Disclaimer:
The following is a work of fanfiction. All characters and situations belonging to the Star Wars saga are copyrighted to Lucasfilm Ltd. and the Walt Disney Company. Everything else, including original characters, are of my own creation.
Author's Notes:
For those of you who know me, you know that my love of Star Wars goes back to elementary school. It has been my main go-to fandom for most of my life and it was what made me start writing in the first place. (My first attempt at fanfiction has never seen the light of day. It was a self-insert into the original trilogy that never made it past the first or second scene!) Another love of mine is the so-bad-they're-good Lifetime Channel Original Movies. I have been watching them for over ten years now and for a while, I've been playing with the idea of trying to write a Lifetime Movie fanfic. My first ideas were spoofs, silly ideas such as all of the characters being cats or taking every Lifetime cliché and cramming it into a single comedic story. But none of them seemed like they would really work in the written format. So I gave up the idea.
Until now.
After I finished writing my "Rogue One" fix-it story, "Chances," I started coming up with additional ideas for more stories set in the same alternate universe. One idea that particularly stuck out was someone from Cassian's past coming back to haunt him. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had a Lifetime-style plot on my hands. So the idea for "The Wrong Ambassador" was born.
This story is a true Star Wars/Lifetime mash-up. I have tried to fit in as many of the Lifetime clichés as possible while maintaining a serious tone. It is also a very adult-oriented story with a very strong R/M rating. It contains sexual content, violence, attempted murders, and murders. It is not recommended for younger readers.
In keeping with Lifetime Original Movie traditions, I have "cast" all of my main original characters with actors who are Lifetime regulars. This first section has the following characters:
Mirella Reedl...Lindsay Hartley
Jeek Warler...Marcus Rosner
Zaid Dlirk...Eric Roberts
An updated "cast" list will appear with each section.
This story is a direct sequel to "Chances" and its adult tag scene story "Culmination."
All questions and comments may be sent to me at my e-mail address. Please see my author profile for details.
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy the story.
The Wrong Ambassador
by
Julie Horwitz
Cassian Andor heaved a quiet sigh of relief as the computer in front of him unlocked to grant him access.
As soon as he found the evidence he was looking for, this mission from all of the hells combined would be over.
And he would never have to see Mirella Reedl ever again as long as he lived.
The mission had seemed straightforward when it had been assigned to him. He was to retrieve evidence that the leader of the planet Tyrat, Bustrn Reedl, was freely supplying the Empire with weapons and supplies. An agent embedded in the regional governor's office had overheard a conversation mentioning Tyrat and Reedl specifically by name. Tyrat, a world known for its refusal to deal directly with governmental and military bodies, only traded with private corporations, and on extremely rare occasions, the ruling families of peaceful planets, such as Alderaan. It was Mon Mothma's hope that if they could present the High Council of Tyrat proof that their leader was violating the law, then Tyrat would willingly join the Alliance.
Cassian's mark had been Reedl's daughter, Mirella. The intel that had been gathered on her was slim. All that was known was that she lived a life of privilege and excess off of her father's money. She did not have a job and spent most of her days shopping, eating at expensive restaurants, and going to spas. Her nights consisted of partying at multiple clubs. She still lived in her father's house, which was what made her the ideal target.
Cassian's cover identity had been designed to attract Mirella's attention. "Dominik Telor" was the aimless son of a very rich Coruscanti family. Rather than join the family business, he traveled the galaxy looking for a good time wherever he could find one. Tyrat just happened to be where he was looking now. The plan had been for "Dominik" to approach Mirella and seduce her into bringing him into her father's home.
If he had known then what he knew now...
He had spent the first three days after arriving on Tyrat following Mirella, learning her routines and observing her behavior. From what he could tell, she had no friends that she spent any time with. During the day, she was always alone. Nighttime, however, was a completely different story.
Mirella's evenings consisted of visiting nightclub after nightclub where she would start a conversation with a man (always human or near-human), disappear into the back of the club with him, and then a short time later, she and the man would reemerge. The majority of the time, the two of them would go their separate ways and Mirella would move on to the next club. (It had only taken Cassian discretely following her to the back one time to learn that she was having sex with these men. The knowledge that she was not interested in an emotional connection had made him believe this job would be easier than the others he'd had. That there'd be no guilt afterwards... How wrong he had been...) But there would always be one man in one club that she found worthy of leaving with and that would end her nightly search. (His guess was the sex in the club was an audition for the man. If she liked how he made her feel, she'd deem him worthy of a full night together. That meant that he'd only have one chance to win her over. He had every confidence that he would. After three years of these sorts of missions, he had gotten very good at pleasing a woman.)
On all three nights, Cassian had followed Mirella and her chosen companion from the club. She did not bring any of them home. Depending on whether or not the man was local, she instead went to either the man's residence or a hotel. When Cassian made his move as "Dominik," he had known he would have to insist that they went to her home. His entire mission had depended on getting access to her father's private records. Leaving the planet without them had not been an option.
On the fourth night, Cassian had made sure he was in the club Mirella always visited first before she got there. He had taken a position at the bar near her customary spot. When she arrived, "Dominik" would introduce himself and put the plan into motion. He had had little doubt that she would be leaving with him.
He now wished he had failed that night...
Mirella had entered the club exactly on schedule and Cassian had wasted no time in making his move. "Dominik" had come over to her and after a brief introduction full of flattery, made it very clear that he was looking for sex. Mirella had been intrigued since she was the one who usually made the first move (a warning sign that he had failed to heed until it was too late...) and invited him to follow her.
As expected, she had led him to one of the back rooms. The moment they entered had been the beginning of the month-long nightmare he was finally escaping.
Even before the door had completely shut behind them, Mirella had aggressively shoved him against the wall, pulled down his pants, and began performing oral sex on him without speaking a single world. He had been stunned by the unexpected turn of events. Normally he was the one who initiated sex, as he had been trained to do. His natural instinct had been to make her stop so he could take over, but he knew that "Dominik" would never turn down any sexual favor, and let her continue.
Unsurprisingly, she had stopped before he reached orgasm. As he soon learned, everything Mirella did was for her own benefit and she cared little for her partner's pleasure. She had been priming him for what she ultimately wanted: intercourse, which she signaled by standing back up and hiking up her skirt, revealing that she was not wearing any underwear.
Unfortunately, that was when he made his first mistake. When she instructed him to "take me," instead of just entering her as she clearly wanted, he moved in to kiss her. But before he could close the distance between their faces, she had slapped him so hard that he saw stars and informed him that she hadn't given him permission to do that. Thankfully, he'd been caught too off-guard to respond. His normal reaction would have been to strike back at his assailant. "Dominik," however, was not a fighter and he had to remain in character if the mission were to proceed.
As she began to explain her numerous rules to "Dominik," Cassian had come to the instant realization that Mirella was a dominant and that his usual approach to sex was not going to work with her. Power and control over her partner were what she thrived on. If he was going to get her to bring him where he needed to be, he would have to play the role of the submissive. Although it went against all of his training, it was essential for this mission. Going to her father's house had to be her idea and her idea alone.
It was at that moment that he had realized the mission was going to take longer than he had thought. He would have to sleep with her on multiple occasions in order to slowly and indirectly warm her to the idea of bringing him to her home.
After she finished listing the rules she expected a lover to follow, she again instructed him to take her and he had obeyed, lifting her up and having sex with her against the wall. He let her set the pace, which was fast and rough, and she reached her orgasm fairly quickly. As before, she had disengaged before allowing him to reach his own.
To his relief, Mirella had complimented him on his performance and indicated that she was far from finished with him. She then used her hand to manually bring him to completion. Afterwards, she had informed him that she was giving him permission to kiss her, which he did. As with everything else they had done, she ultimately took control of the kissing and determined when she had enough for the time being.
Then she demanded he bring her to his place. Knowing that he didn't have a choice, he agreed and they left the club together. (To reinforce his cover identity, he had taken a room at a luxury hotel.)
Little had he known what the coming days would bring...
Once they arrived at his hotel room, the night had proceeded in much the same way as the club, with Mirella dictating every act and inflicting pain whenever he did something that displeased her. And many things displeased her... (Her punishments had ranged from slaps to impaling her nails into his skin near very sensitive parts of his anatomy. He had no idea back then how much worse they could get...) But she had remained the entire night, waking him several times for more sex, and he had been very surprised to find her still with him in the morning.
In spite of his many "mistakes," (it had been impossible to completely push his training to the side), or perhaps because of them, Mirella had informed him that he intrigued her and wanted to spend more time with him. She found his differences from her usual men attractive and had wanted to learn more about him. She had also made it very clear that the sex was some of the best she had ever had and wanted more of that more than anything else. At the time, Cassian had figured that meant he'd be brought into her home faster than anticipated.
He had been so very, very wrong...
Mirella had decided that "Dominik" was to accompany her everywhere she went until she decided otherwise. It didn't even matter where, he had to be with her. She wanted him available to her at all times-for sex. Constant sex. Constant, public sex. They could be at a restaurant and she would demand that he take care of her under the table. Turning her down had not been an option. If he ever tried (which had been another one of his early mistakes), she had made a scene until he acquiesced to her desires. Of course these transgressions led to punishments when they were alone. Punishments that involved pain and violence that he had never imagined experiencing... It had taken everything he had to remain in character as "Dominik" and not fight back.
Especially when she'd cut him several times with a vibroblade...
"Monster" was not strong enough of a word to describe the kind of person she was.
He'd have been lying if he said there weren't times he had been afraid for his life.
And if that hadn't been bad enough, Mirella had started talking marriage and children by the third day.
But her "infatuation," if it could have even been called that, with "Dominik" had started to pay off. After two weeks, she had finally introduced him to her father.
To Cassian's surprise, he had liked Bustrn Reedl. He had been nothing like his daughter and had given no indication of Imperial sympathies. In fact, through "Dominik's" indirect questioning, Reedl had made it clear that he found the Empire abhorrent and missed the Republic despite his planet having never belonged. It had made Cassian wonder if the intel about the supplies had been wrong, but he would not know for certain until he searched Reedl's home office.
But even after the introduction, Mirella still wouldn't bring "Dominik" home. She had preferred his hotel room and by that time, she had practically moved in with him. (It had made sending his status reports to Draven difficult, but once Mirella was asleep, there was very little that would wake her. She tended to exhaust herself with sex.) As the mission dragged on, he had started to worry that getting into the house without being married to Mirella was impossible. (He had known he couldn't allow things to go that far, not even for the Rebellion.)
Finally, finally, after enduring Mirella's abuse for a month, the opportunity he had been waiting for had arrived. Her father was going out of town on business and Mirella had decided it would be fun to use the entire house as their playground until he returned. (It had turned out the reason she never brought anyone home was to keep her father from learning the extent of her promiscuous ways. He apparently didn't approve of her lifestyle as it went against the family values. In Cassian's opinion, everything about her went against all values.) So the very morning that Reedl left, Mirella had brought "Dominik" to her family home for the very first time, and after giving him a brief tour that, thankfully, had included the location of the home office, the sex had begun. And it hadn't stopped for hours...
When night finally came and Mirella had fallen into her deep sleep, Cassian had sprung to action. He had quickly dressed and silently made his way out of the bedroom and traversed the house until he reached Reedl's home office. His first act had been to slice into his personal computer, on which he was presently searching for evidence of Imperial activity.
He opened the directories and quickly scanned for names that stood out for being too mundane and common. The first few he checked were exactly what they appeared to be. But then his attention was drawn to a directory named "Khyrin." Curious, he opened the directory and what he found inside horrified him.
There were medical records and images of a man named Khyrin Bastan who four years ago had been brutally injured to the point of almost dying. Khyrin had been beaten, stabbed, and strangled before being left for dead in his apartment. He had only survived because he had been found shortly after by his household droid, who had immediately contacted the authorities. When he had recovered enough months later, he had named his assailant: Mirella Reedl. They had been seeing each other, but when he had told her it was over, she had attacked him in a murderous rage.
Accompanying the medical records were countless correspondences between Bustrn Reedl and Khyrin's father, Moff Pieter Bastan, regional governor of this sector of space. The letters detailed what it would take to keep Mirella from facing the consequences of her actions: Tyrat would have to provide provisions and weapons to every Imperial installation in the sector free of charge. Refusal would result in Mirella's arrest. Reedl, still the loving father despite knowing what kind of monster his daughter was, had agreed to the conditions.
Cassian quickly copied the full directory to his personal datapad. Although he knew none of this could be used in the way Mon Mothma had hoped, it would at least clear Bustrn Reedl's name. His actions had been to protect his daughter. He was not willingly breaking his planet's laws. Because of that, Tyrat was no longer a candidate for Alliance recruitment.
Once he had all of the information, he shut down the computer and put everything back the way he had found it. Since he had spent the day in the house, he did not worry about fingerprints except on the computer keys, so he had worn gloves while searching the computer. Now it was time to leave the house and return to his hotel so he could clear out and get off-planet before sunrise.
From his "activities" with Mirella, he had been able to mentally map the house and create an exit route that would keep him from being spotted by the household staff and droids. Leaving the office, he took the stairs to the lowest level in the house where there was a large storage area. (Mirella had wanted sex in almost every room of the house, this one included.) The storage room had a door directly to the outside.
Once outside, he walked the streets until he was far enough away from the residential area to flag down a taxi speeder. He had the driver take him back to his hotel, where he quickly packed the essentials and left everything else that was part of his alias in the room. Checking out, he paid what was owed and instructed the hotel to dispose of his remaining belongings before the morning. (He would not be using the "Dominik Telor" identity ever again. It had been designed for this mission only.) From there, he took another taxi to the spaceport, where he again paid what he owed and boarded his ship. Once he had gotten permission to leave, he took off immediately and headed for space. After programming the navicomputer to take him back to base, he'd sent Draven a brief message to let him know that he was coming in with the intel. Finished, he took his ship into hyperspace.
It was then and only then that he allowed himself to feel relief that the mission was over.
Over the course of the next several hours that it took to get back to base, he took shower after shower in an attempt to cleanse himself of Mirella's touch.
He wondered if he'd ever feel clean again.
((()))
Mirella stretched as she awoke, feeling very well rested after a good night's sleep. She hoped that Dominik felt the same way. She had so many plans for them today...
Turning to her side to see if he was awake as well, she was shocked to find that she was alone in bed.
She felt her anger begin to stir. He had gotten up without her? He knew what she liked to do first thing in the morning. How dare he leave the bed before she'd taken her pleasure from him!
He could be so frustrating! Every time she thought she had gotten through to him, he did something stupid like this! It was clearly time to punish him again. Pain seemed to be the only way for him to learn. It was honestly starting to get tiresome, but she knew she had to hold on to him. No man had ever given her pleasure the way that Dominik had. After him, sex with anyone else would pale in comparison.
That was how she knew he was the one. As a child, her late mother had often told her how every woman and every man had a perfect match that they were destined to meet. Clearly, Dominik was hers. Except for a few annoying flaws, he was perfect. He was so very handsome and the sex was mind-blowing. What more could she want in a husband? (She had briefly thought another might have been the one, but he had turned out to be an utter disappointment...)
She took a few deep breaths and let her anger die down. It wouldn't do to be mad at him today of all days.
The day that they were going to get married.
It was a surprise. Dominik had no idea. Neither did Daddy. Everything had been quietly arranged over the past several days. She would take Dominik to the church and the holy man she had hired would marry them. It would be a private, quiet ceremony, which she knew Dominik would like. (For someone who claimed to have traveled the galaxy searching for good times, he could be strangely reserved on occasion. It was one of the mysteries about him she had yet to solve. The man was full of contradictions.) And then they could use the rest of the day and all of the night to celebrate...
She got out of bed and slipped on a robe. It was time to find him and tell him the good news. Leaving the bedroom, she started her search.
But no matter where she looked, she couldn't find him. She searched every room three times, but there was no sign of Dominik. Not even the servants or droids had seen him since last night. It was very, very strange, especially since the suitcase he had brought was still there. It was as if he had just vanished.
Every passing minute that she couldn't find him made her anger grow. Where in all of the hells had he gone and why hadn't he let her know that he was leaving? Why had he left? Yesterday had been so perfect! What the kriff did he think was so important that he had to leave their bed in the middle of the night?
Perhaps he had gone back to his hotel. Maybe he had woken up in the middle of the night and realized he had forgotten something important? His hotel wasn't all that far from the house. Could he have just fallen asleep after retrieving what he'd gone to find and neglected to let her know what had happened?
Feeling annoyed, she sat down at the holocomm and entered the code for his hotel room.
There was no answer.
Her anger soared. How dare he ignore her call! She called a second and then a third and a fourth time. Still no answer. What kind of game was he playing with her? She didn't like it at all! That was it! Wedding or no wedding, she was going to punish him so badly that he'd never pull something like this again!
Just not as badly as she had done with Khyrin...
That was a stupid mistake she was still paying for. Well, Daddy was paying for, but dumb, idiotic Khyrin had deserved it! No one broke up with her! The nerve! (And to think that she had considered marrying him!)
Dominik wasn't leaving her. Why would he? Everything was perfect between them. She'd even started kissing him more since he seemed to like that kind of thing. (She wasn't fond of it, but if it made him happy...) No, her inability to find or contact him was just a big misunderstanding, that was all.
Her next call was to the hotel's front desk.
The desk clerk appeared on the screen. "Hotel Luxurion. How may I help you?" the young woman asked.
Putting on a smile, Mirella said, "Please connect me to room 5290."
"One moment please," the clerk said as she began to type on her computer. After a few moments, she frowned. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but no one is currently staying in that room. Perhaps you have the wrong room number."
What?!
Keeping her voice and expression as calm as possible, she replied, "No, I have exactly the right number. I was just in that room with my fiancé yesterday. It's under his name. Dominik Telor."
Though Dominik wasn't aware of their impending wedding, she knew the clerk would be more sympathetic toward a woman searching for a missing fiancé rather than a lover. It was a trick she'd learned a long time ago.
The clerk typed some more and her frowned deepened as she read the screen.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but Mr. Telor checked out early this morning. He is no longer a guest here."
Mirella's entire body went numb.
Dominik was...gone?
"Is there something else I can help you with?" the oblivious clerk was asking.
Mirella cut the connection, the numbness immediately replaced by a burning rage.
Dominik had snuck out of the house in the middle of the night and checked out of his hotel?
It seemed impossible to believe, but apparently it had happened.
He had left her.
Why?!
Where the kriff had he gone?!
She let out a scream and began throwing everything she could get her hands on.
How dare that man do this to her?! After everything she had done for him! All the plans she had made for their life together! Completely ruined! Oh, he was going to pay when she found him! He was going to pay and pay and pay!
No one left Mirella Reedl! No one!
She continued to throw and break things until her anger had died down to a small simmer.
She took a deep breath and allowed herself to be calm. She always thought clearer when she was calm.
It didn't matter that Dominik had left. She would find him. It was only a matter of time.
She was a woman of means who always got what she wanted.
The samples of his DNA that she just had happened to have held on to would make sure of it...
((()))
Ten Years Later...
"Papa, Papa, no! No!"
Cassian bolted straight up in bed at the sound of Ashlyra's cries. Not needing to look to know that Jyn was awake as well, he jumped to his feet and raced to his daughter's room.
Four-year-old Ashlyra was sitting up in her bed, sobbing.
She had had another nightmare and this one had been about him.
Just like the last several had been...
He climbed into the bed with her and she threw herself into his arms.
"It's all right, little one," he told her, stroking her back. "It was just a bad dream. I'm all right. Nothing's happened to me."
He felt the bed give as Jyn climbed in on the other side.
"I...was...so...scared," Ashlyra managed between sobs. "There was... You were... Papa!"
She started sobbing harder, no longer able to speak.
He looked up and met Jyn's eyes. They both knew the truth. This hadn't been just a bad dream. Ashlyra had had another Force vision.
"They're getting more frequent," Jyn whispered as she stroked Ashlyra's hair.
"I know," he replied.
Ashlyra had shown signs of being incredibly strong in the Force since infancy. Jyn and Cassian had been taken by surprise the first time they had walked into her nursery to find various objects levitating. A strong emotion had always preceded the event, such as hunger or irritation from a wet diaper. But once she had been calmed down, the objects had been released from her Force grip and fell back into place. As she'd gotten older, it had happened less and less.
Another indicator had been the way Jyn's kyber crystal reacted to Ashlyra's presence. It actually glowed, which was something it had never done before as long as Jyn could remember. Jyn had told him what her mother had told her about the crystals, how they were alive and chose a Jedi to bond with.
As soon as she had been old enough to talk, Ashlyra had spoken of the crystal's song...
But the greatest evidence of all were the visions that came to her as dreams. Ashlyra had experienced what they had believed to be extremely vivid dreams for most of her short life. For the longest time, they had not realized that their daughter was being shown glimpses of both the past and future in her sleep. It wasn't until the morning that she had begged Cassian to not leave and he had later been badly injured by a malfunctioning droid that he and Jyn had understood why their little girl sometimes woke up terrified in the middle of the night.
And it had frightened them.
The Jedi had been all but extinct during their childhoods. Neither of them had ever met or seen one. The closest they had ever come to a true Force user was Chirrut and he had only been a Guardian of the Whills. (They were of course aware of Luke Skywalker, the last Jedi, but they had only heard of him through their communications with Bodhi over the years. Bodhi hadn't actually met him either.) They had no one to turn to to help her control and understand her abilities. (Though they would have never given her up like the Jedi would have wanted. They were determined that she would have as normal and happy as childhood as she could and that meant staying with them.) All they could do was love her and comfort her.
The one blessing was that as she grew older and was able to vocalize what had been in her dreams, they were able to assure her that many events had occurred years before her birth (she had seen some of the most traumatic episodes of her parents' lives) and promised to avoid things that had not yet taken place. She was still too young to understand most of what the Force showed her, but she trusted her parents when they told her that everything was all right.
The majority of her dreams were innocuous and just showed her moments from his and Jyn's pasts. But every once in a while she would be shown something so awful that she would awaken in tears, fearful that she was witnessing an event as it happened. She had seen the death of Jyn's mother. And she had watched as he'd barely escaped firefights that had left him injured. (He was extremely grateful that she hadn't yet seen him taking a life. If the Force had shown her that...) She never dreamed the same event twice. And, thankfully, the more traumatic visions had only occurred every few months.
Until now.
About two months ago, she had started experiencing the nightmares at least once a week. And they had all featured very dark events from his past. (If it had been up to him and Jyn, their little girl would never have known some of the things he had done in the name of the Rebellion...) She had seen him in vicious fights, caught in explosions, and several times he had nearly been captured. She'd once seen him going for his lullaby, though she had not understood what the pill had been. He and Jyn were at a loss at what could have triggered these horrendous visions. Why was she having them so close together all of a sudden? And why were they focused only on his past? (A fact that he knew had Jyn incredibly worried.)
Tonight was the first time she'd had a second nightmare in a single week.
Ashlyra's sobbing began to subside and she finally looked up from where she had buried her face against Cassian's chest.
"What did you see, baby?" Jyn gently asked her, wiping away her tears. "What was happening to Papa?"
"There...there...was a...a...bad lady," the little girl began. "She... She... She...hurt Papa! He...was... There was so much red! Papa was...all red!"
With that, she began to sob again.
"All red" was Ashlyra's way of describing bleeding.
She had had a vision of him bleeding after being hurt by a woman...
Cassian's entire body turned to ice as he realized what she had seen.
There was only one mission where he had been given bloody wounds specifically by a woman.
A mission he had spent years trying to forget...
Jyn looked up at him and he nodded to indicate that he knew what Ashlyra had seen.
It was one of the many secrets from his past that he had kept from Jyn because he hadn't wanted to burden her with some of the horrors he had experienced. She'd lived through enough trauma of her own. She didn't need to add the knowledge of every one of his on top of those.
He knew she'd want him to tell her about the incident their daughter had witnessed, but he wouldn't give in.
He couldn't...
He turned his attention back to Ashlyra, who hadn't stopped crying. "I'm all right, baby," he assured her. "There's no red. I promise. No one's hurt me. I'm okay. See for yourself."
Sniffling, Ashlyra moved slightly back from him and began to run her small hands over the very places where Mirella Reedl had repeatedly slashed him with a vibroblade as a punishment.
"See, baby? No red," he told her as she inspected his chest and legs. She touched his scars, but she had no way of knowing their origin. "I'm perfectly fine."
"But I saw," Ashlyra insisted. "I saw, Papa!"
"What you saw happened a very long time ago," Jyn spoke up and she looked to him for confirmation, which he gave her with a nod. "The bad lady isn't here. She's long gone."
"She scared me!" Ashlyra said and she wrapped her arms around Cassian's neck. "She was so mean to you, Papa! And then she hurt you!"
"It was a long time ago, like Mama said," he promised her, holding her tightly. "There's no bad lady here."
If the galaxy was lucky, Mirella was either in prison or dead.
She deserved nothing less.
"Everyone is safe, little one," he told her, kissing her head. "You don't have to be afraid. Do you want to sleep in Mama and Papa's bed?"
He felt her nod her head against his shoulder.
From the time she was a baby, whenever Ashlyra had trouble sleeping, the only way for her to fall back to sleep was to lay between her parents in their bed. It was the place where she felt the safest. Neither he nor Jyn minded sharing their bed with her. She was welcome whenever she wanted to join them. Sometimes, she even came into their room on her own. (Which had resulted in two very embarrassing incidents despite their door being locked. On her own, without any guidance or instruction, Ashlyra had figured out how to use the Force to open locked doors, which she referred to as "thinking" the door open, and she'd climbed into their bed while they were making love. From then on, he and Jyn had started placing a chair in front of the door on the inside of the room whenever they wanted to be intimate. It didn't keep her out, but the sounds she made while climbing over it gave them warning that she was coming.)
"I'll go ahead," Jyn told him as he stood up with Ashlyra tightly in his arms.
She hurried out of Ashlyra's room so she could prepare their bed for her arrival.
"Here we go," he told Ashlyra as he began to walk with her.
He carried her the short distance down the hall to the master bedroom, where Jyn had finished rearranging the pillows on their bed.
She sat on the bed waiting for them.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and gently laid his little girl down in the center.
"I love you, Papa," she said. Turning to Jyn, she added, "I love you, Mama."
"And we both love you very much, Ashlyra," Jyn replied for the both of them, leaning down to kiss her. "You are our special girl."
Ashlyra yawned, indicating how tired she was.
"Now go back to sleep," Jyn instructed her, stroking her cheek. "You'll feel better in the morning."
Cassian dimmed the light before laying down on his side next to her and Ashlyra immediately burrowed against his chest.
"We're all safe," he reassured her. "No one is going to hurt any of us."
Jyn grabbed hold of the blanket and pulled it over the three of them before laying down herself. Like him, she laid on her side so that they were facing each other.
The three of them laid together in the dim room, neither he nor Jyn saying a word while they waited for Ashlyra to fall asleep.
But Cassian could see the questions swirling around in his wife's mind. Ashlyra's vision had badly rattled Jyn and he knew she needed to know exactly what had happened to him all those years ago.
But he refused to tell her everything. For his own peace of mind, he had to protect her from the horrors he had experienced at the hands of that monster. She was better off staying in the dark.
Finally, Ashlyra's breathing smoothed out into the even pattern that indicated that she was asleep.
Jyn didn't keep him waiting long before she began asking her questions.
"What did our daughter see, Cassian?" she spoke in a quiet voice. "Who was that woman and why was she hurting you?"
Knowing he had to tell her something, he said, "It was a mission from ten years ago that was very bad from almost the beginning. The woman was a mark that I would have never gotten involved with if I had known her true nature. She was...vicious and cruel and enjoyed causing pain. The month I spent in her company... It's not something I like to think about."
He wished he could erase the entire experience from his memory...
"Why was she hurting you?" Jyn asked again.
He didn't want to give her the answer, but Jyn would keep asking until he did.
Taking a deep breath, he told her, "It was a punishment."
Even in the dim light he could see the shocked expression on her face.
"A punish... I don't understand. Cassian, why would she...?"
He felt ill at the prospect of telling her what he had to endure to ensure the completion of his mission. It had been a living nightmare. He wanted to protect her from knowing how he'd suffered.
But he knew his wife and she would not back down until he gave into her.
"Because I either didn't give in to her demands immediately or I did something that displeased her," he quietly admitted. He turned his gaze down to the sleeping Ashlyra. "She was a monster. That's all you need to know."
He prayed to the Force that tonight was the first and last time she was shown anything from his time with Mirella. The vibroblade attack may have been the worst way she had harmed him, but she had put him through other things.
Things no four-year-old girl should witness...
He felt Jyn's hand on his face.
"Cassian..."
He placed his own hand on top of hers and gently pulled it away from his cheek, folding his around hers as he looked back up at her.
"Tell me everything," she demanded. "I need to know. For Ashlyra's sake.
"Please."
"I..."
"Please," she repeated. "I've never understood why you still keep things about your past from me after all these years, but I've never pushed you to open up. I've always respected your privacy, but I can't do that when our child is involved. I have to know what happened to you... I have to know what else she might see. Please, my love. Tell me."
Cassian knew that he no longer had a choice. Jyn was right. As much as he wanted to protect her from what he'd lived through, she had to know.
For Ashlyra.
"We had received information that a planetary leader was freely supplying the Empire with weapons and supplies," he began. "Because the planet was not officially a part of the Empire and it was known for its aversion to getting involved with conflicts, the High Council thought that there was a good chance we could get them to join the Alliance if we could prove the leader was acting on his own. My mission was to go in and get that proof by any means necessary. And it was determined that the most direct route to the proof was through his daughter Mirella.
"We didn't have much intel about Mirella, but the little we knew made it seem like she'd be an easy mark," he continued. "I surveilled her for a few days before moving to make contact and based on her behavior, I confirmed the assessment." He took a deep breath. "I have never been more wrong before or since."
For a moment, he was unable to continue and Jyn waited patiently as he centered himself. Just thinking about Mirella...
"Have you ever heard of a sexual dominant?" he asked her, already knowing that she had not. (For all of her claims of being experienced in the ways of the galaxy, Jyn was very much an innocent. She had been so young when she'd been left all alone... In many ways, Saw had sheltered her and everything she'd learned was designed for survival. Unlike him, she hadn't been exposed to the very darkest parts of the universe, a fact for which he was eternally grateful.) As she shook her head, a confused expression on her face, he explained, "A dominant is someone who holds all of the power in a sexual relationship and uses it to control his or her partner, who is known as a submissive. In a normal dominant relationship, both partners agree upon the dynamic and set the rules and limits for each other. Punishments for disobedience are mild and are not meant to cause any physical harm. If one is uncomfortable with anything being done, the other stops.
"Mirella was not a normal dominant."
He paused, giving Jyn a moment to understand what he was telling her. He had told her about his many missions involving seduction. None of them had ever led to him being physically harmed.
When her eyes widened in realization, he continued.
"She didn't care about anything other than her own pleasure," he went on. "She thrived on the power and control she had over her partners. And she expected her demands to be met perfectly and immediately. If you didn't... If you made even the slightest mistake or hesitated a second too long... She would hurt you.
"Violently."
"Cassian..." Jyn breathed, the horrified expression on her face making him wish she would let him stop telling this story from his past.
"She was very easily displeased," he continued. "It didn't take much to set her off. And if we were in public when I disappointed her... The worse the punishment would be once we were alone.
"In the beginning, she mostly slapped me and used her nails to make me bleed," he narrated. "She especially liked it when I bled. She thought that blood was the best teacher... She believed that the more I bled, the better I would learn my lesson. But as time went on and the more disappointing my mistakes, the attacks escalated. She would...punch and kick me. Strangle me..."
"Oh, Force!" Jyn gasped. "Cassian, I..."
He squeezed her hand. "Not fighting her off was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I had to keep taking it for the sake of my mission. My alias was not a fighter. I had to suffer in silence until I get could what I came for. It was one of the longest months of my entire life.
"What Ashlyra saw tonight..." He looked back down at his sleeping daughter. "I don't even remember what I had done to set her off, but she was the angriest she'd been since I'd met her. When she pulled out the vibroblade..." He returned his gaze to her. "I was honestly afraid for my life."
"Oh, Force..." Jyn breathed and despite the dim light, he could see the tears streaming down her face.
"I've only been more afraid one time," he told her, using his free hand to wipe away her tears. "And that was when we were on Scarif and I thought I was going to lose you."
"Cassian..."
He brought the hand he was holding to his chest and placed it against the scars she had given him over his heart.
"This was the very last place she cut me that night," he said, returning to his story. "She told me that my heart was hers and that she was marking it so I wouldn't ever forget it. Every time I look at them I remember how I could have died if she'd cut just a little deeper...
"She would constantly talk about getting married and having children," he continued. "But she never once mentioned love. She probably didn't even know what it was. All she knew was how to cause pain...
"In the end, the mission turned out to be for nothing," he concluded, relieved to be done with the story. It had been a painful retelling. Watching Jyn's reactions... "When I finally got into her father's records, I found out why he was supplying the Empire: to keep Mirella out of prison. She had nearly beaten the son of a moff to death when he broke up with her."
Jyn gasped again. "Oh my..."
"As I said, she was a monster," he told her. He sighed, releasing her hand. "I don't understand why Ashlyra would have seen something like this. Thank the Force she's too young to understand it. She was upset enough at seeing me injured. What was the point of the vision?"
"I wish I knew," Jyn breathed, looking down at the sleeping girl. "I hate knowing so little about the Force and not understanding why some people are so sensitive and others aren't. I wish I could stop her from having the visions. I hate seeing her so frightened and upset. No child should ever feel that way."
Cassian knew she was speaking from her own experience. She was remembering how she'd felt on the day she'd lost her parents...
She returned her face to his. "What are we going to do if these visions keep getting worse?"
"The same as we always do," he answered. "We just love her."
"Sometimes I worry..." she said. "That any other children we have will..."
It had been a concern they shared ever since they'd discovered Ashlyra's abilities. But when they got married, they had agreed that they would have at least two or three children. It was something they both wanted and nothing was going to change that. (They had begun trying for a second baby several months ago, feeling that Ashlyra was old enough now that they could handle two children. But Jyn had yet to become pregnant, which he knew was bothering her a great deal.)
"It's a possibility, yes," he replied, "but we'll deal with it if that happens. Our children will be loved no matter what."
"I love you," she said. "I love you so much."
He smiled at her and placed a gentle hand on her face. "I love you too, my Jyn. You and Ashlyra are the best things that ever happened to me. These last five years have been the greatest of my entire life. The two of you are everything to me."
"Cassian..."
"Thank you for giving me this life," he said. "Thank you for loving me."
"And thank you for doing the same for me," she responded. "After my parents died, I never... You make me whole. You and Ashlyra are my entire world."
Careful not to disturb the sleeping Ashlyra, he leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to Jyn's lips.
"I love you," he told her again.
"I love you," she replied.
"We should try to get some sleep now," he said. "We only have a few hours before we have to get up."
"All right," she agreed. "Good night. Or is it good morning?"
He laughed softly. "Either one works for me. Good night, my Stardust."
He gave her face one final caress then settled down to sleep, one arm holding Ashlyra and his other hand resting on Jyn's back.
((()))
Mirella did nothing to hide her disgust as she stepped out of her speeder and glanced up at the extremely run-down building where her meeting with Dlirk was to take place. (She would think with all the credits she'd been paying him these past several years, he would have relocated his office to somewhere less...revolting.)
Dlirk had been sending her messages asking to meet for the last several weeks, but she hadn't had the time to come here until now. As curious as she was to find out what he'd dug up on Dominik this time, she, unfortunately, had a planet to run in-between her other more enjoyable pastimes. (It was her one and only regret about her father's death. As his only heir, all of his duties and responsibilities fell to her. Thank all of the gods for the High Council who did most of the work.) Finding the time to get away to meet him had taken some doing.
"I'll comm you if I need you," she told Jeek, her head of security, who remained in the passenger seat of her speeder.
He had insisted on accompanying her to this part of the city, but he knew better than to go in with her.
She found that men responded much better to her if she was alone. Most did not like to be watched by another man while they had sex...
Besides, he knew that she never went anywhere unarmed...
"Yes, ma'am," Jeek replied.
She smiled at him, doubting she would need him. (Dlirk was a lot of things, but a threat to her safety wasn't one of them.) He would be rewarded for his assistance and obedience when they returned home.
Of her personal staff, he remained her favorite. (She supposed a lot of that had to do with his rugged good looks and the fact that he was very talented in bed. Not as good as Dominik had been, but fairly close...)
She walked to the building and let herself in. Dlirk's office, which was actually the apartment where he lived, was on the top floor. She took the elevator and when it let her off, she made her way down to the end of the hall.
The sign on his door proclaimed "Zaid Dlirk, Investigator," but he was a lot more than that. He was a top-notch slicer who could break into almost any network galaxy-wide. His less-than-legal methods had gotten her the first signs of Dominik in the years since he'd vanished on her. His services were well worth the steep price she paid.
She knocked and a "come in" was called from the other side. Annoyed that he wouldn't actually come to the door to let her in (she was, after all, his planetary leader), she hit the door panel and, when it opened, stepped into the apartment.
"Mirella! Darlin'! I've been wondering when you'd finally get back to me!" Zaid Dlirk greeted her from his reclined position on his couch, his bare feet propped up as if he was relaxing rather than working. (Despite calling the place his office, he did nothing to disguise that it was just his apartment. He didn't even see the need to behave professionally and treated his clients as casually as he would any visitor to his home. He didn't even have a desk to work from.) "I was starting to think you'd forgotten about me!"
He was an older human male, with a full head of gray hair and teeth that did not seem to fit in his mouth. He dressed sloppily and he oozed sleaze from every pore of his body. His appearance belied his skills as an investigator and a slicer, but it emphasized the fact that he was a sleemo. (He actually believed that women found him charming and engaging. If it weren't for the discount it had earned her for his services, she would never have bothered having sex with him. He left her very unsatisfied every time.)
"Of course not, Zaid," she assured him with a fake smile and an even faker friendly tone as she came to stand across from him, declining to take a seat on the opposing chair. She folded her arms across her chest, an action designed to emphasize her ample bosom. (She'd made sure to wear something especially low-cut.) "I've been busy. Our planet isn't going to run itself, you know."
"Very true," he agreed, his eyes taking her in as she had known he would. "But you're here now and I just know you are going to be very glad you came."
"Oh, really? And why is that? Do tell."
Unlike any of the previous investigators she'd hired, his past findings had proven reliable. There had been numerous sightings of the man she had known as "Dominik Telor" over the years. Using facial recognition technology, Dlirk had been able to locate multiple security holos of Dominik on countless planets. None of the others had found even that much. His appearance was always slightly altered, but she would recognize his face anywhere. (He'd grown facial hair in the more recent ones, which would have to go once she got him back. She despised facial hair. It always irritated her delicate skin.) But, intriguingly, not a single one of the images were linked to the name "Dominik Telor." In fact, in almost every instance, there was a unique name, planet of origin, and career to go with the image. Strangely, the majority of the names were associated with governmental or military positions. He would only be found under the same name two or three times, but never more than that. It made her wonder which of them, if any, was his real name.
Dlirk, as well as the other investigators, had suggested that Dominik was most likely a con artist, but Mirella had a feeling that this wasn't the case. He had taken nothing of hers with him when he left nor had he taken any of his own belongings. He had just vanished. If his goal had been to steal from her, he'd failed miserably. No, he was something else, she just didn't know what.
Once he was back with her, she could just ask him herself.
And if he didn't want to willingly answer her questions, she had plenty of ways of making him talk...
However, locating him was going to be a problem: all of the sightings had stopped nearly six years ago.
It was as if he had simply dropped of the face of the galaxy.
Dlirk gave her one of his biggest and most self-satisfied smiles as he indicated a datapad laying on the table in front of his couch. "I found him."
"You...what?" she breathed, completely stunned by his words.
He...found Dominik?
"Go ahead and take a look," he urged, again indicating the datapad. As she picked it up, he continued, "I finally got a match on that DNA sample you gave me. That bloody sheet or whatever it was. It showed up in some Outer Rim medical database that was recently absorbed by the New Republic's larger networks. The reason I never got a hit before now is because it was stored on a self-contained network. Lucky for us, the New Republic is on a quest to unify the galaxy. They made my job a whole lot easier."
Mirella activated the datapad, and sure enough, Dominik's face appeared on the screen. He looked older than the last image she'd seen of him, but age had only made him more handsome. (She wondered if the rest of him had aged as nicely...)
She couldn't believe it. After all these years...
Finally, she'd be able to get the High Council off of her case about getting married and producing an heir!
"According to that medical record, your missing lover's name is Cassian Andor," Dlirk informed her. "And before you ask, yes, that is his real name. I was able to do some digging and I found out quite a lot about him. Things that I think are going to change your mind about wanting to find him."
She mentally snorted at Dlirk's assertion. He had no idea why she'd spent the last ten years searching for Dom...Cassian. There was nothing that was going to make her forget about him.
He belonged to her.
"Such as?" she questioned, curious to see what he thought would make her abandon her search at the very moment she'd found him.
"He's got a wife and kid."
"What?!"
She nearly dropped the datapad.
He was married?! And he'd fathered a child with another woman?
She most certainly hadn't expected to learn that.
She felt her anger begin to burn at the betrayal.
How dare he marry another woman! And then have the audacity to breed with her! He was hers!
Oh, she would make him suffer for this...
"It's all in that medical record," he informed her and she started to scroll through the information on her screen. "It was created the day his wife gave birth to their daughter. From what I can gather, it's standard procedure on some of these out of the way Outer Rim planets to gather DNA from both biological parents of a newborn for future medical purposes. Something about accidents and disasters and needing to reunite families."
She ignored him as she reached the relevant part of the medical record. Cassian Andor's wife was listed as Jyn Andor. Their daughter, who was about four years old based on her date of birth, was named Ashlyra. There were links to the wife and daughter's medical records as well.
Mirella clicked on the wife's, curious to see the image of the woman who had dared to marry her intended husband.
And she was immediately taken aback as Jyn Andor's face appeared on her screen.
She looked nothing like she had expected. If anything, she was her complete opposite. Instead of being as glamorous and attractive as Mirella herself (what man would willingly settle for anything less?), this Jyn was rather plain. Pretty, but plain. If she had passed her on the street, she wouldn't have given her a second glance. She wasn't even the slightest bit attractive. Why would-
The daughter, she realized. Of course. It all made sense. He'd had to marry her. He'd obviously been left no choice. Why else would he have saddled himself with someone so inferior? (She was sure it was Jyn's fault. She'd most likely trapped him. It was probably the only way she'd been able to get a husband.)
She felt immediate relief. The wife was an easily solvable problem then. Cassian would probably thank her for ridding him of her. (She'd let him keep the little girl if he wanted though she could have her disposed of as well. It made no difference to her. All that mattered was making sure he gave her a child of her own.)
Though that wouldn't prevent her from making him suffer for all of the wasted years searching for him...
"What planet did this record originate from?" she asked, looking up from the datapad.
It stood to reason that Cassian and his family most likely still lived nearby. With a small child, he and his wife would want to remain close to medical help.
All she would have to do is show up at their door...
"Some agricultural world named Lah'mu," he informed her. "It's sparsely populated and most of the occupants live on farms. The medical center is located in one of the rare large settlements."
She tried to picture the man she had known all of those years ago on a farm and failed. "Dominik" had loved the good life, indulging in all of the finer things as she did. He'd never willingly become a farmer. (He may have lied to her about his name and where he'd come from, but it was impossible to hide his true nature. No one was that good of a liar.) It was clearly his wife's fault that he was stuck in such an unsuitable situation.
"I doubt he actually lives there," Dlirk added. "He was probably just passing through when his wife went into labor."
"Why would you say that?" she wanted to know, not following the man's logic.
Cassian was married with a child. He was no longer randomly appearing all over the galaxy. He'd obviously settled down somewhere, most likely this Lah'mu. Why else would his wife have given birth at a medical center there? No other conclusion made sense.
"Darlin', you better sit down because what I'm about to tell you is going to knock you right off your feet," Dlirk drawled in that annoyingly smug way of his as he sat up on the couch. "It's going to change everything."
She put the datapad back on the table but did not sit down. She remained standing, her arms once again crossed.
"All right, let's hear it. What did you find out?"
"The full name of your lover, the man you've been trying so hard to find for all these years, is Captain Cassian Andor, formerly of Rebel Alliance Intelligence," Dlirk informed her. "He was one of the most successful undercover agents the Rebellion had until he suddenly resigned around five years ago."
What?!
Mirella was too stunned to respond. He'd been...an undercover agent? For the Rebellion?
While Tyrat had not been an actual part of the Empire, her...indiscretion with that stupid Khyrin had resulted in a deal with them. But would something as minor as a supply arrangement have attracted the Rebellion's attention? It didn't seem likely.
"According to what I was able to find out, he was considered the best of the best in his field," Dlirk continued. "In fact, his last mission before he resigned resulted in the destruction of the first Death Star."
Suddenly, all of the sighting under different names on different planets began to make sense. They had all been missions. Missions for the Rebellion.
Did that mean...
Her anger came roaring back to life.
He'd used her. Their entire relationship... Everything he'd told her... It had all been a lie! She had meant nothing to him!
Yet...
When he disappeared, he had taken nothing with him. None of his own belongings and certainly none of her father's. (She'd had a full inventory done before Daddy returned from his trip just to make sure.) There had been nothing out of place in the house either. (She had had that checked as well.) If he'd been on a mission, he clearly hadn't followed through. So perhaps that meant...
"Here's an interesting little tidbit," Dlirk went on, oblivious to her train of thought. "That last mission he went on? It seems there was a woman named Jyn Erso involved. She was a petty criminal whose father happened to be an Imperial science officer who worked on the Death Star's development. The Rebels broke her out of an Imperial prison camp, of all places, because they needed her for the mission. After the mission ended, he took a six month leave of absence before officially resigning. The medical record I found listing his wife, who happens to be named Jyn, and daughter is dated almost exactly nine months after his resignation. I'd say it's a safe bet that that isn't a coincidence."
Her anger began creeping back. She'd been foolish to so easily give him the benefit of the doubt! Clearly, Cassian Andor had not been trapped into a marriage. He had willingly walked into it! And with a criminal, no less! (If she had been better looking, perhaps Mirella would have understood his decision.) The daughter had not been an accident as she'd assumed.
"I think you should just forget about him," Dlirk declared. "He's lying scum who obviously used you for some nefarious purpose. You, Mirella, are so much better without him."
"I want him to pay for what he did to me," she told him, imagining all of the ways she was going to make him suffer. She especially liked the idea of making him watch as she killed his wife... "No one treats me like that and gets away with it."
And then, after she felt he'd been sufficiently punished, she would marry him.
His identity may have been a lie, but the way he made her feel when they had sex was incomparable. No one had ever satisfied her as he had. If she had to get married to please the High Council, no other man would do.
Whether he liked it or not...
"Oh, I have a few ideas how to make that happen," Dlirk let her know. "Do you know how many organizations would pay thousands of credits to get their hands on a Rebel agent? Not just the Imperials, but groups like Crimson Dawn and Black Sun. The Rebellion did a lot of damage to them as well."
"No."
No one else was allowed to touch him. He was hers. She was the only one who could make him suffer. She and she alone.
Besides, those criminals would simply kill him. His torment would be too short.
"No?" Dlirk repeated, sounding puzzled. "Why not, baby? You said it yourself, he needs to pay for how he hurt you."
"And he will," she assured him. "He'll know what happens to those who dare cross me."
"You mean like that Bastan guy?"
"What did you say?" she shot back, shocked that he would know about Khyrin.
No one was supposed to know about him. That deal Daddy made was supposed to have made it all go away. How would-
"Yeah, that's another thing I found while researching Andor," Dlirk replied, his tone still casual and laid back. "It was in a report he made around ten years ago. That's when he was with you, right? Your so-called lover knew all about your assault and attempted murder of Khyrin Bastan and how your father made it all go away."
This was a very unfortunate development. Governor Bastan had assured Daddy that the records had been deleted at the time of their deal. How had Cassian found out about it? (Could that be why he had left her so abruptly? Maybe she'd been wrong about him not caring about her after all. Perhaps he'd learned about her...mistake and it had scared him off...) And, even worse, he had shared the knowledge with his superiors. And now, because of that report, this sleemo Dlirk knew about it as well.
If this information reached the High Council...
"Do you really need that kind of hassle again?" Dlirk went on. "Wouldn't it make more sense to let others take care of your problem? You'd still get your revenge. You just wouldn't have to get your hands dirty."
It amused her that Dlirk had taken this information about her in stride. He didn't seem the least bit concerned about her violent capabilities. Was he not worried that she could harm him too?
Which, she suddenly realized, was exactly what she now had to do. Yes, he was currently unfazed by the knowledge (or at least was pretending to be), but who was to say that it wouldn't change in the future? Now that he had located Cassian Andor, she no longer had any need of his services. The payments, and by extension, the sex would stop. Knowing him, he probably wouldn't like that very much. He most likely would be willing to do anything to keep both going.
Such as blackmailing her...
She sighed dramatically. "Maybe you're right, Zaid," she told him. "I really have so little time to myself as it is. How would I find the time to make him properly suffer? Better to let someone else do it for me."
Dlirk sat up straighter, smiling. "Exactly, darlin'. And think of all of the credits we'd get for selling his information to more than one organization."
She struggled to keep from rolling her eyes. She was the richest woman on all of Tyrat. More credits were the last thing she needed.
"And what would you do with all of that money?" she asked him, giving him her most provocative smile.
"Celebrate with you of course, baby," he told her as his eyes roamed up and down her body. "All day and all night for as long as you wanted."
Not laughing took every bit of control she possessed. This was going to be easier than she thought. "It sounds wonderful. I think we should start right now."
She took off her blouse.
Dlirk's eyes widened and his arousal was instantly evident.
"Don't you?" she added as she removed her bra.
She didn't dare take her skirt off yet, as it would reveal the vibroblade strapped to her thigh.
"Oh, I completely agree," he said, standing up and coming over to her, his hands instantly going to her breasts. Lust was written all over his face. "Shall we move this to the bedroom?"
She squeezed him through his pants. "Lead the way, Mr. Dlirk."
He hurried off to his bedroom, unbuttoning his shirt as he went.
Mirella lifted her skirt to reveal the holster on her leg and withdrew her vibroblade. She then stuck the weapon under the waistband of her skirt at the center of her back. It would give her instant access without Dlirk noticing until it was too late.
Slowly, she sauntered towards the bedroom.
Dlirk had just finished removing his last article of clothing when she arrived.
"My, my, you are very ready for me," she commented as she took in his out-of-shape body.
"You are one gorgeous woman," he told her.
She placed both of her palms on his chest and shoved him backwards onto the bed.
"And a very impatient one," he added, grinning.
Instead of replying, she climbed onto the bed and moved to straddle him.
She reached behind and pulled out the vibroblade.
His eyes widened as she brought it into his view.
"What are you-?"
She sliced his throat before he could finish speaking.
Not wanting to get too much blood on herself, she quickly got out of the bed.
Knowing he would be dead in seconds, she reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out her comlink.
"Jeek, it seems I've made a mess," she said as she left the bedroom. "I need you to come clean it up."
"Yes, ma'am," came the instant response.
This was another reason why Jeek was her favorite. He never asked any questions. He just did as he was told. (She would make sure his reward was very special tonight...)
Deactivating the comlink, she put it back in her pocket before going over to pick up her discarded shirt and bra.
After putting them back on, she began to search the apartment for every piece of information Dlirk had gathered on Cassian Andor.
Before she returned home, she would have everything she needed to craft a flawless plan that was both revenge and the means to getting what she had waited ten years to have:
A perfect husband.