by A. B. Keuser
“I thought it was him. When I bit him, when you brought me in here… when I broke his ribs.”
Flynn looked at Chadrick where he stood, haunting the doorway and sarcastically said, “Amazing what they’re willing to admit to instead of murder.”
“He looked enough like him that in the dark of the mines, I don’t think anyone would have known the difference.”
“Okay, why were you in the mines?”
Bosco’s mouth shut… a little too quickly. Then he grimaced. “I’m seeing someone who doesn’t want the relationship… publicized.”
“Why not? Flynn wasn’t going to demand a name, but if Bosco inadvertently offered….
“He doesn’t want to admit an association with ACOOR. Thinks it will look bad, given his position.”
And now, Flynn didn’t need to ask.
There was only one position in the mines that needed to distance itself from the farms. And only one man holding the title who fit the bill….
“Thanks for helping us figure out who he’s isn’t. Knowing who someone wanted him to be is more than we had an hour ago.”
“Are we good?” Bosco looked like he was waiting for the proverbial other shoe. “Do you need anything… else from me?”
Flynn heard his unspoken plea for escape.
“If I thought you actually had anything to do with the hole in his head, I’d have a lot more for you. But we both know you’re not the kind of guy who’d do that to a man.”
Bosco let out a long breath and nodded. Relief evident in the slack lines of his face.
Too bad Flynn was going to have to shatter it.
“I am, however, going to have to speak to Captain Stevens.”
Face screwed up in a wince, he nodded. “I thought you might…” Bosco glanced out the window. “Let me talk to him first? Just so he knows I didn’t—”
“No. I’ll make sure he knows you didn’t give him up, but I talk to him first.”
Bosco stiffened, ready to argue. Chad drew him away, and Flynn let the doctor distract him.
He needed to find Drea. Needed the distraction.
And it would give him the opportunity to stumble into Stevens without anyone the wiser.
But he didn’t make it far.
The doorway was blocked by a familiar man in a severe suit with dark glasses, and a band around his wrist signaling the wealth he didn’t hide well.
He surveyed the empty room with a scowl, but when he reached Flynn he stopped.
No. He froze.
And then, his lips curled into a snake’s smile.
“Mr. Monroe, isn’t it?” The man stared at his neck, either too enthralled to care he was being rude, or—and this was more likely based on that suit—too rich to consider anything besides his own wants and whims.
“And you are?”
“Oh, you’ll know who I am soon enough….”
“I’m sure I won’t enjoy it then, either.”
He pushed past the man, ignoring the sound of the door knocking back against its hinges, and the man’s low chuckle.
Annoyed, though he wasn’t sure why, Flynn kept his head down, and his bad mood to himself as he went through town. If he passed anyone on the way, he wouldn’t have been able to name them.
And when he was back in the relative darkness of the mines, he let out a long breath and hoped for one day without something akin to disaster befalling them.
“Hey!”
Stopping, though he didn’t particularly want to, Flynn turned back to see Seamus and Mischief running up behind him.
“Where’s your mother?”
“Why? You looking for a date?”
What he knew of Drea told him the woman would never take him up on it. “You don’t want me for a dad, kid.”
“Exactly. So what do you need my mom for?”
Glancing at the miners who walked past, he lowered his voice. “I need to talk to her about that stuff you weren’t supposed to have heard about a certain set of eco-mentalists.”
“Oh,” Seamus said, their voice equally low. “Crap.”
With a jerk of their head, Seamus led the way through the mines to the office Drea used. One Flynn had never been able to find on his own.
Seamus scarpered before their mother saw them, and Flynn was left squinting into the small, box-like space until Drea turned down the lamp she’d been using to plan her sector’s next expansion.
“Usually,” Flynn glanced at the plans, “Expansion is a good thing. It means more work, and more money.”
“If that was the only thing going on right now, it would definitely be cause for celebration… unfortunately, I’ve got a mystery on my hands.”
“You mean, besides how a body wound up in Anderson Lodge.”
“Our waste readings are wrong.”
Flynn blinked. It certainly wasn’t what he’d expected.
“I don’t even know how to guess what that means.”
“We do soil reports to make sure we aren’t losing product. It also helps us keep track of the composite soil around the veins. UPD-5 leaches into the surrounding soil, and pulls any oxidizing compounds from it—one of the reasons the terra farms can’t cross over the subsolar points.”
“My siblings got all the smarts. That means next to nothing to me.”
“No, I guess it wouldn’t. Anyway, there’s excess hydrogen in what we’ve been pulling out this week.”
“And that's bad because…?”
“It’s not bad, per say. I just have no idea why it’s there. And reports like that make others nervous.”
“So don’t include them in your reports.”
She shot him a look that told him just how stupid she thought that suggestion was.
A grizzled old miner stopped beside him and asked her about the work schedule and then looked him over.
Drea was distracted, so he met the man’s gaze and accepted his scrutiny.
“Didn’t expect you to step in to that fight the other day.”
“It wasn’t selfless.”
“Still, any time one of those assholes with a yellow cuff gets their ass handed to them, I’m for it. Even if it’s just a verbal biff on the nose.”
“Are they all that bad?”
He nodded. “If I didn’t know they worked for Sophia Refuti I wouldn’t believe it.” looking back at Drea and then grimaced. “As it is, they have to work for someone else inside the organization, my guess is her brother.”
“Is he here more often than she is?”
“Less. But he’s here right now… and there are more yellow cuffs on the planet than I’ve ever seen in my life. Half of them look like they’ve been brought over from the other side of the void.”
“Why haven’t you told Henri.”
“I have. She said there was nothing she could do about it… and then, not-so-subtly directed me to you.” His smile was tight again. “She’s smart enough to know she can send you off to do things she can’t. If you get caught, it’s an easy matter of just throwing you in jail.”
“Lucky me.”
Drea threw the man a tablet, and he accepted the schedule changes with a tip of his nonexistent hat and left them alone.
“Out, or down?” Flynn asked when she finished writing her notes.
“Doesn’t matter to you,” She turned to him with a scowl. “Are you working? Or is this a ‘Let’s annoy Drea’ social call?”
“I need to talk to Stevens.”
“Then you’re in the wrong mine.”
He forced himself to smile. “I don’t know how to get to Stevens’ section. And I was hoping you’d draw me a map.”
She studied him for a long moment. “No.”
A response stuttered on his tongue. He hadn’t been expecting much, but flat refusal…
“He’s not working today.” She shooed him out of her office. “You can probably find him at his gym. It’s on Cartwright Avenue.”
She locked her office, and, without a goodbye or an opportunity for him to
thank her, she walked away.
Leaving him staring at a hive of tunnels.
The only thing he knew for sure was that the direction she went, was not the way he’d come.
That was why it took two hours—and the help of some very amused miners—to get back out to the surface.
But then, dusk was settling low, and he had a feeling, his opportunity to find Stevens at his gym was gone.
When he saw Drea again, she wouldn’t be getting a thank you.
He headed toward the bar, hoping he’d get lucky and stumble on Stevens there, and after a dozen steps, the hair on the back of his neck prickled.
There was someone else on the street. Long shadows and scuffed boots.
But there were always people on the streets.
He was being paranoid.
Again.
And he had to cut it out. Had to at least try to act like a normal human being again.
He blocked them out. They were just another one of the many people living in this dust bucket who was heading home. They probably didn’t care about him one way or another… if they’d even registered he was there.
That itch under his skin creeped in again, and despite everything he’d told himself, he cut down an alley.
He should be over it, but he wasn’t. And the only way he knew to deal with it was to change the situation… because changing himself hadn’t worked yet.
A scuff in the dirt drew his attention to a man a handful of paces back, his reflection muddy and dark in the nearby shop window.
His prickly mind questioned if it was the same man. But he refused to look back. Refused to treat the people of the Redlands like they were the enemy.
Blowing out a breath, Flynn reminded himself that people walked fast, sometimes with no reason. And this guy would catch him up, pass him, and continue on his way… like a normal person.
Except they weren’t passing by and the warnings he’d tried to ignore screamed at him for the idiot he’d been.
And then, it was too late.
He tried to turn, but he barely had time to throw his hand up in front of his face. The flash of movement honed his focus down to a pin prick.
A yellow cuff.
Growled words.
Searing Pain.
The garrote dug into the skin at his wrist and Flynn threw his elbow back. All that did was cut him deeper as he jabbed into empty air.
“Fighting isn’t going to help. You’re worth too much money.”
The cord cut him open, stars dotted his vision. The curse he heard could have been from the man, or from his own mouth.
He didn’t know.
Couldn’t care.
Didn’t have time.
He hooked his boot around the man’s ankle, twisted despite the searing pain, and fell on top of the man.
His elbow landed between two of his assailants ribs. Flynn heard the crack, but didn’t stop to assess the damage.
He wrenched the cord away, threw it into the dusty street somewhere behind him, and hauled back. This time, the crack was the result of Flynn’s fist to the man’s cheek, the next his jaw.
He fought back and threw Flynn off him, boots catching thighs and Flynn wound up in the dirt. With dirt in his mouth, eyes….
Flynn heard the knife flick open.
But the man was tired. He wasn’t used to fighting. Flynn on the other hand….
He caught the man’s wrist, twisted.
He only meant to disarm… but the man lunged.
Eyes wide, the man’s breath hitched, then faded, and his full weight went limp.
The knife’s handle dug into Flynn’s sternum as he levered him off.
And he heard the scuffle of a crowd headed his way, but he couldn’t get up. He could barely breathe. And if he was right, the soaking wet shirt was only partially from the other man’s blood.
The burn had begun in his neck, a sensation that was too familiar.
He heard Chad among those gathering around him. He laughed—and immediately regretted it—because all he thought was how much he didn’t want to hear the lecture on his wound again.
But Chad didn’t scold him. He kneeled down, said something Flynn didn’t actually catch, and then pulled him up to sitting.
The black spots were fading from his vision when he finally understood his friend again.
“Now we’ve got two dead men.” Chad held a pad to Flynn’s neck. “At least we know where this one came from.”
Putty looked from the body, back to them. “And who killed them.”
Flynn was about to tell his brother where to shove his disapproving look, when Chad stabbed him.
“What the f—”
Darkness swam in front of him, and then… nothing.
Eighteen - Sophia
Appearances.
One of the many things Sophia had learned early on in her rise to the peaks of the corporate strata was that appearances were eighty percent of success. When she projected the right amount of confidence and pretended to be all but carefree, she could get anyone to invest in her ventures.
When she smiled and took in a languorous and exorbitant dinner at the best restaurant Capo had on offer, no one noticed she was beginning to fray at the edges.
With Banks at her side, she stepped out of the private lift and through the entrance of the restaurant that had no name.
It didn’t need one.
“Ms. Refuti,” the manager said her name with precisely the correct amount of practiced enthusiasm before coming forward to take her hand in a motion meant to mime an old fashioned kiss. “Your guest is awaiting you.”
Brows raised, she spared a glance for Banks and then looked toward the woman who was now standing at a table set against the dark background of starlight reflected on the metal and mirror monoliths of the skyline.
When Banks moved first, intention writ on his face, she placed a hand on his forearm. “Let’s see how this plays out.”
Her words were low enough, the manager didn’t hear them as he turned to lead the way.
The woman’s dress wrapped around her body in a tornado of glittering gauze. Her smile was slick with red. And Sophia couldn’t help but imagine the wrong kind of danger when she looked at the woman who would incite less educated minds to assume she was a goddess.
Or perhaps a fury.
And whatever divine or demonic ends she had planned, Sophia was happy to entertain her designs for an hour or two.
Banks muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “bait.”
“Ms. Refuti,” she held out her hand.
Sophia didn’t take it. She glanced from the deep plum nails to that wicked mouth. Perhaps there were unforeseen benefits to leaving her tower that night.
“Is there something I can help you with?”
“As a matter of fact, you can.” She smiled brightly and turned her unshaken hand with a flourish, motioning to the unoccupied table in the far corner.
Normally, an offer of a semi-private dinner with a beautiful woman wouldn’t have made her skin prickle. Not in a bad way, at least.
But that was before the problems on Horza and the Lazarai soldier at Minerva’s party.
She shared a glance with Banks, and noted the brief hardness in the woman’s eyes when she turned back. Whatever this woman wanted, she didn’t want another pair of ears around for it.
Sophia had no intention of letting him go anywhere.
She turned to the manager and said, “A table for three instead, Jeon.”
And in a flurry of movement, it was done.
Banks held out her chair and then settled into his like a bored lover suffering through the tedium of business.
“My name is Paige,” the gilded woman said, leaning forward, elbows on the table, fingers entwined so she could set her chin on them. “You’ve been running around like crazy in the last few weeks.”
“I’m a busy woman.”
Paige smiled, studying her while the manager stepped in. Jeon poured the wi
ne she always ordered. He left the menu she didn’t need to read and Paige thanked him with a sugary sweet smile.
That was when Sophia realized what was wrong. Paige was beautiful. Almost devastatingly so. But she’d played against certain strengths.
She’d contoured her jawline to appear softer. Her contacts were brown, instead of whatever the underlying color had been originally.
And Sophia would bet her fortune the woman was wearing a wig.
Paige had made herself up to look like an amalgamation of Sophia’s last six female partners, pulling their similarities and averaging everything out.
If she’d meant to make herself more appealing, if she’d meant to set Sophia at ease, she’d failed.
And from the looks of her now-off-kilter smile... she knew it.
Sophia should have gotten up and walked away, but she hated avoiding a trap without knowing why it had been laid.
The woman wasn’t offering herself. That was clear in the way she moved.
Sophia wasn’t inclined to play games. She’d never had time for them.
“You’re not the first to approach me in the time I’ve been ‘running around.’ I hope you don’t plan on being as vague or disappointing as the last.”
Lips twitching with humor, Paige moved her shoulders as though she was shrugging off a jacket and her entire posture changed.
“We noticed that too, and are very happy you haven’t decided to partner with the competition.” Paige took a long drink of the wine. “We want to help you.”
More vague near-lies…. She’d have rolled her eyes if she’d spent less time in boardrooms.
“And just how do you plan on doing that?”
“There have been inquiries into your business. A certain Senior Colari whose loyalties to the Colarium are in question. My employer wants to ensure that whatever his plans are, your company and the Colarium through it, are safe.”
“This Senior Colari won’t be the first to attempt something like that.” He’d be the first to try with her, but people in her circle talked….
“No, but when I say we don’t trust his loyalties… there may be a Lazarai element to it. And if your company can be shown to be aiding them….”
The Senior Colari could legally remove her from her own company, possibly jail her, and pull all of her holdings under his own purview.