He took Ryce by the hand. It felt cold and clammy. He sat on the bed and drew Ryce close until he had no choice but to sit next to him. Very slowly, very tentatively, Matt reached out and brushed Ryce’s cheek with his fingertips. Ryce’s face had always been beautifully sculpted, with high cheekbones and fine features, but now it looked and felt too thin, even gaunt. They were all exhausted, going full throttle without much food or sleep, and this recent reminder, courtesy of Griggs and his cohorts, meant they’d only be forced to work even harder.
“What happened out there?” he asked quietly. Ryce was right in one thing—the hesitation that had cost him the race was as uncharacteristic of him as the loss itself.
There was a long, tense moment.
“I guess…I wasn’t focused enough,” Ryce said reluctantly. “I’m ashamed to say that I was too preoccupied.”
“With what?” Matt lowered his hand but let it rest in the small space between them, like a tiny bridge of warm flesh to span the gap.
“A mistake of mine,” Ryce said.
“You never make mistakes.”
“You were a mistake.”
Matt went very still.
“By all accounts, this—us being together, living together, flying together—shouldn’t have worked,” Ryce continued, finally raising his eyes, so Matt could see his own reflection in their stormy depths. “But somehow, it did. Maybe falling in love with you was a mistake, but it was the happiest one I’ve made in my life.”
“‘Was’?” Matt barely recognized the sound of his own voice.
Ryce shook his head, struggling with words, his usual eloquence failing him against raw emotion. “I know this can’t be enough for you. Not emotionally, not physically. I’m used to being alone. It’s always been…safer that way. I’m not an easy person to get attached to, certainly not to love. Not in the sense you must be used to. Don’t try to deny it,” he added as Matt opened his mouth to protest. “You’ve been all too clear about wanting to end things with me, encouraging me to leave. And that is your right; I understand that. You don’t have to sugarcoat it for my sake. I want you to be happy, Matt. And if you can’t find happiness with me, then it is pointless for me to linger. Once this whole ordeal is over, I’ll be out of your way.”
For once in his life, speech utterly failed Matt. He couldn’t even find his voice, let alone the right words, as he let Ryce’s confession sink in.
Ryce thought he wasn’t good enough for Matt? Ryce loved him?
Suddenly, he was truly, deeply angry at himself. Ryce had been feeling this all this time, while Matt clung to his insecurities, too afraid to say the word that would change everything? And would it change anything, really? This was how he felt. He knew that, had known that from the moment he’d seen Ryce walk into a canteen on the Messa-1 station and into his new life on Lady Lisa. Saying it aloud would only be admitting it to himself, and he’d been too much of a damn coward to do that.
Until now.
“Baby, I love you more than anything in this entire fucking galaxy,” he said. Ryce’s gray eyes widened, but Matt went on. The words finally poured freely, and he let them flow. “I’d trade anything I have—my ship, my life—for your happiness. That’s why I said all that nonsense. The invitation to work for the Fleet again… It’s what you wanted. God knows you deserve it far more than anything I could ever give you. And if you think it’s all about being physical for me, you’re wrong. Well, you’d probably be right if you were any other person, but it’s you. I’d wait for you for as long as it would take. I’d wait for you forever.”
“You’ve never said that before,” Ryce said into the resonating silence which followed. “Not…the love part.”
Matt barked a laugh that bordered on hysterical. “It’s because you fell in love with a craven asshole.”
“I didn’t.”
Ryce leaned in, and the touch of his lips on Matt’s was like a bolt of electricity, the sensation coursing through his veins like a live current through exposed wires. A pitiful, humiliating sob tore out of him, but he didn’t care. All he wanted was the taste of those perfectly curved lips.
The kiss was everything he wanted, yet almost more than his heart could safely handle. As their mouths locked in this intimate embrace, Matt felt it shatter and the pieces fall back in their rightful places again, making it whole and stronger for being once broken and healed.
“Stay with me tonight,” Ryce whispered as they finally parted. His breath ghosted over Matt’s skin, making him shiver.
Matt found Ryce’s hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the tips of his fingers.
“I will, baby. Go wash up, and we’ll get some sleep.”
They both needed rest, desperately. But even as they lay later in the narrow bunk, having discovered anew the comfort of simple closeness, sleep didn’t come easily. Matt was wrung out, his emotions having run the gamut from horror to despair to unexpected hope, but his mind was still struggling with doubt.
Ryce might love him, but he didn’t say he wasn’t going to take Nora’s job.
Chapter Fifteen
“SO,” MATT SAID the next morning, when they were all assembled in the rec room with their coffees and breakfast sandwiches. Somehow, the idea of eating at the galley dinner table with the memory of unpacking yesterday’s delivery hovering over them wasn’t very appealing. “We need to step up our game. Because if we don’t, they surely will.”
“They already have,” Tony pointed out from where she was sitting in the oversized old armchair—Val’s favorite reading spot—with her cup of herbal tea. “If we stick to our previous plan of making our move during the race, how much time do you think we have until the next one?”
“We don’t know exactly.” Ryce was sitting on the sofa next to Matt, sipping his scalding-hot coffee. A good night’s rest had done wonders to erase the signs of fatigue from his face and posture. At the very least he appeared more relaxed. Matt secretly hoped that perhaps their mutual confessions had something to do with it too.
“Tex hasn’t sent us the details yet,” Matt said. Perhaps Griggs was so disappointed with Ryce’s performance he’d abandoned the idea of using him for racing again. He wouldn’t say as much aloud, though.
“It can’t be too soon,” Ryce said. “It’s risky to arrange something so big only days apart; the scope of logistics would draw too much attention. Even if they have people on the pay among the station personnel, it would be difficult to keep under wraps. I’d say the races would have to be about a week apart, at least.” He set his half-empty cup on the side table. “But it can’t be much more than that, either. The organizers would want to maintain the right level of interest brewing. Not to mention the entire affair is probably seasonal.”
“What do you mean?” Tony asked.
“I’ve assembled all the information I could find on the geography of this particular region of Elysium-5, and it seems the large canyon is flooded at winter time. Not completely, of course, but enough that it would interfere with the racing.”
“So, there are only so many events they can do,” Matt said. “And every one counts.”
“We have to hustle, then,” Tony remarked. “I’m guessing Tex won’t give us a lot of head notice, either.”
“Exactly,” Matt said, taking a big swig off his coffee. Now that they had this short grace period, he needed to stow all his other worries and misgivings away in order to focus on not dropping the ball on “Crime and Punishment” this time around. And that meant letting go of his preoccupation with Ryce’s plans for the future and whatever sinister secrets surrounded the particularities of his birth. For now, he had to draw strength from his love for Ryce, and from the fact that, as incredible and improbable as it was, his love was returned.
“The one lead we have to go on is that private yacht. Is there anything we can glean about the owner?”
“A private holding company,” Tony said. “There wasn’t much time to delve into it. I couldn’t even get the name fro
m the fuel supplier tech. Either he didn’t know, or he didn’t want to give up too much information other than throwing some vague hints around to impress me. If Griggs is involved with it somehow, I doubt we can catch on, seeing as nobody here knows who Griggs actually is.”
“Can we at least establish some connection to people in his close circle?” Ryce asked. “Or at least to any of the activities Griggs is involved in on the station? I’d hate to break into somebody else’s ship without being sure such an action was warranted.”
“You won’t be doing any break-ins,” Matt said firmly. “You’ll be too busy preparing for the race, remember?”
He didn’t know which option was worse, but it wasn’t like Ryce had much choice in the matter. His part, aside from appeasing Griggs, was providing the distraction they needed for whatever extraction scenario they came up with. That meant all the grossly illegal moves (well, slightly more grossly illegal than drag racing on a virgin planet) would fall on Matt and Tony.
Ryce inclined his head. He clearly wasn’t thrilled with this idea either.
“I’m on it,” Tony said, setting her empty cup aside and taking out her commlink to type in some notes. “Don’t get your hopes up, though.”
“We don’t need an airtight proof for a court case,” Matt reminded. “Just something we could go on before moving forward. Any clue, as small as it might be.”
Tony nodded absently, already scrolling through some data on her comm. Matt turned to Ryce.
“Assuming this is Griggs’s ship, how do we get on it? If Tony’s research pans out, there would be no avoiding that. And if any of us are caught sneaking about Griggs’s posh yacht, we aren’t going to get as easy a pass as we did when we crashed Tex’s little party at the warehouse.”
Ryce crossed his long legs and leaned back on the sofa, deep in thought. Matt couldn’t help but admire the languid, effortless elegance of his limbs, perfectly arranged in requiescence. Heat flushed Matt’s cheeks as he remembered last night when they’d lain together, their bodies entwined. Nothing had happened between them—if one could call exposing your soul to another human being through a simple embrace nothing—but the mere thought filled his chest with warmth.
He felt Tony’s gaze on the back of his head and turned. She made a lovesick face and fluttered her lashes. He stuck out his tongue at her, but she only gave him a thumbs-up and went back to whatever she was browsing on her comm.
“If you want to sneak aboard his ship without being detected, the first thing you need is the access key code,” Ryce said, startling Matt a little. Thankfully, it seemed like he hadn’t noticed the juvenile exchange. “I doubt the ship is guarded, but you’d want to avoid any security personnel and cameras at the dock. In fact, it would be best to disable the cameras altogether for the few minutes it’d take you to get on board.”
“I’m sure there won’t be any security folks checking that particular dock,” Matt said. “Griggs wouldn’t want any prying eyes looking too closely, especially if he keeps hostages on board. Can we really disable the cameras, though?”
“Sure, if we hack into the station’s infrastructure network.”
The fact that Ryce, of all people, was considering hacking into a Federation-owned computer system without batting an eye was a testimony to just how desperate they’d all become. Matt hated placing him in this position, but at this point, it was too late to balk at the possibility of committing a federal offense.
“Can you do it?”
“Yes,” Ryce said without hesitation. “I just need access to one of the maintenance terminals and ten minutes undisturbed.”
Matt sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “What else?”
“The ship is spacious, but not huge. I’ll pull the specs on Javelin yachts to see what areas would offer the best hiding places. Then all you’ll have to worry about is neutralizing the guards and getting away safely before anyone pokes in to check on the prisoner and finds him gone.”
“Oh, is that all?” Tony chimed in sarcastically, still intent on her comm.
“I know we talked about using the race as a distraction tactic, but once we get confirmation of Griggs’s ownership of this yacht, I don’t think we should wait for another one,” Matt said. He was still loath to let go of the notion that Ryce participating in another event could be avoided somehow. “Whisking somebody out of a ship is much easier when it’s docked. Doing that while it’s hovering in orbit filming the surface is a hell of a lot trickier, not to mention we’d have to hide inside and hope we’re not discovered prematurely. If we can get in and find Val, we can get out while it’s still stationside.”
“I know it sounds counterintuitive to wait until the ship is running,” Ryce said. “And it is far riskier. However, I still believe this scenario offers the best chance of making a clean escape. The station is Griggs’s playground; he can easily hunt you down minutes after you leave the ship. We’d be sitting ducks here, while in space he won’t be expecting an attack. We’d have the element of surprise on our side. If we’re lucky enough, he won’t know anything happened until it’s too late.”
“But if we’re unlucky, it’d be the end,” Matt said quietly.
He wasn’t trying to intimidate anybody, but it needed to be said to make things perfectly clear for everybody involved. “If we’re caught on that yacht, me and Tony and Val would simply vanish, and you’d be dead the moment you step out of your aerojet. Nobody would even know we’re missing until the station peeps come to check why the docking fees for Lisa haven’t been paid. Are you willing to take that chance?”
“I am,” Ryce said.
“Me too,” Tony said firmly. “Stop beating a dead horse, Captain.”
“Okay then,” Matt sighed. They were all in, and there was no turning back.
“You’ll have to rely on one of their own lifeboats,” Ryce said. “With them having to maintain orbit to record the race, they won’t be able to give chase. And even a black-market kingpin can’t install long-range weapons on a cruise yacht without getting in trouble with the authorities, so you should be in the clear once you break away.”
“True. I’ll make arrangements for getting Val the hell out of this sector. So really, our main concern here is taking on the guards.”
“Don’t worry. These fuckers won’t even know what hit them,” Tony said acidly.
Matt and Ryce exchanged a look.
“Anyway, I think I’ve found something,” she said before either of them could comment. “I’ve accessed the private vessel registry database and dug up information on the pilot.”
“How did you access the registry?” Matt asked suspiciously. “It’s restricted.”
“I used your pilot license credentials.”
“Why in the world would you have my—oh, never mind,” Matt muttered. “Just tell us what you found.”
“The Medusa yacht is registered to a company named Paragon Inc. It appears to be some sort of a holding company that encompasses local transport and technical maintenance vendors. Nothing strikes me as particularly shady about it, but the owner isn’t listed anywhere on here.”
“See if you can find anything about this company on the web.” Matt perked up a little. A name was a name, even if it didn’t belong to the actual person they’d been trying to find, and it was a good place to start digging. “I’ll ask around, check if any of my contacts has heard about it. Discreetly,” he added pointedly when Ryce frowned.
“We should obtain the access code in the meanwhile,” Ryce said, acceding with a nod. “That way we’ll be ready to move in as soon as the intel pans out—assuming it does.”
“Can we get the code while we’re hacking into the mainframe?”
Ryce thought about it for a moment.
“Theoretically, yes,” he said, somewhat reluctantly. “But it’s much riskier than simply tapping into the dock cameras’ feed. Information pertaining to private spacecraft being serviced by the Freeport would be in an encrypted database. It would t
ake longer to get into, now that I don’t have the necessary security clearance, and if the unauthorized access is detected…” He trailed off into a meaningful silence.
“There must be another way,” Tony said.
“Actually, there might be.” Matt turned to her. “What did you say the name of that fuel supplier technician guy was?”
IN SMUGGLING, THE line between potential ally and competition was a thin one. Matt didn’t exactly have friends in the business, but he knew some people who’d been willing to work with him over the years—if it benefited their interests.
Once such associate was Randy Reid. Matt liked him, because Randy was if not honest, at least more upfront than the other smugglers, and more discerning in his dealings. In fact, he was the one who recommended the Elysium system to Matt when he was looking for an alternative to Sonora as his base of operations.
Matt settled in the pilot seat and activated the link between the adapters on his temples and the ship’s computer. Sitting there felt weird. This was Ryce’s place now, one that Matt had ceded willingly. But he had to get used to occupying it again, didn’t he? Once they had Val safely back (and Matt refused to consider any other outcome), Ryce would be gone, and it would be back to the good old days of piloting the Lady Lisa himself.
If only he could fool himself into thinking that would fill the aching void which had irrevocably settled deep beneath his breastbone.
Matt shook his head and focused on opening the local communications channel. After a few calls, Randy’s jovial, slightly pudgy face appeared on screen. Matt couldn’t make out the background very clearly because of the poor illumination, but it appeared Randy was currently on his ship, the Siren. Once a sleek luxury yacht, it had been converted to a hauler but had still retained its elegant appearance and superior specs.
“Spears,” Randy said in a low rumble. “Long time no see.”
“How’s it going, Randy?” Matt leaned back in his chair and donned a casual smile. It probably clashed horribly with the rest of his haggard, worry-lined face, but there was only so much he could do about that. “Still working the 73?”
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