by Lolita Lopez
Pierce left and Torment placed his tablet on a small stand. “I’ll be recording this interview. Your real name won’t be a part of our records. We’ll assign a codename. Your identity stops with me and Pierce.”
“Thank you,” she said gratefully, “but I’m not sure all the secrecy matters. I don’t think I’ll ever see The City again.”
“It’s not likely,” Torment agreed. “If this thing with Raze doesn’t work, we’ll settle you in the colonies. Or, if you’d prefer, we can we’ll ship you far away to another territory we control. It will be your choice when the time comes.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “You have money stashed away, correct?”
“Yes. I keep funds in various places, but the bulk is in the colonies. It’s safer there.” She hesitated because it was so gauche to discuss money. “I have enough squirreled away to support me in a similar lifestyle for twenty years. If I retrench, I could probably make it last twice that.”
“If you choose to stay here, you’ll be able to keep your funds separate from Raze’s. It’s a simple form. I can have it rushed through the red tape.”
“Why are you being so helpful?” Ella wanted to trust Torment, but he was a mysterious man and hard to pin down. She had always been good at reading people, but he was challenging her in ways she had never encountered.
“I see a lot of myself in you,” he admitted. Dropping his gaze and pretending to be engrossed with his tablet, he said, “Someone hurt me when I was little. It changed me. It made me like this. Cold. Alone. Mistrusting.” He gritted his teeth. “It also made me very, very good at my work. There’s a reason I’m so adept at breaking prisoners.”
She didn’t have to ask what he meant about being hurt. Looking at him now, really looking at him, she saw the signs. She had seen them often enough in the street children who were peddled and sold to the disgusting pigs who wanted to hurt them. Feeling a connection to him, she blurted out a truth she had hidden from even Dizzy. “I forget to stop acting sometimes.”
Torment’s head lifted sharply at that admission. He regarded her for a moment. “Raze will break you of that habit.”
She winced. “I’m not sure I want to be broken.”
A muscle in his cheek twitched. “I didn’t mean it like that. Raze will never raise a hand to you in anger. You shouldn’t even worry about that.”
“But?”
“But Raze is even better than you and me at reading people,” he warned. “He’ll know when you’re lying to him and when you’re acting. He won’t allow it. He’ll want complete and total honesty from you.”
“And if I don’t give him that?”
“Raze is not quite as traditional as Swift, but he won’t shy away from a strict course of discipline and correction if necessary.”
Ella swallowed nervously. She had undergone correction and discipline before and hadn’t liked it one bit. If Raze tried to do the same thing, she would have to leave. She didn’t care how much she liked him. She wasn’t going through that again.
The door opened and Pierce entered with a covered rectangular tray. He slid it in front of her and lifted the lid to reveal a breakfast that made her mouth water. “It’s from the officer’s mess. No runny protein scrambles and rock-hard bread for you.”
“Thank you.” She sipped the strange blue juice and decided it was tasty enough to finish. Grabbing a fork, she said, “You may as well start asking your questions.”
“Harkin Greaves was the father of your baby.” It wasn’t a question. Torment stated it as the fact he knew it to be.
Ella’s grip tightened on the fork. A flash of unforgettably blue eyes. That lopsided smile. That blond hair. His crooked arm. A rush of regrets and pain and sadness. “Yes, he was.”
“When was the last time you saw Harkin?”
She stabbed her fork into the fluffy pile of eggs. “The night of the Tanger Mill fire.”
“The one he’s still wanted for?”
“Yes. We both worked there. I worked day shift, and he worked the night one. I had finally realized I was pregnant, and I had to tell him. He didn’t take it well. We fought—physically and with ugly words—and he threw a lantern against a wall. That was all it took to send the whole place up in flames. He ran off—and I never saw him again.”
“He left you? When you were pregnant?” Pierce seemed aghast at the idea of abandoning a woman with child.
“He wasn’t ready to be a father,” she said matter-of-factly.
“And you were ready to be a mother? At fourteen?”
It wasn’t an easy question to answer. “I wasn’t ready, but I wanted my baby. I was young enough and naïve enough to think it would all work out in the end. I guess Harkin was old enough and wise enough to know it wouldn’t be so easy.”
“Harkin worked with the Sixer gang?” Torment asked before taking one of the pastries from the tray. He began to carefully peel away the layers before eating each one.
“Sometimes. Yes. If we were short on rent money or if we needed something, he would take work from them. It was usually transport jobs or smuggling. It paid okay, and we didn’t have the luxury of principles.”
“Did you partake in any of those jobs?”
“Yes.” There was no point in lying. “I would carry packages and drop them at certain places or pick them up and take them somewhere else.”
“How often?”
“Maybe seven times? Eight? I can’t be sure of the exact number.”
“Do you know what happened to Harkin after he ran off the night of the fire?”
“I looked for him, but he was gone. No one had seen him. We all assumed he had jumped a transport ship to the colonies or gone underground with the Sixer gang. It wasn’t until later…” She swallowed anxiously. “It wasn’t until I was with George that I found out he’d gone to Jesco and started a whole new life.”
“We can’t confirm his whereabouts for almost two years. From the night of the fire until this day when he was spotted in a surveillance photo.” Pierce had taken over the interrogation now. He had his own tablet and flicked his finger over the screen before turning it toward her. “Do you remember any of these men? They would have been younger, obviously, but do any of them seem familiar? Harkin may have been running with this crowd back when they two of you were together.”
Ella studied the photos in front of her as she ate. “This one,” she pointed to an image, “and that one.” She drank some juice. “Maybe that one, too.”
As Pierce made notes, Torment asked, “Have you spoken to or seen Harkin since the day he left you?”
She pushed food around her plate with the tines of her fork. “No.” As if to drive the point home, she said, “He didn’t even try to contact me after our daughter died.”
It was Pierce who reached across the table to touch her hand. It was a fleeting moment of sympathetic contact, but she smiled at him all the same.
“How did you meet George?” Torment asked.
She exhaled a pained breath. These were memories she really didn’t want to relive, but she wanted to help protect men like Raze and Venom who had only ever been kind to her. “I met George through a friend.”
“Danny?” Torment guessed.
She nodded reluctantly. “He didn’t know…” She swallowed hard. “I don’t think Danny understood what George was like. He didn’t realize…” She cleared her throat and tried to fight the squeezing sensation that made her want to panic. “When Danny figured out what George was really like and what he was making me do, he tried to get me out, but it was too late. George owned me, and I had to stay and pay my debt.”
“Your debt?”
“He’s the head of the secret police. He knew I had been there the night of the fire. He could have sent me to prison, but he made it go away. But I had to…” Ella breathed out a long, slow breath. “I was his pet. He owned me in every sense of the word.”
Even though it made her sick to admit it, she said, “George made sure that I was educated proper
ly and that I learned how to handle myself like a lady and how to run my business. He was a cruel man. He could be vicious.” She absentmindedly touched her throat, his phantom fingers closing around her windpipe and crushing the breath right out of her lungs. “He is a terrible person—but he taught me skills that I never would have learned on my own. I never would have met the right people or learned to be this successful as a muse without him.”
The men sitting across from her didn’t seem to know how to continue. She took control for a moment. “Look, I was a young, dumb kid in a really bad situation. I’d been abandoned. My baby had died. I had no money and no job skills. George offered me something no one ever had. He offered me security. All I had to do was learn to make him happy.”
She drank some more juice and sighed. “George hurt me. He broke me. He treated me like a slave. He used me. He abused me. He gave me to his friends. He traded me for favors. But he taught me something very useful. He taught me how to use my body and my face to get power and money.”
She ran her finger along the rim of her glass. “There finally came a day when we both realized the power had shifted between us. People were coming to me first and seeking out my friendship before his because I was more important and better liked and more powerful. We weren’t a good fit in other ways either. I had stopped reacting to the pain and humiliation of his punishments in the ways that excited him. I had grown used to it, and he grew bored with me. So that was that. We parted ways, and I never saw him again.”
“Until last night,” Torment supplied.
She nodded. “Until last night.”
“If you don’t mind, we would like for you to tell us about the men that you met through George. We don’t need any details that might be painful for you to remember, Ella. We only need to know their occupations, their ties to the government, whether or not they might be tied in with the Sixers or the Splinters.”
“After you’ve talked us through those connections,” Pierce interjected, “we would like to talk to you about the political climate. We know that you rubbed elbows with important people. You know things that some of our informants don’t because you had access to people beyond our reach.”
She wasn’t hungry anymore and pushed the tray aside. “Well, I suppose we should start at the beginning…”
For the next five hours, Ella talked. She answered questions. She asked questions. She filled in the blanks and drew lines between the various levels of the government and the shadowy underworld she had known only too well. As she worked with Pierce and Torment, she realized that these two men possessed a great deal of information about The City and the society down there, but they didn’t understand people. They didn’t understand the history or the debts owed or the petty squabbles that influenced the outcomes of every election and every trial and every news article that was produced by government journalists.
“You need better informants,” she stated matter-of-factly. “You should be turning housekeepers and cooks and maids and nannies. You should be turning the silent and unseen people who make life easy for the rich and well-connected people down in The City. You’re going after these government types, but you forget that maids and chauffeurs are the ones who hear and see everything.”
Torment gave her a strange look. “Terror made that case for years. He wasn’t successful, but I’ve been pushing it hard.” He sat forward and held her gaze. “Ella, we could use someone like you on our team. Would you consider it? Joining us?”
She shook her head. “I’m not a spy.”
“You’re a natural. You would be good at this.”
“I don’t want to be a spy. I want to live my life—a quiet life—and that’s it.” She spread out both hands in front of her. “I’ll help in any way I can, but I have to draw the line there.”
The men seemed to understand. They didn’t ask again. Instead, they went over the information she had already given them and asked more pointed questions, digging deeper into the various layers of society and government. She wasn’t sure how much of her knowledge would help, but she decided it was worth a try. After the way her own government had come after her, she needed all the protection she could get, even if it came in ways she had never wanted.
“I think that’s enough for today,” Terror decided. He checked his watch and glanced at Pierce. “I have a meeting upstairs. Can you escort her back to Raze’s quarters?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you for your help, Ella.” Terror stood and gathered his things. “I’ll be in touch.”
After Torment left the room, Ella said, “I don’t want to hide this from Raze. I’m not going to keep secrets from him.”
“We’ll loop him in on our meetings,” Pierce promised. He stowed his tablet in a locked drawer and gestured to the door. She followed him out of the interrogation room and down the dark corridor to the elevator. When they stepped inside, he asked, “Are you hungry? We could stop for lunch on the way back to your quarters. I can give you a tour of the social areas.”
She was hungry again, and she wanted to see more of the ship. Raze had only told her not to leave his quarters alone because he was worried about her getting into trouble in the bachelor section. With Pierce, she would be perfectly safe. What idiot would dare to cross a Shadow Force soldier?
“I’d like that.”
Pierce tapped at the navigation screen before leaning back against the wall. He seemed tense, and she wondered if he was in pain.
“Are you feeling okay?”
He nodded, his jaw tight. “I’m weaning myself off pain patches.”
“Pain patches?”
“When I fell, I broke a lot of bones and tore many muscles. Risk had a hell of a time patching me back together, and they had to give me massive doses of pain medications during my recovery. We use patches like these,” he lifted up the sleeve of his shirt to show her a green square on his skin, “that provide pain meds.”
“How do they work?” She poked at it as she asked the question, and he quirked a smile. Seeing that amused grin helped her understand why he had made such an impression on Hopper.
“There are different colors that are saturated with different strengths of medication and each color comes in different sizes. They go from red to green. Red are good for one to twelve hours depending on their size. Orange is good for twelve to twenty-four hours. Yellow is twenty-four to thirty-six hours. Green is good for a week.” He stretched his neck. “It’s my first day on green so I’m trying to adjust.”
When the elevator doors opened into a bustling area where men were shouting and laughing, Ella shrank back. Pierce put his hand between her shoulder blades and gently pressed her forward. All the men waiting to board the elevators stopped talking and laughing to stare at her.
“She’s taken!” Pierce barked. “You want one of these get on the Grab list.”
With another shove, this one not so gentle, he propelled her forward and through the crowd of gawking men. She decided not to correct Pierce about the way he had referred to her and let him protect and guide her through the throng. When they were in the clear, he frowned and gestured to her neck. “You have got to start wearing your collar.”
She touched her bare neck. “I don’t have one.”
“Raze will have to get one today.” He glanced back at the dispersing crowd. “I’m not sure if Dizzy explained all of this to you, but it’s an old tradition among our people that men can take any unclaimed woman they see on a ship or a base. We also allow men to take another man’s property—his mate—in the first few weeks they’re together if she’s left alone. To take a mate is a huge responsibility, and it’s a privilege not many of us are allowed so we punish the men who are careless—”
“By stealing their wives?” Ella finished, aghast.
“It’s an old tradition,” he repeated. “It’s falling out of favor, but there’s no way Vicious or Orion would force another solider or airman to return you to Raze.” He guided her toward an area that reminded her o
f the Low Town outdoor market she loved so much. “Especially not when you consider Raze’s history.”
Seizing on that opening, she asked, “Will you tell me about Raze?”
“I’ll tell you what’s publicly known, but that’s it.” Pierce steered her into a line that seemed to be a queue for one of the many food shops. He handed her a metal tray that was surprisingly heavy and motioned to the line ahead of them. She watched the men in front of them and followed their lead, scooping interesting food items onto her tray as she moved down the line.
When Pierce scanned his wrist to pay for their meals, she jokingly teased, “I wonder what Raze will think when he finds out I went on a date with another man today.”
Pierce made a throaty sound that might have been a laugh. “I’m still recovering from my last broken bones so we’ll keep this between us.”
She followed him to a table and took the spot that put her safely in the corner. She ignored the curious glances from the other tables and tried a little of each of the food items she had selected. She decided two of them weren’t for her and pushed them aside.
“Raze had a mate before you,” Pierce stated matter-of-factly. “It was an arranged thing. The older, powerful pureblood families still prefer that to Grabs. I didn’t know his mate, but she was very beautiful.” He sized her up as he ate. “She was much taller than you, obviously, and blonde. Like your friend, Dizzy,” he added before stabbing his fork into a salad. “From what I’ve heard, it was a mess from the beginning. She didn’t want to leave Prime—our home planet—for life on a ship. He wasn’t particularly interested in having a mate. He was trying to build and make the SRU into the elite unit that it is today. She felt like the ship was beneath her, and she got stir crazy from being cooped up on it all day. It wasn’t a ship like the Valiant. It was one of the smaller guard ships, and there weren’t many mated couples. It was difficult for her to adjust.”
She didn’t interrupt as Pierce spoke even though she had a million questions she wanted to ask. She waited as he sipped his drink and wondered what he would tell her next.