by Kit Rocha
Ashwin was an expensive, malfunctioning asset. Kora's fear and pain would be an acceptable price if she provided a solution.
“I can't,” he forced out. “There's too much at stake.”
Samson's eyes narrowed. “Is this about her?”
His friend's hands were still relaxed, but close to his weapon. If this went wrong, Ashwin would have to move fast. “Yes.”
The word erased the last of Samson's easy demeanor. “Are you the reason she's missing?”
“No.” That was the truth—Kora had abandoned her home and her life on her own. “And I don't know where she is.”
Samson stared at him for several long moments, his gaze searching and sharp. Finally, he nodded, then gestured to the items in Ashwin's hand. “If you're determined to do this, you will. But I can't let you do it alone.”
Gratitude was an alien sensation. Few things in his life had mattered enough to provoke it. But when he handed the drugs and syringe to Samson, it spilled through him, the sweetness of relief mixed with the sharp tartness of dependency.
He didn't like needing other people.
Samson fell in beside him as he walked to the third door on the right. The exam room was clean and sterile, identical on the surface to the others and the ones in the city. But this was the one they always sent Makhai soldiers to.
There was a panic button near the door, another on the edge of the counter, and a third under the cabinet where a retinal scan allowed access to the strongest sedatives on the Base. Ashwin had once had a nurse apologize to him for their prominence, as if hiding them would be preferable. As if the Makhai soldiers wouldn't still know they were there.
As if they had the kinds of feelings that could be wounded.
Ashwin rolled up his sleeve and slid onto the exam table. If he closed his eyes, he'd see her against the backs of his eyelids. Blonde hair swept up into a messy ponytail. Her lab coat clean and so white, the kind of white that didn't last in the sectors unless you were rich enough to pay for expensive soap.
She'd sutured lacerations and administered tests and removed bullets from Ashwin's body in this room. She'd run her gloved hands over him, searching for bruised ribs and broken bones and internal injuries, oblivious to the effort it took for him not to lean in, bury his face against her neck, and inhale.
She'd teased him. She'd told him jokes, bizarre, inexplicable ones that sent him to the Base's reference library to puzzle out the logic behind them. He'd spent three solid weeks researching knock-knock jokes after she'd tried to tell him one, just in case she did it again.
Every part of this room sparked memories. A hundred times she'd put him back together. A hundred times she'd stirred something in him—not something safe like interest or affection or the chemical lie humans called love. It came from the parts of him the Base hadn't dared dig out, the primal survival instincts they'd dialed up so, so high.
Ashwin thrust out his arm, closed his eyes, and let the memories flood him. Kora seeped into his cells, filled him with the driving urge to tear through the wall and find her, claim her, keep her—
It swelled until it was all he could feel, until the edge of the metal exam table bent under the grip of his free hand. “Do it.”
“Ashwin…”
“Now.”
Fire flooded his veins. Torment chased after it. His back spasmed, and he ground his teeth together, because he couldn't scream, he couldn't get caught—
Kora, touching a bruise on his chest, her brow furrowed.
Acid in his blood.
Kora, her expression serious as she violated protocol and used med-gel to ease his pain, because she couldn't stand to see him hurting.
The acid burned through his veins. Ate away at his flesh.
Kora.
Pain.
Kora.
Agony.
It went on and on until he couldn't separate the two, until his internal organs felt vaporized and his bones felt crushed into pebbles. Kora and pain and Kora and pain—
Ashwin pushed his thoughts of her away and let the fire consume him.
Chapter Nine
Hawk looked at the limo idling in the alley behind the Broken Circle and then down at his clothes. He'd donned his best pair of jeans—dark denim with no rips—and had tucked in his black T-shirt. His boots were mostly clean, his belt buckle was shiny, and his leather jacket had only a few scuffs.
He'd felt damn dressed up until Jeni appeared in a white gown with a plunging neckline and a slit up the side that revealed her entire right leg with every step. And now there was a fucking limousine pulled up next to the bar, and he honest to God hadn't even known they existed outside of the city. “You said we were meeting your friend for dinner.”
She draped her sheer wrap over one arm. “We are.”
“Doesn't she live about six blocks away?”
Jeni lifted one foot, displaying a black suede shoe with four-inch heels. “You gonna make me walk it in these?”
The shoes were impractical as fuck, barely more than sandals balanced on tiny little spike heels. But the leather straps that crisscrossed her skin and looped around her ankles were so hot that he could think of a few things he'd like to see her doing in them.
Walking didn't rate high on the list, though.
He reached for the door, but the driver beat him to it, pulling it wide in silence. Jeni slipped into the car as if being chauffeured by stone-faced men in suits was nothing unusual, leaving Hawk to follow her awkwardly.
Inside were two bench seats facing each other, with plenty of room to stretch out his legs and a little divider between the back and the front that offered at least the illusion of privacy. He was probably the first person to park a denim-clad ass on the pristine leather seats since before the Flares. “How long have you known Gia?”
Jeni crossed her legs, leaving them both bare nearly to the hip. “Almost eight years. I met her fairly soon after I left the city.”
The bared skin was entrancing, but not as much as the peek at her past. Plenty of people in the sectors had pasts so ugly that asking about them was dangerous, especially people from Eden. Hawk slid his hand onto her knee and stroked his thumb over her skin. “How did you come to leave?”
“I just...walked out.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “Does that sound ridiculous? I wasn't in trouble. Didn't get kicked out. But I didn't like who I was turning into, so I split.”
It sounded a lot of things—decent, honest, brave—but not ridiculous. “Who were you turning into?”
“My mother,” she said softly. “You could call her a professional husband-hunter, I guess. Always on the lookout for an upgrade.” She brushed her hair behind her ear and sighed. “It worked for her, but I decided that if I was going to whore myself, I was at least going to be real about it.”
“Seems like your way would be easier,” he murmured. “A job to pay the bills instead of a life you're stuck living.”
“I've been a lot of things, but never trapped.” Jeni laced her fingers together with his. “I'm glad you understand that. I wasn't sure you did at first.”
He squeezed her hand. “You mean because of your job?”
“Because of the assumptions people have made about it.” Her eyes met his. “They thought I'd only be selling my body if I was desperate or abused or brainwashed. That I needed to be rescued from my horrible fate. It was so fucking backwards. They could come to me for sex, guilt free, but there had to be something wrong with me for being willing to provide it? Fuck that.”
He'd been through all the sectors over his years with Shipp. He'd been to Three, where if the pimps didn't stab you, the dancers would. He'd been to Eight, where they managed prostitution with the same orderly, businesslike efficiency as any of their factories. He'd seen the drug dealers in Five with their drugged-up mistresses, and he'd seen the elegant, delicate flowers of Sector Two, whose gilded cages came equipped with impenetrable locks.
People bought and sold sex in a million different ways, but i
t always seemed to come with baggage. Guilt and shame and sometimes hate—hate directed at themselves for needing something so basic, hate directed at the men and women who provided it for a fee.
Maybe it was the only thing Six and Seven had gotten half right. Compared to the dawn-to-dusk manual labor on remote farms, life in the brothels that lined the edge of the warehouse district was downright posh. The farmers had good reason to support and protect the people willing to barter for sex. It kept their unmarried sons satisfied—and away from all their nubile young stepmothers.
“It's different in Sector Six.” He felt a wry smile tug at his lips. “You don't rescue girls from the brothels there. Hell, women run away from the farms to try and get jobs in them.”
“Based on what you told me about most of the farms? I'm not remotely surprised.”
“One girl told me she was gonna be on her back either way, but at least she got paid for whoring and didn't have to have kids unless she wanted them.”
“Not always an easy life,” Jeni agreed, “but better than some.”
She looked so serious that he cupped her cheek. “I want to protect you, not save you. As for the rest... I have some jealousy in me, Jeni. I've got a lot of things that aren't so civilized going on. But—”
“No one else is you.” She laid her hand on his thigh and leaned in until she was almost close enough to kiss. “And you're the one I want. Remember that.”
Oh, those words felt good. So good that he dropped his hand back to her bare leg and stroked his fingers up the inside of her thigh. “You didn't let me finish. I was gonna say jealousy can't cut so deep when you stop fighting all those uncivilized things and embrace them.”
“That's all you have to do?” she whispered. “Just let go?”
He rubbed his thumb in a slow circle. Just a little higher and he'd be touching her pussy—and possibly defiling the back of Gia's limo.
Probably not the first time it had happened.
He brushed his lips over hers and smiled. “Knowing you're mine helps.”
Her lips parted—and so did her legs. “Hawk…”
The car coasted to a stop. The driver's door creaked open. Jeni didn't jerk away, so Hawk stayed right where he was, sliding his thumb back and forth as her lips trembled against his.
The door next to him opened, and Jeni smiled. “Come on.” The words feathered over his mouth. “I bet Gia's dying to meet you.”
At this point, he was pretty fucking curious about her, too.
Hawk eased away from Jeni and slid from the car. The driver was holding the door but staring straight ahead, as quietly functional as a piece of furniture. Hawk reached out to help Jeni from the car, then let her draw him toward the ornate front door of the sprawling brick building.
The man who opened the door was huge, bigger than any of the O'Kanes, and dressed in a fucking tuxedo, of all things. He bowed his head wordlessly and ushered them into—
Actually, Hawk didn't know what to call the room they were waved into. It didn't seem to have any purpose short of giving new guests a place to stand while they gawked. And there was plenty to gawk at. The stone floors were covered with thick, woven rugs. A goddamn chandelier hung above his head, the glittering light refracting off crystals in a dizzying waste of electricity, considering the current power crisis.
A staircase curved toward a balcony that lined the second floor. Gilded mirrors sparkled on the walls next to art that looked fucking expensive, and the spaces in between doors held potted plants and vases on carved wooden stands.
Hawk was pretty sure his mouth was hanging open.
“Jeni, darling.” A tall, gorgeous brunette who had to be Gia stepped through one of the doors, pausing as if she knew that the carved doorway framed her like another piece of art. Her crimson skirt was slit just as high as Jeni's, but the top of her dress was a leather corset that looked more like armor, and even in heels damn near as tall as Jeni's, somehow she managed to cross the room in a swaying prowl.
She stopped in front of Jeni and reached up to stroke the leather wrapped around her throat. Her fingertips lingered over the silver tree, and Hawk felt a swell of entirely uncivilized satisfaction as Gia stroked the symbol that made Jeni his.
“So it's true,” Gia murmured. “Congratulations, love.”
“It's true.” Jeni framed her friend's face with both hands as a brilliant smile curved her lips. “It's good to see you.”
“You too, sweetheart. We've missed you.” Gia brushed a quick kiss to Jeni's lips before turning to study Hawk. Her gaze started with his face and drifted down with a level of casual, shameless appraisal that brought heat to Hawk's cheeks. When her gaze slid back up, she noticed—and laughed. “Oh, bless you, Jeni. He blushes.”
She sounded so delighted, Hawk resolved himself to an evening of being mildly scandalized. He might be out of his depth here, but Jeni seemed right at home—and that gave him an opportunity to see a new side of her.
Jeni, casually glamorous. Maybe even Jeni as she'd been before she left Eden.
Gia was still watching him like she was waiting for him to melt into the floor from embarrassment. He summoned a challenging stare instead—maybe not Bren at his most intimidating, but at least Jasper on a good day. “I only blush when people are staring at me like I'm for dinner.”
Gia's perfectly arched eyebrows went up. “You should warn him not to tempt me.”
“He can handle you.” Jeni dropped one hand to the small of his back, stroking lightly through his shirt. “Hawk, this is Gia. She grew up with Ace and Jared, so she had to get scrappy.”
Hawk didn't know what the proper greeting was when you were meeting someone who had diamonds dripping from her ears. Thrusting out his hand seemed like the safest bet. “Nice to meet you, Gia.”
She clasped his hand, and even though she had smooth skin and slender fingers, her grip was hard enough to feel like a test—or a challenge. “Welcome to my home.”
Oh, there were layers to this one. The word my rolled off her tongue like it was her favorite word in the whole goddamn language. She'd met him covered with jewels and a dress that may as well have been a weapon. This was her territory, the place where she ruled as undisputed queen…
And Jeni had once been one of the subjects kneeling at her feet.
Hawk tightened his grip just a little, to see what she'd do. The corner of her mouth twitched upwards, and she glanced at Jeni. “I think you've found a diamond in the rough, darling.”
“My diamond,” Jeni emphasized with rueful amusement. “Are we having dinner on the terrace tonight?”
“I thought one of the upstairs alcoves might be cozier.” Gia tilted her head toward the stairs. Hawk released her and settled his hand at the small of Jeni's back, ignoring the way Gia smiled at the gesture before turning to lead them upstairs. “Dinner should be ready. The cook made all your favorites.”
Her heels clicked on the hardwood as she started up. “She didn't.”
“Mmm. She must have bribed someone to get salmon on such short notice.” Gia laughed softly. “She wouldn't even give me the full menu, so I expect she bribed a lot of someones.”
The cozier room Gia had mentioned turned out to be almost as big as the warehouse where the O'Kanes held their fight nights. Another chandelier graced the high ceiling, shining down on the couches and circular ottomans scattered throughout the room, along with a huge, polished piano that gleamed in the glittering light.
Two walls were lined with mirrors, creating the impression that the room went on forever. The other two walls were inset with alcoves, all with the curtains drawn back. Some held tables or seating arrangements, and others had only plush cushions and pillows scattered on their carpeted floors.
All the leather and crystal and art in the world couldn't hide the fact that it was a party room, just like the one Dallas presided over from a sagging leather couch. A room where party meant debauchery of the highest order.
Gia led them to one of the alcoves with a
sleek black leather booth that curved in a half circle around a table sporting candles, wineglasses, and three elaborate place settings.
Jeni slid onto the leather and moved over, then patted the seat beside her. “It's not as sinful as it looks.” she murmured. “It's just easier to have a conversation here than at the monstrous table that seats forty-eight.”
It was intimate, though. The angle hid the back of the booth from the rest of the room unless you were right in front of it, and a flick of the wrist could swing the curtain into place and remove even that visibility. And the shadows were deep enough that Gia wouldn't see him slip his hand under the table to squeeze Jeni's knee lightly. “Nothing wrong with sinful, though.”
She smiled and unfolded her napkin into her lap, lingering to brush his hand.
Gia sat across from Hawk and reached for the bottle of wine chilling in a bucket in the middle of the table. “I hope you don't mind that I had them keep things simple tonight, Hawk. I wanted a chance to talk without servers coming in and out endlessly, but that means a simple affair. We'll have to do for ourselves.”
He'd wager money that his idea of simple and hers weren't even within shouting distance of one another. “I grew up on a farm in Sector Six. Doing for myself is pretty much the status quo.”
“A farm boy. Good Lord.” Gia filled Jeni's glass. “Now I think you and Ace are just competing to ruin my life.”
Jeni raised one eyebrow. “Don't tell me you've run through all the pretty, wide-eyed boys in the sector already.”
“It's not like there were that many to start with.” Gia leaned across the table to pour wine into the glass in front of Hawk. “What do you think?”
None of his coping strategies for dealing with the O'Kane women were going to work on Gia. She wasn't a pestering younger sister or a friend. She was a wolf, sizing him up to see if he was a respected adversary or prey.
Not so different from how most of the men in the gang had treated him during those first weeks. So he told her the same thing he would have told Ace. “I'm just glad you think I'm pretty.”