Romani Armada Read Online Free PDF

place!” He waved his hand around the office.
    The desk was bare of everything but his essential boards. The sideboard was clear of all the junk he had been piling there when his desk got too crowded. The two visitor chairs in front of the desk were neatly arranged, free of dust, even inviting. The screens on his desk were clean and clear of dust and currently showing news feeds in perfect focus and clarity.
    The office was neat, tidy and pristine.
    Rosa lifted her hand placatingly. “I know, Justin. As soon as I heard about it, I tried to stop them, but it was too late.”
    “They cleaned up in here!” His heart was cranking on its own, a sure sign he needed to calm down but he just had to fix this first . “It’s...sterile!”
    Rosa nodded.
    He grabbed at the back of his chair. “You mean they really did sterilize the room?”
    Rosa licked her lips. “I don’t think they went that far. But Justin, you’ve been using this office for nearly twenty years. You had a lot of things...accumulate. They’ve asked you over and over to clean it all out. I guess they just got tired of waiting for you to do it yourself.”
    “I was going to do it!” he ground out. “I would have got around to it. Christ, they could have given me a bit of time.”
    “It’s been six months,” Rosa replied.
    Justin gripped the chair harder. “Fine. Right. Marvelous. I’ve got a clean office. Everyone is happy. Except where are my bloody things?”
    Rosa smiled happily at him. “We put all your personal stuff in boxes and had them delivered to your apartment. They’re all nice and safe.”
    He pointed to the visitor chair she stood next to. “There was a shawl over the back of that chair. An electric blue shawl. What happened to it?”
    Rosa’s mouth opened a little in surprise. “The shawl?”
    “You remember it, then?” Justin asked.
    “I...well, yes—it was a beautiful color...that was yours? But I thought....”
    “What happened to it?” Justin repeated.
    Rosa threaded her fingers together. “It was yours?” she repeated. “I thought it was a client’s, that some woman had left it behind, you see....”
    “What did you do with it, Rosa?” he asked and realized he was holding his breath, waiting for her response.
    Rosa’s face began to crumple, but then her gaze moved beyond him and her eyes widened in shock. She pointed silently.
    Justin turned.
    On one of the newsfeed screens, Gabriel was silently speaking in front of a huge sea of media people.
    Justin cursed and reached for the volume controls. “Call Nayara at the base. Tell her to watch,” he told Rosa as he dialed up the volume.
    * * * * *
    There were so many spotlights focused on the small corner of the room that despite the lateness of the hour, it seemed like daylight was bathing Gabriel as he spoke.
    “…great wrongs have been delivered against me and my people,” Gabriel intoned, his hands clasped in front of him. He wore a suit and his hair was slicked back.
    * * * * *
    “Who are the three people standing behind him?” Nayara called out. “Someone find out!”
    “He’s going to use the guilt card,” Ryan murmured, staring at the big screen over Brenden’s desk. “He’s actually got the guts to try using guilt as his excuse?”
    Nayara picked up a hand set. “Is Cáel watching this?” she asked.
    “It’s eleven p.m. in Macapá. There’s a good chance he is,” Brenden murmured.
    * * * * *
    “Our lives were crippled…no, our very existence was threatened, while the activities of others go unmonitored and unchecked,” Gabriel added.
    * * * * *
    “Oh, fuck,” Cáel breathed into the handset. He put his glass of ouzo down with a thud, making the legislative assistant at the other end of the office turn his head sharply to check on him.
    “He’s going to reveal the baby,” Cáel murmured into the handset he held to his mouth.
    “We can’t stop it,” Nayara’s voice whispered back. “Not now.”
    “Get Deonne to headquarters,”