by Jodi Henley
He grabbed her injured wrist and squeezed, looking right into her eyes. “You’re scaring me. It’s no wonder your family pimps for you, sugar. How long do you keep ‘em? Until they run away?”
She slapped her hand over her ear. “No!”
“C’mon, baby. I know you can hear me. Is someone being truthful to you for a change? You want that sugar coating back on? You think I love you—what a fucking joke.”
“That’s enough!” She jerked her arm away and stared like she’d never seen him before. She’d grown up with money, knew what it did to people. He was playing on her deepest fears, and she was struggling to hold on to her faith in him. Self-loathing concentrated the pain in his gut to a pinpoint of red-hot anger. At that moment he hated her.
Tris stepped out of the shadows. His weapon was pointed at the ground, but it was clear he was willing to blow Keegan away at her say so.
He spared his cousin a sidelong glance, his face expressionless. “You okay?”
A tiny line formed between her eyes and she whispered, “You think I’d learn.”
Tris tapped his earpiece. “We’re ready to lift.”
Jen nodded, years of social training acid-etched in her smile. Her polite Stalling smile. For the first time, Keegan noticed her clothes. The filthy dress was gone, replaced by an expensive pink twin-set. She pulled a small handkerchief from her pocket, and wiped her mouth and wrist.
“Well,” she said, her voice exquisitely brittle, “that was so not fun.”
She threw her handkerchief down and turned to leave.
“Hey!” Keegan called. She stopped. Still hoping, damn her. “I always wanted to fuck a billionaire. Too bad your boyfriend was right.”
“Let me shoot him,” Tris growled.
Jen looked through Keegan, in that instant truly Art Stalling’s daughter. “Don’t bother.”
****
Jen rubbed at her knuckles. The back of her hand was scraped and bruised. She tucked it down under the comfortable throw in her lap. She didn’t remember hurting herself. When had it happened, during that climb to the top of the escarpment or her last desperate fight with Kate?
In her mind’s eye, she could still see Keegan grabbing for her as she lurched for her aunt. Had he been terrified for her, or her net-value? She couldn’t believe her stupidity. Fool. Seeing what she wanted to see. Had he been playing her the whole time?
Percy swore under his breath. It was dark in the Pave Hawk. Her brother didn’t like cabin lights so the only illumination came from his tablet and the outside running lights. He slid one finger over the screen and drew up his knee.
“That shouldn’t have happened,” he said. He propped the tablet against the armrest, pulled out his phone, and snapped orders without bothering to identify himself. Tris caught the phone in mid-air and listened to the reply.
“Take care of it,” said Percy. “Chandler was Kate’s mole. Now he’s an inter-departmental sore spot. Make sure he’s slotted back to Merlin, then warehouse him—”
Tris slid the phone into his pocket. “Consider it done.”
Jen tried to keep the bitterness from her voice, but it came out anyway. “Isn’t this were we left off?”
“Family parties,” said Tris. “Hate ‘em.”
He caught Percy's tablet before it fell and put it on the seat next to him. The three of them were the only people in the rear compartment. The flight crew sat up front.
“You hate everything,” said Percy.
“No,” said Tris. Too dark to make out. “Not everything.”
He sounded tired and Jen knew that feeling. She was tired, too. She wanted to crawl home and shut the world out, but for today, she was afraid home was the family compound on Oahu.
Maui glittered beneath them before it dissolved into the nightmare sea. Percy showed no signs of stopping. His heavily armored Pave Hawk moved over the ocean silently, heavy insulation protecting them from the sound of rotors.
“How self-contained you are, sister-dear.” He eyed her over his steepled fingers.
“I’m in no mood for obscure put downs. Leave me alone.”
“Won’t our father be amazed that you’ve grown a spine?”
Tris stirred. “Nothing surprises Art.”
“True.” Percy sat up and looked through the window. “Coming up on Oahu. Dad wants to talk to you, but—”
Jen took a deep breath. “I’ll talk to him—” Him....her dad, Arthur Stalling, architect of everything wrong with her life. She’d loved him once. Did she love him still? Just the mention of his name was enough to provoke every emotion in her from betrayal to anger, and a desperate, never-gone-away need for his approval.
Honolulu shimmered on the horizon, framed by the dramatic spires of the Koolaus. StallingCo occupied the end of a long finger valley, set on a series of plateaus high above the city. There was only one access road. They didn’t like uninvited guests. Most people arrived by air.
The landing pad glowed industrial purple and lit up like a Christmas tree. Her mother’s last project had been to paint it with big yellow polka dots. She’d always claimed her family had no sense of humor. And she’d been right. What little humor they’d possessed had evaporated the day she died, but the circles were still there.
The helicopter landed and men ran out to slide the door open. Percy shouted to be heard over the still moving rotors.
“I have to change. You want Tris to go with you?”
Jen got to her feet. “I’ll do it myself.”
“Against my better judgment, damn it. Your choice, then.” He swung her to the tarmac, gave her one last look, and started away with Tris, Security forming a phalanx around them.
Wind from the downdraft blew out her hair. She’d never put it in a tail when she lived at StallingCo, and she’d kept the style, changing into her old clothes. She tucked the heavy mass behind her ears and froze, paralyzed by the scent of jasmine. Eliza Stalling had died young and Jen had blocked out most of the time before her death. All that was left was the scent of jasmine and memories of laughter. StallingCo had once rung with laughter. Percy grew the fragrant bushes in direct opposition to their father’s wishes. Some things never changed.
Heavy steel doors at the far end of the pad opened and Merlin stepped out, elegant in white Prada, and surrounded by her father’s security.
“Hello, Guinevere,” her least favorite cousin said. “Welcome back to StallingCo.”
****
“...and if you wait in the lounge, someone will be with you shortly.”
The door closed with a very definite click.
Corlis slammed it with the palm of her hand. “This is fucking crap! What is your problem? Go after her, Keegan!”
Keegan turned away, half-blind and afraid she’d see it. Showing weakness to Corlis was like going belly-up in a shark tank. She’d eviscerate him to get what she wanted, and it was obvious she wanted Jen as a sister-in-law.
“Kick him, Liss.” Fallon moved in closer to his partner. “You know you want to...”
Corlis shoved him back. “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
Keegan froze. “Cameras.”
Corlis and Fallon straightened, abruptly back to back.
“Three,” said Fallon.
“Four, if you count the one in the door.” Corlis touched her hand to the burnished steel frame.
“Now, live on PetCam—”
“Corlis and her talking dog? Yeah, right. This isn’t over,” she said to Keegan. “I’ll have questions later.”
She turned and stalked into the depths of the lounge. After a second, Fallon followed.
From the way his sister moved, Keegan knew she was running on empty. Fallon had crashed during the flight in from the Big Island, but Corlis had spent the entire trip twitching with rage. She was furious.
Fallon wandered back, glanced up at the cameras and scrubbed a hand through the stubble on his chin. “This place is a fortress. I see where your girl gets her ideas.”
“She’s not my girl.”
Fallon smirked and sauntered away, back into the lounge, his dirty boots tracking filth on the soft Persian carpets.
The door opened and closed behind Percival Stalling. The head of StallingCo Security had changed out of his polo into a charcoal gray suit, and somehow found the time to shave and put on some cologne.
Fallon was clearly audible. “Damn, what the hell is he wearing? He even smells like money.”
Percy sighed. “Let’s keep this short. I understand you have time constraints? StallingCo will provide transport. My Hawk will take you down to the airport where we have a Gulfstream on standby.” He held out a piece of paper. “We wired your account.”
Keegan didn’t move. “Trying to buy me off?”
“Trying to fulfill our obligation to you,” corrected Percy, exquisitely polite. “You stayed within contractual guidelines. The money belongs to you. However, the transport is mine, and I would prefer you left Hawaii as soon as possible.”
Keegan held himself in through sheer force of will. He wanted to wrap his fingers around Percy’s thick Stalling neck and squeeze. And Percy knew it. The bastard.
“And if I don’t?”
Anger stripped Percy’s mask. “You’re the strategist, Dalfrey. Think it through.” He folded the receipt down into Keegan’s hand. “I will clean this whole mess up. I will scrub it lily-white, including that police station your operatives trashed. But if I ever find you or one of your people within a hundred mile radius of my sister, I will take you out. Your family, your friends, your company. Everything. I will carve them up—and I’ll fucking eat them. As of now, Hawaii is off-limits to DalCon.”
“Scary,” sneered Keegan.
“You don’t know how scary I can be. And pray you never find out.” Percy turned away. “My sister expedited payment to facilitate your removal. You have fifteen minutes. Get out of my city.”
****
Jen’s father kept his office in the bowels of StallingCo, in a suite cut deep into the ridge itself. The austere room had a strange, hermetically sealed smell to it, redolent of paranoid security in action. Jen walked around the rigid, fashionably correct couch and glanced at her mother’s statue. The pale Carrera marble gave her a gently quizzical look.
“Father.”
“Guinevere...you look well.”
Jen waved her guards away and they left to take up position just outside the door.
“You don’t,” she said.
Art walked around his desk to sit on the couch. He’d lost weight and his hair was a garish, artificial black. It surprised her that he hadn’t cared enough to make it look real.
“I would like you to spend some time with us while we take care of the situation,” he began.
“I—” Jen stopped, blinked. “You’re not going to try to hold me?”
Art laughed tiredly. “I’m your father, not your jailor.”
“And all those little Stallings?”
“Not so little anymore.”
“No,” she said. Her entire world tipped over, leaving her confused and off-balance. “No,” she repeated. “We’re not.”
Art patted the seat next to him. “I have copies, you know. Of your work. You’re doing a good thing, Guinevere, helping a lot of people, and I’m...proud of you.”
Jen sat down in a graceless flop. “You are?”
Art took her hand, turned it over and traced the long line running the length of her palm. “You have a long lifeline, sweetie. Your mother, God rest her, didn’t. I couldn’t protect her, so I tried to protect you. Too much, I think. To the exclusion of letting you have a life of your own. Eight years ago, I made a mistake, and that mistake cost me...you. Although looking back on it, I think I lost you long before that, when I refused to consider you Percy’s equal.”
“Dad...?”
His smiled was fleeting and crooked. “Not another word. I called the Project to let them know you’d be gone for the next week. Spend some time with us?”
“You called the—?” Jen stopped. Her father was doing his best in the only way he knew how. “Yes,” she said slowly.
“I had your rooms opened. Breakfast is at nine.” His smile changed and grew hopeful. “I’m looking forward to it.”
****
StallingCo had been built as a series of interconnected buildings with the family occupying a trio of buildings on the uppermost plateau. Percy caught up with Jen in the long corridor outside her room. She was still in shock, and the significance of his attire didn’t register until he opened the door for her.
She took in his business suit and blinked. “You’re leaving?”
“Business suit? Hmm, makes sense in a skewed kind of way.”
“Don’t be funny.”
Percy threw his arms up, laughing. “All right, all right. Nobody appreciates me. I’m going to Korea for five days. I’ll bring you a toy.”
“I’m not a child,” said Jen.
“A boy-toy?”
“No boy-toys, either. Please?”
Percy grew silent and thoughtful, his dark eyes bleak. “I made a mess of it, didn’t I? It sucked that Makena had to rescue you from us. I thought we were doing the right thing, or at least, I thought Dad was doing one of a limited amount of right things. You never got out, never met anyone. You didn’t have a clue and we got together to hurt you. I didn’t know about Tim until after—and I’m sorry.” Percy cleared his throat, his smile tired.
“Omigod,” said Jen. “You’re an evil pod-person. What did you do with my real brother?”
“I wish I were a pod-person,” said Percy. He brought up the lights.
She caught his arm and he twitched away, shoulders tense beneath the fine gray fabric. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said softly, raking a hand back through his hair. “Ignore me. Call Ops in the morning. Merlin locked this place down the day you left. He took Makena’s job. He’ll send in Housekeeping.”
Percy moved to the windows and threw back the drapes.
Jen shook her head. “Merlin is not my favorite cousin, and I don’t remember this room being so pink.”
“Pink?” Percy lifted a brow. “I assure you, it’s Imperial Cherry Blossom.”
“I remember that!” Jen crossed the lush white carpet to where a delicately gilded French desk stood against the windows. A woven porcelain basket centered the ivory inlays.
“The basket is new,” she said. “What is it?”
“Your life,” said Tris. He leaned one arm against her door and slid his sunglasses low on the bridge of his arrogant nose. “Digitalized.”
He wore his motorcycle jacket and carried a helmet under one arm. His jeans had little holes in them, as if someone had thrown acid at him and missed. He swung away from the door and crossed the room in a slow stalk, the chains on his motorcycle boots jangling.
“Nice view,” he said, looking out the window.
“You should know,” said Percy. “You live in the loft. If you call that damned futon living.”
“I have what I need.”
“And what’s that, cave-boy? A bed and a card table?”
It was an old argument. Jen pulled the tiny basket in close and ran a finger over the neatly stacked flash drives.
Percy caught her look. “Don’t go there. Surveillance was in place long before my time. I have people working to dismantle it, but the blueprints are long gone.”
He flipped through the flash drives, his face brooding. “They’re yours now. Burn them for all I care.”
He turned to Tris. “Singapore?”
“Yeah. Two, maybe three days. I’m waiting on my Diablo.”
Percy glanced at his watch. “And I’m taking my sweet time. Got to go. I’ll be back soon,” he said, pointing to Jen. “Be here.”
He looked at Tris and jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s go.”
****
Jen occupied the lowest two floors in the smallest of the family buildings. Unlike the rest of t
he complex, facing in on itself, or out over the city of Honolulu, her building cantilevered out over one of the last great watershed forests on Oahu. The ridge spilled away from her windows, trees like an ocean.
She sat down at the desk. Her window was dark. There were no lights in the watershed. The glass reflected her face back at her, so pale she seemed to float, bodiless in the void.
She felt thin and stretched out, and tired. Without anything to distract her, her attention circled back to Keegan. The numbness was wearing off. Pain oozed in to replace it.
“Damn it!” She caught the basket up, jumped to her feet and flung it against her Imperial Cherry walls. The fragile porcelain shattered. “Damn it! I won’t cry—”
She dragged an arm over her eyes. Not crying. No.
He never said he loved me.
“Damn it!” She kicked the walls. She hated Imperial Cherry. “Damn it...” Tears squeezed out from under her eyelids. I want to go home....
Jen turned blindly and slipped on a flash drive, heel crunching down through the tough plastic like a hole-punch. One skittered away marked with the logo of Security.
Jen knelt and turned it in her hands. Percy had put it in the basket. He did nothing by halves. A quick call to Security brought her computer on line. The recording was a collage. She recognized the quick editing that made the input from a dozen cameras into a cohesive sequence. Her brother didn’t spare himself, leaving in every word. Every threat.
The judgment call was hers.
Keegan started down the hall with one hand pressed to his shoulder.
“...fight for her, damn it!”
“She was a job, Corlis! It's over—”
She was a job, Corlis...
What part of user don’t you understand? It’s over.
Jen pulled the drive and slipped out of her shoes. The elegantly spiked heel fit neatly into her palm. She slammed it down, over and over again until nothing was left of Keegan but a glitter of black plastic shards.
Chapter Twenty
Keegan hauled his tired ass over to the moving sidewalk. Corlis passed him, side by side with Fallon, a large black duffle slung over her shoulder. Keegan dropped his own bag behind Connor and let the people mover ooze him slowly down the concourse. A man clipped Connor in the side with his laptop, and Connor winced—too much reaction for a tap. Now that he was looking, Keegan saw bandages under his brother’s faded gray button-down.