enamored of me as I wish they were.”
    “So you want to show me off at parties?”
    “One particular party. It’s hosted by a member of TransWorld’s Board of Directors, which is the prime reason I can’t get inside. Other key employees will also be in attendance—not your mother, but someone who reports to her. That employee needs to be discredited, which you will do with a reading. Without him, she’ll lose control of her most valuable resource.”
    “I don’t do fake readings. What the cards say, they say. My reputation is all I have and I’ve worked hard to build it.”
    “And how would the news you were arrested at the fertility clinic help your reputation? News that took an enormous amount of resources to scrub from the CN-net, I might add.”
    I scowled at him. “Don’t twist the situation. Besides, you may not get your desired outcome. Anything I see in the cards could take months to occur. If you want fast results, this probably isn’t the best way to get them.”
    “We’ll play the situation by ear. What I have in mind may not need to be so dramatic.”
    “I thought you liked drama.”
    His lips quirked in a