Blood Rites (The Dresden Files #6) - Jim Butcher Page 0,37
someone has been buying the studios a little at a time."
"Who?"
He shook his head. "It is hard to say. I have investigated, but I am not a detective. Is there any way you could—"
"I'm already on it. I'll tell you if I turn up anything."
"Thank you," he said. "But what should I do today? I can't allow any of these people to be harmed."
"You're racing the clock, right? If you don't finish the film, your business is kaput."
"Yes."
"How long do you have?"
"Today and tomorrow," he said.
"Then you should ask yourself how willing you are to let ambition get someone killed. Then weigh it against how willing you are to let someone scare you out of living your life." I frowned. "Or maybe lives, plural. You're right when you say you aren't choosing only for yourself."
"How can I make that choice?" he asked.
I shrugged. "Look, Arturo. You need to decide if you are protecting these people or leading them. There's a difference."
He rolled the cigar back and forth between his fingers, and then nodded slowly. "They are adults. I am not their father. But I cannot ask them to risk themselves if they do not wish to. I will tell them they are free to leave should they choose, with no ill will."
"But you will stay?"
He nodded firmly.
"Leader, then," I said. "Next thing you know, Arturo, I'll be buying you a big round table."
It took him a second, but he laughed. "I see. Arthur and Merlin."
"Yeah," I said.
He regarded me thoughtfully "Your advice is good. For a young man, you have good judgment."
"You haven't seen my car."
Arturo laughed. He offered me a cigar, but I turned him down with a smile. "No, thank you."
"You look troubled."
"Yeah. Something about your situation doesn't sit right with me. This whole thing is hinky."
Genosa blinked. "It is what?"
"Hinky," I said. "Uh, it's sort of a Chicago word. I mean that there's something not right about what's going on."
"Yes," he agreed. "People are getting hurt."
"That's not it," I said. "The attacks have been brutal. That means that the intentions of whoever is behind them are equally brutal. You can't sling around magic that you don't really believe in. That isn't something a simple business competitor would come up with—even assuming some hardball corporate types decided to start trying a supernatural angle instead of hiring fifty-dollar bruisers to lean on you."
"You think it is personal?" he asked.
"I don't think anything yet," I said. "I need to do more digging."
He nodded, expression sober. "If you stay here, you can keep protecting my people?"
"I think so."
He pressed his lips together, expression resolved. "Then I will tell th—"
The door flew open and a living goddess of a woman stormed into the office. She was maybe five-foot-four and had brilliant, lush blond-highlighted red hair that fell to the small of her back. She wore only high-heeled pumps and a matching dark green two-piece set of expensive-looking designer lingerie, translucent enough to defeat the purpose of wearing clothing at all. It ably displayed all kinds of pleasant proportions of tanned, athletic female.
"Arturo, you Eurotrash pig," she snarled. "What do you think you are doing, bringing that woman here?"
Genosa flinched at the tone, and did not look at the woman. "Hello, Trish."
"Do not call me that, Arturo. I've told you over and over."
Genosa sighed. "Harry, this my newest ex-wife, Tricia Scrump."
And he let this gem slip out of his fingers? Shocking.
The woman's eyes narrowed. "Trixie. Vixen. It's been legally changed."
"Okay," Arturo said mildly. "Now what are you talking about?"
"You know full well what I'm talking about." She spat the words. "If you think you are going to split this feature between two stars, you are sadly mistaken."
"That isn't going to happen at all," he said. "But with Giselle hurt, I had to find someone else, and on such short notice…"
"Don't patronize me." Tricia ground her teeth. "Lara is retired. Re. Tie. Urd. This film is mine. I am not going to let you use my drawing power to fuel a comeback appearance for that… that bitch."
I thought about pots and kettles.
"It won't be an issue," Genosa said. "She has agreed to a mask and a pseudonym. You are the star, Tricia. That has not changed."
Trixie Vixen folded her arms, geometrically increasing her cleavage. "Fine, then," she snapped. "As long as we understand each other."
"We do," Arturo said.
She threw her hair back over her shoulder, a gesture filled with arrogance, and glared at me. "And who is this?"