Silent Blade by Ilona Andrews

senses by the time your crew gets here. I’m leaving you, Celino.”
    Pain lanced him.
    â€œThis is the end. You will never see me again. A man once told me that even if he met the most elegant and refined being on the planet, he would push her aside, because he valued his freedom more. This is me pushing you aside, Celino. After years of waiting, I’m finally free of you.”
    He forced himself to punch through the pain clawing at him and concentrate on her words. They seemed hauntingly familiar but he couldn’t recall if he had said them or if they were said to him. He knew he had heard those words spoken before.
    â€œThank you for my freedom. I will strive to never think of you again. Farewell.”
    The screen went dark. He felt oddly calm. Empty. Cold. He sat before the dark screen, patiently waiting to feel something. Anything at all.
    Finally a spark of emotion flared in him. He puzzled over it and recognized what it was. Hot, blinding rage.
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    It took him less than an hour to cover the distance that typically demanded two and a half. He nearly burned out the aerial’s engine. When he dropped out of the sky at reckless speed to land on the slab before her house and stepped out of the cabin, his crew recognized signs of danger and gave him a wide berth. Only Marcus dared to approach him. Celino looked at his face. The Anglican shook his blond head. Meli had escaped.
    Inside the house was gutted. The linen, the pillows, every scrap or fabric or cloth was gone. Her terminal was missing, removed from the wall. The kitchen lay barren, every item sanitized.
    Celino found the biotech. “Tell me you have something.”
    The woman shook her head. “The place is sterilized. She did a complete sweep, probably using a bioscanner. There are no traces of biologicals except for the plants in the garden.”
    He growled. He’d had countless opportunities to obtain a DNA sample, but he consciously had set them aside, determined to reconstruct her secrets from conversation alone to satisfy his cleverness. Back then, he thought he had all the time in the world.
    Now she had obliterated every trace of herself and vanished.
    He would find her. He would find out why.
    The garden flashed in his head. He had seduced her on the soft grass in the garden three days ago. He remembered sun on her face and her succulent body against the green. She smiled at him from the depth of his memory and he steeled himself against another stab of pain.
    Celino strode into the garden and knelt on the patch of grass. Any liquid traces of their coupling had long vanished. He scanned the area, his vision heightened by his fury, and saw a single long hair tangled in the dahlia stems. She’d missed it. The signatures of the plants had dampened her bioscanner and the hair had gone unnoticed.
    He untangled it gently, as if it were made of the most precious metal, and took it to the biotech. “Run a match against kinsmandatabase.”
    He waited next to her while the DNA sequencer purred, comparing the hair to the known families.
    â€œAppalachi, three percent,” she reported. “Patel, seven point two. Vinogradov, four percent…”
    Garbage, he thought furiously.
    â€œGaldes, seventy-nine point one percent.”
    He whipped around. The genetic makeup within the families varied to a significant degree. Anything over seventy percent was considered a definitive match.
    A terrible suspicion flared in his mind. But he wanted proof.
    He spun to Marcus. “I want access to the Galdes files. I don’t care how many alarms you set off or what you have to do.”
    Three hours later he stood behind his best two hackers peering at the triumvirate of data screens. If he could do anything in his current condition, he could inspire fear. They had breached the security of the Galdes files in record time.
    Only the top of the family would have access to an excise. “I want all outgoing