Page 96 of Xerxes Ascendant
Robby perked back up, grinning. “So do I! But dad...”
She shot her father an accusing look to finish the sentence, and Kyle laughed.
“Yeah. He is.”
“I’m glad he finally brought you home, Kyle,” she declared. Robby Miyasaki shared Akira’s slender build but was twice as lively, bouncing on the balls of her bare feet and unable to keep her arms still. Her long dark hair lay over her shoulders, unbrushed, and as she moved, Kyle caught sight of the white scar that stretched to her left ear. “Ah, mum’s going to go crazy!”
“In a good way,” she hastened to assure when she caught Kyle’s expression. “She’s been heaps excited to meet you.Urgh, why did it have to be on a school day? Dad, can I skip?”
Even having only just begun to witness the dynamic between the two of them, Kyle knew what Akira’s blisteringly derisive answer would be before he gave it.
“Absolutely not.”
“But it’s just maths and Universal today,” Robby whined with all the grace and drama of a fourteen-year-old. “It’s so boring.”
“It’s your education,” Akira replied dryly, and maybe fatherhood was where he’d gotten his terrifying Master Epsilon persona from because it was the same kind of no-nonsense, irritable reply he favoured his staff with. It was normally at this point that Kyle would step in and tease him, but this time, he held his tongue.
Even though Kyle himself had skipped more days of school than he’d attended, and by Robby’s age, he’d already been working part-time. But he shouldprobablyrefrain from inciting rebellion from Akira’s own family. At least, in the first five minutes after meeting them.
The energetic offspring had already switched tactics. “And seeing you on the news this morning, dad, I’m just super anxious and too emotionally impacted to concentrate on schoolwork, see, and-”
“What, exactly, did yousee on the news?”
Robby shrugged, picking at her fingernails. “Oh, you know.” She tossed her hair and rolled her shoulders out, evidently hoping her father would drop the subject.
Having the steely tenacity of Mayhem chasing a piece of string, and then some, Akira did not.
“Robby. Tell me.”
“Just some footage of you both nicking that cop car,” she said, initially sullenly and then beginning to snicker. “The mayor getting all angry that you escaped the Rise, and blaming everything from the police to AI manufacturers but most of all therampant lawlessness ruling our streets. Blah blah, something about public executions when he gets his hands on you, blah blah. There was a news piece about House Epsilon, too, and everyone’s loving the idea of an outlaw House Master taking on the corrupt mayor.”
“Outlaw, huh?” Kyle tried and failed to smother his smirk. “Wanted, dead orali-ve.” He drew that last word out in song, because really, how could onenotchannel Bon Jovi at a time like this?
“Master Epsilon is getting quite the reputation!” Robby chimed in. “You’ll have a queue of clients reaching across the sector just to get a glimpse of our infamous fugitive.”
Akira fixed her with a disapproving look. “Robby, you know we don’t talk about my work.”
The girl gave an impressively dramatic sigh, fluttering her fingers and rolling her eyes. “Work. He always says it like that,” she told Kyle, “as if I don’t know what he does. I’m fourteen, notten.”
Fourteen. Only two years older than Akira himself when he was forced into selling himself on Xerxes’ streets to be able to eat each day. Stars. No wonder Akira looked so uncomfortable about his daughter evenspeakingabout such things, considering everything he’d done to ensure Robby would never have toendure such a life. Everything he’d sacrificed to keep her safe...including nearly losing Kyle with all the secrecy.
“If it makes you feel better, he does it to us too,” Kyle said to break the tension, and then mimicked Akira talking dismissively aboutHouse businesswith that posh, haughty accent his boss always protested sounded nothing like him. Robby giggled.
Akira scowled at them both. “Go get your mother,” he ordered, and she skipped off back through the house, still chortling.
“You,” Akira growled at Kyle next. He grabbed a fistful of his hoodie and yanked him close, planting a kiss on his lips. “Thank you.”
“She’s amazing,” Kyle told him, honoured that Akira had chosen to share something so precious with him. “I’m sorry for not understanding before, why you did what you did. Now I do.”
Kyle would lie to protect Robby too, despite having just met her and feeling uncomfortably squirmy whenever he thought about being dishonest. That happy, carefree innocence was the most valuable thing he’d ever been entrusted with.
“You have nothing to apologise for,” Akira said earnestly, his expression both tender and vulnerable. “You were right before, Kyle, when you said without full honesty I could not give my whole heart to you.” His gaze flickered to something over his shoulder. “And this is the final piece of it. Kyle Randall, may I introduce my wife? Sarah, this is Kyle.”
Akira’s voice cracked on his name, and sparing the man from Kyle seeing his tears, he turned to meet the other half of his boyfriend’s cherished family.
Kyle had seen wheelchairs on occasion before, but they were battered, creaky contraptions held together with duct tape and rust. This one was of an elegant, futuristic design, with runic technology etched into gleaming lines of chrome. A pale-faced and blonde-haired woman was seated between the two largewheels, with a runepad attached to one of the chair’s arms within reach of her frail hand.
Sarah gave Kyle a sincere but tired smile. Her thin face was carved with exhausted lines, her arms and legs were not much wider than the bones that protruded visibly beneath the skin, and her chest shuddered in time with her raspy breaths.
