by Vivian Arend
Lex eyed her mildly. “It’s catching up with you, huh?”
Mia didn’t know if Lex was talking about the past or that morning, but her answer was the same either way. “Yes.”
“Leaving feels like such a final thing, and then you find out it’s only the first step.” She sighed. “Sucker punch.”
“I didn’t think he’d come after me,” she admitted, and because Lex would understand, she let her frustration creep into her voice. “I know better. Of course he came after me. It was never about whether or not he valued me. I let him hurt me, and then I let that pain make me stupid.”
Lex waved that away. “Vaughn’s not your problem now. He comes here again, he gets his ass kicked—or worse. But if Cerys shows up...”
“Five years.” Even saying it out loud made Mia twist her fingers together. One year of patron fees for an Orchid could support a poor family in the sectors eighteen months or more. Even the new, ridiculously extravagant weekly salary Ford had insisted on giving her would barely chip away at how much she’d owe. “She’ll demand it all, won’t she?”
“At the very least.” Lex rolled her eyes. “And then she’ll find a way to pad the amount, because that’s the kind of mercenary bitch she is.”
Mia didn’t doubt it. Every house in Sector Two fed its girls on the fantasy of accomplished initiates who had served out the necessary years to repay their training before going on to become fabulously wealthy. After all, a girl who made it that far received a quarter of her patronage fee—minus expenses—every year until she retired.
Minus expenses. Mia had no doubt that Cerys could pull out a record of every time she’d visited the spa during her year with Vaughn. The costs would be tallied with damning results. A hundred dollars for a bar of soap. Two hundred for a manicure. Fifty dollars for a glass of lemonade.
Any woman who’d ever retired wealthy in Sector Two had been allowed to do so, because someone had to keep the dream alive.
“I can’t tell Ford,” Mia said quietly. “He’ll try to pay it. Or he’ll give me another ridiculous raise.”
“Mmm. And I’d lend it to you, but if I were you? It’d feel a little too much like trading one owner for another.”
The anxiety twisting her guts into knots tightened into an agony of guilt, because Lex had given her so much already, and it wasn’t fair to feel wary. But Lex didn’t look upset. She looked like she understood, and all of that tension unraveled so fast, Mia slumped back in her chair.
“I know you wouldn’t mean it like that,” she said, meeting Lex’s eyes. “But that’s what we were trained to appreciate, isn’t it? The balance of power.”
“Without a doubt.” Lex lifted one eyebrow. “I do know one person who has that kind of money who might be willing to help out and wouldn’t make your new life awkward.”
“An O’Kane?”
“Newly minted,” Lex confirmed. “You know Jade, right?”
A question with layers. Jade was the one who had gotten Mia the job with the O’Kanes, so Lex must know they were acquainted. But asking gave Mia a graceful exit, a way to demure without rejecting an offer. All she had to say was not very well and the conversation would move on.
“I know her,” she said instead. “She helped me when I first came to Sector Four. Bought me some clothes and stayed with me while I visited the doctor. But this is so much more to ask...”
“It is,” Lex agreed. “But consider that it might not just be something you need. It might be something Jade needs, too.”
Mia could see that. Cerys had betrayed Jade on a fundamental level, shattering the one bond of trust that supported the fragile illusion of Sector Two. We’re in this together was the lie they told with smiles and grand promises, but Jade was the reality. She’d climbed higher than any other woman in Two, and all Cerys had cared about was using her hard, using her up.
Which answered why, but not how. “If she’s willing, I’d be grateful. But are you sure she can afford it?”
Lex chuckled. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
No details, but Mia supposed she should have expected that Lex wouldn’t share secrets. If things went well, someday Mia might know Jade well enough to ask how she’d escaped from Sector Two with that kind of wealth. For now she’d just be grateful. “I don’t want to wait for Cerys to come after me. I need this to be over.”
“Because you can’t have it hanging over your head, or because Ford won’t let it be? Because I can make him, you know.”
“It wouldn’t help, because I’ve already fucked him.” The words spilled out, blunt and defensive, and Mia didn’t let them hang there, shaming her. She didn’t retreat. “And I want to do it again, and I can’t. Not like this.”
Lex regarded her thoughtfully. “Fair enough. It’s hard to move forward when the past is sitting on your shoulders, after all.”
Fair enough. No recriminations, no disapproval. Mia rubbed her palms against her legs as if she could scrub away the feeling that she deserved it. “I know I’m being reckless. He’s still an O’Kane, and I’m not. And I work for him. He still has all of the power.”
“With one difference.” Lex leaned back in her chair and swiveled it gently, left to right. “If you said no, Ford would respect that, and so would we.”
Ford would respect her no. If she’d had any doubts about that, she never would have touched him to begin with. But that wouldn’t make him eager to sit across a desk from her day after day if things went wrong.
It all came down to trust and if the way he made her feel was worth the risk. It was something she’d have to figure out soon.
As soon as she’d shaken free of the past.
Jasper McCray was nothing like Mia had imagined.
Dallas’s second-in-command was a large, serious man who didn’t need to rely on subtle symbols of power to look intimidating. His size and strength alone conveyed a warning. His full beard, endless tattoos, and battered leather vest conveyed something else. Surrounded by the clean-shaven, carefully tailored men of Sector Two, Jas looked like the only man who wasn’t trying too hard.
She’d expected all of that. He was the dangerous criminal who’d lured a councilman’s daughter into an illicit affair, after all. No man overly worried about reprisals would have taken up with Noelle Cunningham. But the gentleness under all that raw danger was a seductive flame in the middle of a frozen winter. Mia could see why a terrified city girl had flung herself at this man and held on for dear life.
No one within the circle of Jasper McCray’s protection had to worry about mundane threats, and having him at her back as they waited for Cerys was the only thing keeping Mia’s nerves from blooming into outright panic.
“You’re gonna be okay,” he said gruffly. “It’s a simple transaction. We’ll be out of here in no time.”
Mia tried for a smile. It tugged at her barely healed lip, and she hated that. It would have been smarter to wait a day, until med-gel and time had given her a chance to face Cerys with all her masks in place.
It would be harder like this, with all of her vulnerabilities on display. But it would be over. “Thank you for coming with me.”
“Hey, no problem. Whatever you need.”
The door in front of them opened, and Mia barely kept from reaching for Jasper’s hand. But it wasn’t Cerys. Instead, a familiar blonde stepped out of Cerys’s office.
Susi had been a friend. A sister. Mia’s heart thumped hard when the other woman caught sight of her. Susi’s eyes widened. Relief flickered across her face, and pleasure, and Mia opened her mouth to greet her—
Too late. Susi’s gaze had jumped to Jas. To his wrists, and the O’Kane tattoos curled around them, as legendary as Dallas O’Kane himself. The blood drained from Susi’s face. Fear filled her big blue eyes.
A few months ago, Mia might have had the same reaction. She’d been trained as surely as Susi, taught to fear Sector Four, to fear the O’Kanes and everything they stood for. Cerys took few chances now, grinding the fear deep into
every girl who might look at her and look at Lex and see salvation.
Susi had never had a patron. She’d never seen the truth beneath the pretty lies, or had any reason to doubt that the O’Kanes were the real monsters.
Susi still believed in the dream.
With a last, regretful look at Mia, she caught up her robes and hurried away, leaving Mia cold and sad and—for one moment—totally alone.
Jasper swore softly, the sound almost drowned out by the mellifluous chime that filled the room.
Mia was on her feet before she realized she had moved, and she hated it. Hated that there were instincts buried so deep she might not realize they were there until Cerys jerked the leash. She might spend months digging them out, one by one. She might spend years.
But she’d do it. All she had to do was walk into that office and buy her freedom.
Squaring her shoulders, Mia tightened her grip on the envelope holding a fortune in credits and strode into Cerys’s domain for the last time.
The woman sat behind her wide desk, impeccably dressed, every lock of hair arranged artfully around her shoulders. “Mia. It’s good to see you.”
The chair set on the opposite side of the desk was shorter than Cerys’s. Not so much the average person would notice, but sitting in it would make her feel small. She couldn’t have this conversation with Cerys looming over her.
So she remained standing, consciously relaxing her hands until the envelope rested lightly between her fingers. No outward show of anxiety. No unnecessary signs of weakness. No polite chit-chat before getting to the point. “You know I’m here to pay off my training debt. I calculated my expenses. I have the credits.”
Cerys blinked at her before reaching for the slender cigarette already burning on her desk. She lifted its slim black holder to her lips and paused. “I’m listening.”
“Vaughn wasn’t concerned with my safety.” She let an edge creep into her voice. “If you care about protecting your girls, even a little, you won’t trust him with another Orchid.”
“I’ve spoken with him. He has no interest in taking on responsibility for another Orchid.” One corner of Cerys’s perfectly painted mouth tipped up. “You saw to that. I referred him to Rose House.”
An empty victory, diverting Vaughn’s cruelty from women trained to handle it to women taught to endure it. Jade had always been the exception that proved the rule when it came to Rose House—an initiate who could handle and endure. Too many of the other girls would simply submit in truth, letting Vaughn chip away at their sense of self-worth until they broke under the pain.
Mia should have let Ford kill the bastard.
The rage creeping under her skin made it harder to stay calm. “How much? How much so I can walk away?”
Cerys sighed. “Are you certain you want to?”
“What possible alternative could you offer?”
“You could come back. Stay, and help train the girls.”
An offer that should have turned her stomach, but Cerys was clever. Her traps came in layers, the kind you baited yourself. Train the girls could so easily become warn the girls, and for one reckless moment, Mia considered it. She could stay here, fomenting quiet, subversive rebellion. She could start more whispers, chip away at the dream Cerys was peddling. Feed the dream Lex represented.
Maybe that’s what Jade had been planning before Cerys agreed to start drugging her.
She held up the envelope. “I’m certain. Tell me how much you want.”
The woman’s dark gaze dropped to the heavy envelope, but she only sat back with a mild shrug. “Nothing. You’re free to go.”
Nothing in life was that easy. Mia studied Cerys’s face, struggling to find the trap, but she couldn’t even find the hint of triumph that would mean it had already snapped shut around her. The only possibility that made any sense was that this was a snub, a way of Cerys reinforcing one last time how very little Mia was worth...
The woman watching her with that easy, unbothered gaze hadn’t seized control of a sector by making petty, financially stupid decisions out of spite. She might let Mia walk away, but it wouldn’t be freedom. “I don’t want to go until my debt is clear.”
“I forgive it.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“And why not?”
Because Cerys didn’t forgive debts, unless someone else—
Her stomach flipped. The envelope almost slipped through her fingers, and she tightened them until the edges crumpled in. “Who? Who paid you?”
Cerys had turned her attention back to flipping through the neat stack of papers on her desk, and she didn’t look up as she answered. “Who else? Your new patron.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The door to his office flung open and crashed against the wall so hard that Ford almost dropped his tablet.
Mia stepped through and slammed it shut even harder.
“How could you?” She stalked toward his desk, fury in every line of her body but her face—her eyes were a gut punch of pain and betrayal, even as she slapped her hands against his desk. “I told you to leave it alone.”
Oh, shit. “Because I had the money, Mia. You can pay me back. Or not, I don’t really care. The important thing is that Cerys is out of your life for good.”
“Oh, is that the important thing?” She leaned over the desk, until her face hovered so close her vicious whisper was almost a caress. “If my new patron thinks that’s the most important thing, who am I to disagree? Thank you, sir.”
A chill raced up his spine, and he rose. “Jesus Christ, patron? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You bought me, Ford.” She shoved away from the desk and paced, stripping off her jacket with abrupt, angry movements. “You handed the woman who sold me to Vaughn a stack of cash, and you made the decision without me.”
He would have apologized in the face of her anger—the last thing he’d meant to do was upset her—but framing the situation in such tawdry terms pissed him off, too. “What decision? You owed Cerys money, now you don’t.”
“No, now I owe you money.” She pivoted back to glare at him. “How many kinds of power do you need over me? You’re an O’Kane. You’re my boss. Every scrap of power and safety I have is borrowed from you, and now my freedom is, too.”
What was his alternative? To watch her glancing back over her shoulder every time a stranger walked by, just in case it was one of Cerys’s men? To see her scramble to save enough money to pay the debt, knowing full well she never could?
Fuck that. Ford crossed his arms over his chest. “I’d do it again.”
Her eyebrows swept up. “That’s your response to seeing how much it hurt me? I’d do it again? And I’m supposed to believe you don’t want control over my life?”
“I’d do it again because you’re being silly,” he countered. “You let all this shit get in your head, and now you’re shoving it off on me. I was helping you, that’s all.”
“Like I was trying to help you on my first day by acting like you couldn’t walk across the room to file some papers on your own?”
Things were going wrong, spinning out of control. All she needed was to be placated, for him to apologize, and he opened his mouth, but the words wouldn’t come. Frustrated, he ground out a curse and ran his hands through his hair. “This is stupid, Mia. It’s a stupid argument.”
She clutched her coat against her chest, her posture rigid. Defensive. “Maybe it’s stupid that you walk all over this damn sector without your cane. And that you hide up here, licking your wounds, when you have a whole family out there who loves you whether your leg works or not. Or that you’re so desperate to hide your weakness you can’t see how strong you are. Maybe all of those things are stupid, but they’re not stupid to me. Because they matter to you.”
That brought him up short and stabbed pain through the center of his chest. Ford dropped his hands by his sides. “I just wanted you to be safe, and now you are.”
“I hope so.” Mia slipped a hand into
her jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope. It clicked with the sound of credit sticks bumping together when she set it on his desk. “This should cover what you paid. If I still have a job, I’d like the rest of the day off.”
“If you still—” He bit his tongue to cut off the words. “Thanks a lot, Mia.”
She flinched and turned for the door. “Making me feel guilty for standing up for myself doesn’t make you right. It makes you like him.”
“And you feeling like a whore doesn’t mean I treated you like one.” The pain in his chest deepened into an ache that throbbed through him. “You didn’t even ask me why I went to Cerys. You just came in here, throwing around ugly words, thinking shit around here is exactly like it was back home in Two. So yeah, one of us is exactly like Vaughn. But it isn’t me.”
Her steps faltered, but she didn’t look back. Just opened the door, and closed it carefully behind her.
Go after her. Ford wrapped both hands around the edge of his desk to keep from obeying the silent command screaming through him. Why should he, when she was the one who hadn’t even afforded him a chance to explain before tearing into him? Before comparing him to the bastard who’d treated her like shit.
No. He relaxed his fingers, sat down, and stared unseeingly at the papers on his desk. If she thought so little of him, so be it. She could run, but he wasn’t like Vaughn.
He wouldn’t chase her.
It wasn’t a long walk from Ford’s office to the rooms Nessa had so generously offered to share. Down the steps at the back of the Broken Circle, across an empty parking lot and what might have been a street before the O’Kanes had commandeered four city blocks to build their sprawling home.
Most of the O’Kanes seemed to live in a large building on the far side of the compound, but Nessa was like Ford. She’d claimed space close to where she worked, which meant that getting there meant walking through the warehouse where the O’Kanes made their whiskey.
It meant walking by O’Kanes, Ford’s brothers, men who glanced at her before looking away, because they didn’t know yet. They didn’t know that she was hysterical, or ungrateful, or whatever Ford would say when he complained about how crazy his goddamn assistant was.