Gemina – The Illuminae Files: Book 2

JESUS, IT’S SO ****ING HOT.”

A MONA LISA SMILE. “THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID.”

Patience and Silence had one beautiful daughter. And her name was Vengeance.”

Nik M: I’ll tell you a bedtime story, highness.

Nik M: It’s about my babushka. My grandma, yeah? Her name was Nika. Grand old fem. Hard as a coffin nail. took ZERO ****. u woulda liked her.

Nik M: See my granpa—he was a fan of the ladies. A real player. and my babushka was this dropdead redhead. I seen holos of her back then, damn. The Red Queen, they used to call her. Every boy on the grid was chasing her heels, and she sends em all home limping.

Nik M: But after years of trying, granpa gets her to go out with him. And she tells him, once they get together, he’s gotta settle down. show respect. And he’s so jazzed he’s landed the Queen, he swears on his life he’ll never touch another woman after he’s touched her.

Nik M: So they get married. And it’s all good for a while. But about three months into it, she finds out granpa’s still seeing this old slice of his. After he swore on his LIFE he’d never touch another fem.

Nik M: Guess what my babushka did

Hanna D: I bet she was smart enough not to get tattooed for it, whatever it was.

Nik M: She gave him four sons and a daughter. And on their 5th wedding anniversary, once she wuz in the family deep enough—once my great grandfather loved those kids of hers hard enough—she got my granpa drunk. Handcuffed him to the bed. Cut off the cause of all his problems with a hacksaw, and let him bleed out. Real slow.

Nik M: She mailed his junk to his mistress with a note that said “best served cold.”