by R. M. Olson
“Very good,” said Masha. “You have excellent taste. I’m honestly surprised she’s available right now, but I believe she just got finished with another customer. You’re lucky.” She paused. “Are you certain? House rules are, once I’ve unlocked them, you can’t change your mind. I’ve had too many issues in the past. So I’d advise you to inspect carefully before you make a decision.”
“We’ve inspected enough,” said the man, his voice tinged with annoyance. “We’re not innocents. No use trying to convince us to take the lesser goods.”
Masha shrugged slightly. “Lady forbid. If you’re certain, then …” She tapped her com against the bars, and the lock clicked open. She tapped it again against a control on the floor, then straightened as the woman’s restraints fell away.
“You,” said Masha, her words a short command. “Come. You’re wanted.”
The woman turned, and Jez bit back a grin.
Tanya had always been good at looking at you like she could murder you seventeen different ways before you realized you were dead. Jez had been on the receiving end of that look enough times to thoroughly appreciate it. And the way she’d made up her face and arranged her clothes—she didn’t look particularly seductive, except in the sense that the almost-palpable air of danger she carried with her was seductive, but there was something about the way she stood, watching the two boyeviki, that was unutterably compelling. In the way that a plains-cat crouched in the long grass watching a helpless newborn marsh-gritha was compelling, but still …
Tanya turned her thoughtful gaze on the man, and Jez saw his adam’s apple jump as he swallowed nervously.
Radic grinned at Jez, and she grinned back.
Honestly, this was spectacular.
“You say she’s … quite popular?” asked the woman, the sharpness in her tone doing nothing to conceal her sudden nervousness.
“Of course,” Masha murmured. “She’s perhaps the most popular entertainer I have. As I said, I do tend to attract clients who are on the more adventurous side.”
“And she—she’s restrained, correct?”
Masha chuckled in faint amusement. “Of course. If she wasn’t, I assume not a single person in this lobby would be alive right now. Although she’s very good at working within constraints. I have not had an unsatisfied customer yet.” She paused. “At least, the ones who were still able to speak were all complimentary. My understanding is that two are still recovering in the medical facility here. We’ve only lost one. And I’m fairly certain the one she just came from will walk again, with proper treatment.”
The boyeviki looked at each other.
“I’ve changed my mind. I want the other instead,” said the man quickly.
Masha shook her head. “I’m sorry. House policy, as I explained. We’re extremely busy, as I told you. But if you try her and don’t like her, I promise you a full refund.”
The woman made an obvious effort to steel herself. “And she’s good for anything?”
Masha gave a small smile. “As I said, this isn’t a house with disposable entertainment. But within those constraints, yes. Do take care of her, please, she’s very expensive.” She paused, glancing down at her com. “I’ve booked you into room 223.”
“Very well,” said the woman, turning. “Come on, you.” She jerked her head at Tanya. Her companion fell into step beside her, and Masha said in a low voice that, even over the com, was obviously just loud enough to be overheard without sounding intentional, “We’ve talked about this. Please avoid killing them. It reflects poorly on the house.”
Tanya gave a brief nod, and Jez caught the glint of amusement in her face as she turned to follow the boyeviki up the stairs.
There were a few moments of silence as they ascended, and then over the com on Tanya’s wrist, they heard the room door click shut.
“Well,” said Radic into his com, “you want to take bets on who needs the emergency alarm first, Tanya or the boyeviki?”
“Believe me, no one will take you up on that,” said Ysbel, her voice low and amused. “I know my Tanya. They’ll be begging for their lives before she has time to do anything other than look at them.”
“I’d put my bet at—” Lev paused a moment, as if calculating something. “Five standard minutes.”
“You think?” asked Radic. “You didn’t see them when Jez was bringing them through the gambling hall. I give them two minutes at the most.”
“Possibly,” said Lev. “However, I’m taking into account the fact that they’ll probably be too frozen with fear to move for at least four and a half minutes.”
In total, it was three standard minutes fifty-two seconds before the boyeviki emerged from the room, their expressions those of people who’ve stared death in the face.
“Your house is lovely, but I believe we’ll be checking out,” said the woman, in a tone that did not invite discussion.
The man appeared almost catatonic.
Masha raised an eyebrow. “Are you certain? I’m sure I have other things here I could tempt you with, if you’d just—”
“I said, we’re checking out,” said the woman tersely.
“Very well,” Masha murmured. “I do hope you’ll recommend us to your friends.”
The boyeviki didn’t bother to answer, just handed in their key chips, collected their credit chips, and left.
After the door had closed behind them, Jez began to count slowly. She’d reached eighty-seven before Tae’s voice came over the com.
“They’re gone. I’m tracking them, but they’re halfway back to the pleasure district, driving like the seventeen demons themselves are chasing them, so I think we’re safe.”
Jez turned to meet Radic’s gaze, and both of them burst into laughter. Over the coms she could hear Ysbel chuckling as well, and Lev’s quiet sounds of amusement.
“You can stop pretending to cheat each other,” Radic called back into the gambling hall. “Laslo, do you even know how to play three blind beggars? You had seven tokens in your hand the whole time.”
The man lounging on the bench in the cage sat up, hitting the button on his wrist com to pop the cuffs free and pulling his robe closer around him, and the customer and the entertainer who’d been passed out on the couch sat up as well, shifting away to give each other space and blinking the eyedrops from their eyes.
“Well,” said Masha, looking around as the actors from outside trickled in, and Lev and Tae appeared on the staircase. “It appears our first outing has been a success.”
“What I’d like to know is what exactly you did to those boyeviki,” said Ivan wryly, glancing at Tanya, who’d come to stand beside the counter. She gave him a small smile.
“I don’t know what Jez did to prep them. But—” she shrugged. “By the time I’d pulled the first gutting knife from my boot, I thought they were both going to faint. I was worried at first that I’d be locked in there for half a standard hour before they got up the nerve to try to get away from me.”
Ivan chuckled, and Jez snorted.
“Well, could have told you those bastards had a pretty good sense of self-preservation,” she drawled. “Bet they’ll give Grigory the most glowing report they can dream up, just to avoid being sent back here again.”
Masha held up a hand, although she couldn’t hide her faint smile. “Good work, everyone. But we won’t know if we were successful until we know Grigory’s reaction. Tae, I assume you’ll let us know if another boyevik is being sent here?”
Tae nodded, without looking at her.
“Good. Then I suggest we close this down for the day.”
Jez caught Lev’s eye across the room and raised her eyebrow, and he picked his way through the crowd over to her.
“Jez. You did well,” he said when he reached her, and there was a genuine warmth to his tone she hadn’t expected.
She smiled at him. “Yeah? Well you did pretty good yourself, you and Tae.” She paused. “So. Now what?”
Lev glanced down at the com on
his wrist. “I’ve been monitoring the account Tae set up in Masha’s name. So—” he looked up and gave a faint shrug, with just the hint of tension in it. “Assuming that Zhenya told Grigory what we wanted them to, and assuming Grigory came to the conclusion that we expected, and assuming the boyeviki fell for our act—we wait, and see if he takes the bait.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LEV TURNED RESTLESSLY in his bed, staring up at the ceiling.
It was later than he wanted to think about. He’d found some excuse or another for staying up, checking his com surreptitiously every few standard minutes.
Grigory’s boyeviki hadn’t returned since they’d left early that afternoon, and Tae hadn’t been able to detect any chatter over the com lines that Grigory was sending more. It wasn’t confirmation, of course, but it likely meant that, one way or another, Grigory had come to a decision. Either he’d had seen through their ploy, or he’d been taken in by it.
Lev squeezed his eyes closed, suddenly, unaccountably, wishing for his cot on the Ungovernable, the slight, barely-perceptible hum of the ship underneath him, the comfortable knowledge of exactly where each other member of the crew was.
He smiled wryly to himself.
Jez would laugh her head off to hear him, of all people, say that.
Jez—
Damn it. He wasn’t going to think about this, he wasn’t ready to think about this, damn it to hell—
But the thought had already, somehow, wormed through his defences, and now it flooded over him, hot and heavy and suffocating.
Jez. Her swaggering walk, the careless way she tipped back her chair when they gathered to discuss plans, balancing it on two legs as easily as if it were built that way. The sick expression he’d seen on her face whenever she glanced in the direction of the cage in the middle of the floor. She didn’t lie awake in the middle of the night deciding if she was going to be a good person or not, and pondering what that meant. She swore, and cheated, and got into fights, and said the most outrageous things, and she couldn’t stop herself from being a good person even if she tried.
And he loved her.
Damn everything, he loved her, he’d loved her since he’d first caught a glimpse of who she was, under the snark and the insults and the bravado.
And it might actually kill him.
He sat up, shoving his blankets off.
Ysbel said it would get better. And he had no idea whether she was right or how she’d actually know, considering she was married to the woman she’d loved her entire life, but he was clinging on to her statement like a man drifting in space clinging to his oxygen line.
It would get better. Somehow it would get better, and he would survive this. His heart would stop feeling like it had been ripped from his damn chest, leaving a pulsing wound that couldn’t really heal. Because it wasn’t possible for something to hurt this much forever.
He leaned back and breathed in deeply, once, then again, then again.
He remembered the look on her face when she’d agreed to his tentative offer of friendship. The sudden, undisguised relief, the spark of happiness in her expression that he hadn’t seen there for far too long, at least not while she was looking at him. The way she’d looked at him today, when he complimented her on her work, the slight shock, quickly concealed. The way they’d laughed, breathless and leaning on each other for support, outside the club in Prasvishoni, before they’d turned and run for their lives. The silent gratitude in her face when he defended her in front of the others.
She honestly hadn’t believed he’d do that.
Yes, he loved her, at least, he’d always told himself he had. But—well, the truth was, he’d been an idiot the whole time. Too caught up in his own damn self-importance to wonder what it was like for her. Too quick to condemn every little failing and roll his eyes at every mistake, and use his care for her as a bludgeon, an excuse to tell her what to do and be upset with her if she didn’t do it.
The thought made him feel slightly ill. He’d always managed to shove it away before, but now, in the middle of the night, when there wasn’t any noise to block out his thoughts, he couldn’t seem to stop it.
But—maybe Ysbel was right after all. Maybe that’s what she’d meant. Because for the first time in a long time, Jez seemed happy to be around him. She didn’t flinch unconsciously when he entered the room, tense when she met his eyes. And as much as the empty ache in his chest hurt, so badly he thought he might drown in it—there was something about seeing that spark in her again, that careless grin, the familiar ease of being in her company that made it bearable.
He tipped his head back against the wall and ran his hands over his face.
He’d make it through this somehow. Because maybe he was still the same selfish bastard he’d been months ago. But one thing, at least, had changed.
He wanted Jez happy.
Even if it bloody killed him, and it honestly might, he wanted her happy, and he’d damn well learn how to be a decent friend, even if he couldn’t be a decent anything else. He’d somehow learn how to be a decent person, whatever that meant.
He closed his eyes for a while, listening to the silence around him, letting his heart beat slow back to its usual pattern. He’d been clenching his hands so tightly that his palms stung where his fingernails had dug into them.
He almost didn’t hear the small ting of a notification coming through on his com, his eyes half-closed, his thoughts far away. And then he did, and he jerked upright, pulling up the holoscreen.
He stared at the notification, scarcely daring to breathe, then tapped it to open a screen.
For a long while, he just looked at it, trying to be sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.
And then, slowly, he cupped his hand over his com. His heart felt like it would beat its way out of his ribcage.
He tapped over to a private line. “Tae,” he whispered.
For a moment there was no answer, then Tae’s groggy voice came over the com.
“Lev? What’s wrong?”
“Tae,” he said. He must sound dazed—he felt dazed, honestly.
Because he hadn’t honestly believed they’d actually pull this off.
“I just got a notification from the account you set. Grigory’s transferred in a pledge. I followed it through, and it looks like he’s leveraged his pleasure houses. He’s transferring in the full amount we said that Masha needs to fund this.”
There was a long moment of silence on the other end of the com.
“You’re—certain?” asked Tae, sounding much more awake. “He pledged the whole amount?”
“It won’t come through until he gets the funds secured against the houses. But—yes. The entire amount. He took the bait.”
There was a long sigh of relief through the com. “I—” said Tae, then paused, and Lev could almost see him shaking his head, that faint, disbelieving smile on his face, like he was pretty sure he was dreaming but he wasn’t certain he wanted to wake up. “I guess we’d better tell Masha,” he said at last, and this time Lev could hear the smile in his voice. “We can probably wait until morning to tell the others, but she’ll want to know.”
“I’ll talk to her,” said Lev. He was grinning himself, and he doubted he could have stopped it if he wanted to. He hadn’t realized how much strain he’d been under until it was suddenly released, and he felt like he was floating. “You did it, Tae. Not that I should have worried—you always pull off the impossible.”
“We did it, you mean,” said Tae. He paused a moment. “Thanks, Lev.”
Lev laughed softly. “Go back to bed, if you can. But I thought you might want to know right away.”
“I did. Not sure I’ll be able to sleep now, but—” Tae’s voice choked slightly.
“It’s OK,” said Lev softly. “Caz and Peti are safe. At least for now, at least until we have to deal with next steps, they’re in the clear.”
“I know,” said Tae, clearing his throat. “I know.”
Lev tapped off the com and leaned his head against the wall, eyes closed, letting the rush of relief flood over him.
They might just pull this off after all. It was just possible they’d pull this off, and they’d all survive it after all.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“—AND HONESTLY, YOU should have seen their faces when Tanya turned to look at them,” Jez was saying through a mouthful of food. “I thought they’d actually pass out.”
Tae caught Ivan’s eye and smiled slightly. The festive atmosphere had lasted all through the morning, and would probably last the rest of the day at least. Grigory had taken the bait, and now it was just a matter of keeping up the facade until the money transfer came through.
He still felt light with relief.
Something dinged on his com, and he sighed. He’d been getting calls all morning from people who had been in the back and wanted to watch the video footage from the lobby again.
It dinged again, and he shook his head, swallowing down the last bite of his breakfast. They might be finished, but he wasn’t, because an account like the one Masha had wanted him to set up needed constant maintenance if it was going to look genuine.
“Never a quiet moment,” said Ivan with an amused shake of his head, and Tae glanced down at his com as it dinged a third time.
It took a moment for his brain to process what he was seeing.
And then he felt like he’d forgotten how to breathe.
“Tae?”
He barely heard Ivan’s voice, the sudden concern in it.
He closed his eyes for a moment and drew in a long breath. Then he stood.
Whatever the expression on his face, it must have been bad, because the noise and laughter faded as the others in the breakfast room turned to look at him.
“Everyone back in costume,” he said quietly. “I just got a message from Jez’s gangster friends. Grigory’s sent another group, and they’ll be here in twenty minutes.”
There was a moment of shocked silence. “Are you sure—” someone began.
Jez turned to scowl at the speaker. “Listen, tech-head says something’s happening, it’s damn well happening. Get moving.” She stood. “Come on Radic, you bastard, we’ve got work to do.”