* * *
I found Alexei exactly where Lotus said he’d be.
Away from the main patio area, the pool deck had an outdoor bar that could seat ten. He sat in the far corner, facing outward. From that position, he could oversee everything but still remain hidden behind the blue-and-white awning overhead. The stools around him were empty. In fact, there had to be a good twenty feet of space between him and the nearest person, as if no one dared go near him. I noted that while everyone gave the appearance of having a good time, they also shot covert looks in his direction.
I’d witnessed this behavior before and knew it wasn’t unique to this particular crowd. It didn’t matter where they fit in the Consortium hierarchy; they all looked to Alexei, waiting for cues on how to proceed. It was a recent phenomenon, coming after Alexei’s purge of the Consortium when he’d eliminated Belikov’s supporters. Their behavior depended on his moods—if they should laugh, if they should approve, if they should snub you. From the impassive expression on his face, Alexei wasn’t impressed—which went a long way to explaining why those around him looked on edge. It made him seem like some ancient medieval king, surveying the entertainments of his court and finding them lacking.
He watched me from behind his sunshades as I approached. He’d no doubt been aware of my presence from the moment I’d scanned my citizenship chip. He wore black swim trunks that left nothing to the imagination, all his tattoos on full display. His damp hair was swept back from his face and dark stubble lined his jaw. The sun had turned his Tru-Tan-pigmented skin a shade darker, offering a greater level of protection from the sun’s damaging rays. It might have even been darker than my own olive-toned skin. And though the move wasn’t intentional, the way he rested his forearms on the bar made his biceps flex impressively so he was truly a sight to behold.
At another time and place, I would have run my hands over his warm skin and felt the rock-hard muscle underneath. I wouldn’t have been able to resist throwing myself into his lap and scraping a fingernail over his stubbled jaw. Clearly that wasn’t the right approach, especially not when I’d come home from a shitty sol at work to find the house overrun by the Consortium. And certainly not after yesterday when I’d accused him of lying. If I hadn’t just spoken with Lotus and Stanis, I might have come in shrieking at him like a harpy, ready to scrap it out. Instead, I sat uneasily on the stool beside him, Feodor on my lap.
It’s a testament to the power of animals that despite his mood, Alexei reached out to pet the dog. And Feodor, good-time dog that he was, went to sit in Alexei’s lap. I let him, not resisting when Feodor wriggled out of my arms and made happy little yips when he landed on Alexei.
And Alexei…The man cracked a smile when Feodor jumped up, trying to lick his face, black-and-white tail wagging madly. I had to snatch Alexei’s glass before Feodor’s tail swished it off the bar.
They were both thrilled to see each other, and I couldn’t help but get a warm, gooey feeling watching them. And then of course my stupid brain imagined what Alexei might be like holding our baby, and that shut everything down inside me. We weren’t having a baby. Not now. Not ever. Knowing that shattered the last reserves of whatever had been holding me together.
I still held Alexei’s glass, half full of vodka. Though I knew it was a bad idea, I drank it anyway. It burned the whole trip down, making my throat feel like I’d lit it on fire. I coughed and wheezed for breath, but at least I had a legitimate excuse for my eyes tearing up.
Alexei set Feodor down and plucked the glass from my hand. For his part, the dog sat at our feet, watching us to see what we did next.
“Better now?” Alexei asked, frowning in a way that said he didn’t approve.
“How do you drink this?” I asked between coughs. On the plus side, I felt pleasantly flushed. “Tastes like I drank jet fuel.”
“An acquired taste.” Somehow, there was another full glass in his hand and he took a swallow before setting it on the bar.
He studied me a moment from behind his sunshades, as if considering what to do next. The party continued unabated around us while we sat in our cone of silence. I wished I could see his eyes instead of my own image reflected back at me. Then again, I’m not sure it would have helped; Alexei’s poker face was legendary.
“Stanis said you were upset,” I tried, not sure how to begin now that I’d lost my angry stride. “He and Luka thought this little…party would help you blow off some steam. I know what happened yesterday was awful and things have been stressful, so I understand if you felt the need to…unwind. I just wish I’d had a heads-up. I’m not a big fan of coming home and finding strangers screwing like rabbits at the front door.”
When he didn’t say anything, my unease grew. The alcohol wasn’t helping. What was he thinking? Did I even know what we were supposed to be talking about?
“It was horrible at work today,” I pressed on into his silence. “I found out twenty thousand people died in the reboot. Brody’s in charge of One Gov’s queenmind investigation. He suspected the Consortium was behind what happened, so I had to tell him the truth. He says if he finds anything incriminating, he’ll get rid of it. One Gov decided to say the queenmind fought off an outside attack. They plan to quietly compensate the families of anyone who died but won’t officially say it’s linked to the reboot. Then they wanted me to use the Tarot to put a positive spin on things.”
“Were you successful?”
“Not really. I tried, but I couldn’t get anything out of the cards. There wasn’t a way to pretty-up the outcome regardless of how many spreads I laid. It makes me sick knowing I even made the attempt, but I still used Granny G’s cards to justify One Gov’s spin on events.”
“You never did that before One Gov. I remember when you would charge your clients an aggravation fee, or if your gut gave you cause, you would ask the client to leave. But you never hid the truth. You were always honest with your answers and offered help if anyone wanted to change what you saw in the cards.”
“It doesn’t really work like that anymore,” I said cautiously. “I do what the higher-ups want for the good of One Gov and the tri-system. Or I at least make an honest attempt.”
“Then you’re losing yourself in One Gov. You’re trying to mold yourself in their image, and it isn’t working. You’re forgetting who you are. Maybe we both are. We’re both trying to fit ourselves into lives that don’t work.”
I stared at him. Anything else I might have said sputtered and died in my throat. Lives that didn’t work? What was he talking about? My job with One Gov? His position as head of the Consortium? Our life together?
My silence seemed to suit Alexei and he used it as if it was his turn to talk. Into it, he threw, “Your cousins on Earth are dead. Their partial remains were located in a mass grave in the Kibera slums in Nairobi, mixed with at least a dozen other bodies. DNA analysis confirmed their identities. The remains my people recovered were badly decomposed, suggesting they’d been there for months. Those missing on Mars were also found. Both are dead. The male, Tait Sevigny, never reported for work with his construction crew. DNA traces were scanned from a scrambling unit at an Apolli resort along with his citizenship chip. The girl, Yasmine, was in a similar situation. Her body appears to have recently been disposed of in Elysium City. My people found it before the molecules could be recycled and it appears most of her organs were harvested.”
If I thought I’d been speechless before, I was wrong. This took speechlessness to a whole other level. I flinched as if he’d struck me. And the way he said it—delivering the words like a physical blow—made me think he wanted those words to hurt. He’d succeeded. He’d confirmed my deepest fears. Worse, he said it as if none of it mattered. As if I didn’t matter.
When I said nothing, because honestly I couldn’t do anything but look at him while my mind reeled with the news, he continued with, “We found them by tracing their citizenship chips, and have already placed anonymous tips with the necessary authorities on both Ea
rth and Mars. Any remains will be discovered shortly and the news reported back to your family. I’d say you’ll receive official word within the next few sols, depending on how efficient the recovery teams are.”
“Everyone is going to panic. My family…What do I tell them? What do I say when I see them?”
“You say nothing because right now, there’s nothing to tell and it will only upset them further. I’m mobilizing my people to begin surveillance on the rest of your family. It will stretch the Consortium’s resources, but by the end of tomorrow, we’ll physically have eyes on everyone. No one else will go missing and if an attempt is made, we’ll be able to counter it.”
I nodded and took a shuddering breath, wishing I had more vodka, but I’d been cut off after my single glass. “Was anyone unaccounted for?”
“Your father. There’s nothing on him. He disappeared on Venus at least four months ago, where the trail goes cold. If you want access to those records, I suggest you use whatever contacts you’ve made through One Gov. Your coworker Caleb Dekker worked on the Venus Eye project, so he’ll know how to trace anyone on Venus. If I recall, you expressed interest in him.”
Interest? “Not for me,” I said, studying the woodgrain pattern on the bar. “It’s irrelevant if I know him or not. I was supposed to introduce him to you. Or at least that’s how it felt at the time.”
“According to your gut?” he asked.
How he made the question sound like an accusation, I had no idea, but something inside me snapped.
“Why are you saying all of this as if you’re looking for the best way to hurt me? If you’re upset about yesterday, I’m sorry. The things I said and the way I behaved were wrong. I lashed out at you when none of this is your fault. But if this is your way of getting back at me and making me feel worse than I already do, you win. Message received. I got it.”
When I tried to hop down from the stool, he caught my arm and wouldn’t let go. Though it was pointless to struggle, I flailed a bit, powerless against his strength. He planted me firmly on the barstool, one of his hands going to the edge of my stool, the other to the bar. His thighs were on either side of mine, skin against skin since my dress had ridden up during my flailing.
“Alexei, stop it. I don’t want to get into this here. Let me go.”
He dipped his head, his lips against my ear so that when he spoke, only I could hear him. “No, you need to sit and listen. No more running away or evading the truth. We’re having this out now because you need to face reality, and I can’t keep living like this.”
I froze, terrified and so off my game, I didn’t know what to do. “I don’t want to hear more. How do you expect me to handle anything else after what you’ve just told me?”
“You have no idea the power you hold over me,” he murmured into my hair. “I don’t even think I realized it myself until yesterday.”
I stared straight ahead over his shoulder, eyes unblinking and unfocused. The sounds of the party around us faded until it felt like we were the only two people in the universe. I clenched my hands in my lap, unsure what to do with them. “What are you saying? That I’m controlling you and you hate it?”
He blew out a frustrated breath that gusted over my shoulder. I smelled vodka but knew despite what Lotus implied he wasn’t drunk. A hand came up to touch my hair, and he wound the strands around his fingers. I had the sense that he pet me the way he might Feodor in an attempt to calm him. How had things turned so I’d become the creature in need of soothing?
“I’m saying you gave me a purpose. Before you, I was a whore for the Consortium. I did whatever Konstantin, Grigori, and all the others wanted for the advancement of the Consortium. They ordered. I acted. That was how it went and I was content. I’ve no doubt I would have been satisfied with pursuing their objectives, regardless of how it might have warped and twisted me. I wouldn’t have known there was any other way to live my life, or imagined there could be more than the Consortium’s agenda. I was headed down a terrible road, and I didn’t care. That changed when I learned of your existence.”
My heart beat too fast and it felt like I couldn’t breathe. “I can’t imagine how. I doubt I have the skills to rock anyone’s world.” I tried to make my tone mocking but it fell flat. Where was he going with this? “You said you knew about me for years before we met. Why would I change things?”
“Konstantin mentioned you offhandedly once, saying you’d ruined one of his pet projects. I couldn’t comprehend how anyone could stand in his way, and certainly not someone like you. How did a person without political connections or significant MH Factor or t-mods have such power? You became a puzzle I needed to solve. So I investigated. At first, I had bimonthly reports brought to me on your activities. The reports became monthly, weekly, daily. It wasn’t enough. I couldn’t understand you just from reports.
“I started watching you, rearranging my schedule so I could see you, study you, try to figure you out. You were so irrational and impulsive. You were kind and compassionate and you cared about things. You smiled and laughed, but I could see you were deeply unhappy. Your life was breaking you, and I felt that too. Seeing you struggle made me realize we had that in common. Both our lives were tearing us apart. The longer I watched, the more you mesmerized me until I couldn’t get you out of my head. I never wanted to pull you into my world. You were to be left safe and untouched by any of it. However, I also knew I would do something foolish if I kept on as I was. I decided we needed to meet and used the TransWorld bid as my excuse. So we met and that changed my life.”
“Because you were sucked into the luck gene’s gravity and couldn’t stop yourself.”
“Damn it, Felicia. You’re not listening.” Again came the frustration in his tone. With it was barely leashed temper and annoyance. “You made me want to be more than the Consortium’s puppet. I realized that if I wanted whatever life we might have together, I’d need to change everything. There was no place for you in the future Konstantin envisioned. And you would cease to exist because I knew you wouldn’t let yourself be assimilated into that version of the tri-system. I would have to steer it in another direction and dismantle what the Consortium had built so far. So, I did. I changed it all so we could have this. And now I have you and we have a life that means something to me. You turned it into something worth sharing because you believed we could. I believed it too.”
The words hit me so hard, it was a wonder I didn’t fall off the stool. I’d had no idea he felt this way. He always appeared so capable and in control, never doubting what course of action we needed to take. I never imagined he might feel as lost or confused as I did. Never thought he might share the same pain or fears. Gods, how could I be so stupid and blind?
“But somewhere along the way, you stopped having faith in us,” he continued as I said nothing. “When you lashed out at me yesterday, I saw for the first time how disillusioned you’ve become. But this time, it’s different. This time, your unhappiness is because of me. Our life together isn’t enough for you.”
“That’s not true! Of course it is.”
“You want a child, and I can’t give that to you. I’ve always known that but I let myself become caught up in the possibility because I knew how much you wanted it. I began wanting it too. I found myself thinking about building a legacy for our child and creating a future for the tri-system we could pass down to him or her. But now we need to face reality. After seeing how upset you were yesterday, I can fully admit what I couldn’t before—I can’t give you what you want. It isn’t in my power to make you happy. Now you need to decide what to do next.”
I’d started crying at some point, the tears falling without my say-so as he murmured in my ear and stroked my hair. I pushed at his shoulders, desperate to get away from him, to get away from all of this. It didn’t move him in the slightest.
“You can’t lay this on me like that, you bastard,” I said, still pushing, almost slapping his bare skin, heedless of who watched. “You can’t pile all th
is shit on me then say I have to decide right now what happens next. I can’t just flip a switch and make a decision like that.”
“According to the Shared Hope program’s regulations, we have six months left. After that, your fertility inhibitor goes back in. We either move past this or you find someone else who can give you what you’re looking for.”
Was he serious? “Find someone else? We’ve only been married a few months and now I’m supposed to move on to someone else? You sound insane.”
“One of us needs to be practical. I wanted this with you, but I know it can’t happen. I suspect you always knew it too, but you didn’t want to acknowledge it. Now I’m acknowledging it for both of us.”
“We have six months!” I all but shouted at him. “Anything can happen in six months!”
He pulled back, yanking off his sunshades and throwing them on the bar. I could finally see his eyes. The blue was as perfect, vibrant, and penetrating as always, but I now grasped how upset he was. He fought his own battle to hold himself together. “Six months. Six years. Six decades. It doesn’t make a difference. Even if we had all the time in the universe, nothing we do can make this happen.”
“You don’t know that. We can try something else—”
“We’re biologically incompatible and you need to accept it. The lab results are conclusive. Remember when you would run the cards for us and tell me what they predicted? You stopped doing that. You haven’t come to me with a reading about our future in months.”
“Because you said you didn’t want to know!”
“Felicia, I always want to know! Of course I wanted to hear about our future together, even if you thought it was awful. To me, it meant we had a future we could fight for. Now, I don’t even know if you use your cards for you anymore.”
“Of course I do. I use them every sol,” I pointed out.
“No, you use them for One Gov and slant your readings into what they want to hear. You’re wasting yourself there—wasting yourself and your talent. When you asked me if the Consortium tech-meds could fit you with t-mods, I said yes, but I see how much you struggle to fit yourself into that world. It’s a chore you endure and one you’re always fighting.
The Game of Luck Page 18