by Kit Rocha
“I’ll take the scan, but no observation,” he shot back, ignoring Ashwin’s furrowed brow and telltale frown.
Kora’s eyes gleamed. She squinted at him and tilted her head. “Twelve hours of observation.”
“One.”
“Six.”
“Three.”
Ashwin’s frown deepened. “She said six.”
“Three’s fine.” Kora smiled at him, then patted Deacon’s cheek. “He only really needs two.”
Deacon grumbled. “You’re sneaky, Kora.”
“Best way to deal with you.” She picked up her tablet and headed for the door. “I’ll get things ready. Watch him, please.”
Ashwin inclined his head in agreement, his gaze following Kora until she disappeared into the hallway. Then he turned back to Deacon. “You shouldn’t argue with her. You were in bad shape when we found you.”
A rifle butt to the skull would do that. “Head wounds always look worse than they are. They bleed like motherfuckers.”
Ashwin stared at him.
If Deacon didn’t know better, he’d think the man was offended that he would dare to try to tell him about head wounds. “Right.”
“You were in bad shape,” Ashwin repeated. There was an edge there, and he studied Deacon in curious silence before adding, “But you were alive.”
Deacon would have kicked his ass if he hadn’t at least wondered why. “Death is easy. The Kings have bigger plans for me.”
“That seems inefficient.”
He laughed, and immediately regretted it when his head throbbed like a bitch. “I don’t think efficiency is Seth’s main goal. He sacrificed money and men on a ruse to draw me out. And now he wants to make me hurt.”
“Revenge?” At Deacon’s terse nod, Ashwin crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall. “How personal is this?”
“Will he get bored or distracted and drop it, you mean?”
“Not everyone’s cut out for the commitment that revenge requires. The longer you let it drag on, the more you expose yourself. The more you risk.” Ashwin tapped his fingers on his elbow. “Not killing you outright was a big one. How many more will they take?”
The terrifying answer had been etched into Seth’s murderous scowl. “As many as it takes.” Deacon rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and winced when he bumped the sore spot on his head. “Every single day is risk for the Kings. They’re not scared of it. But this is worse, Ashwin. Seth and I grew up together, joined the Kings together. He doesn’t know jack shit about my life now, but he knows me.”
“So he’ll be able to ascertain how best to hurt you.” Ashwin tapped his fingers again. “When you were with the Kings, were there jobs you would and wouldn’t accept? Things you wouldn’t do?”
It was Deacon’s turn to glare.
Ashwin made an impatient gesture. “I’m not interested in your ethics. I’m interested in any perceived weaknesses you telegraphed through your willingness or refusal to execute certain targets. Those are the things that could hurt you the most. Those and your...personal attachments.”
“I don’t have personal attachments.” Everyone knew that. His only loyalty was to Gideon, his only concern the Rios family. Nothing beyond that could touch him--ask any Rider, and they’d tell you exactly that.
But it was a lie.
His first thoughts when he was swimming up out of unconsciousness hadn’t been of Gideon or Isabela or any of the Riders--except for one. His stomach had clenched in a sick sort of dread that refused to abate until he opened his eyes and saw Ana. Her face was drawn, one shirt sleeve was torn and bloodied, but she was on her feet, cursing with an animated fury that had eased the worst of his--
Fear. There was no other word for it, nothing else to capture the crawling terror that maybe Seth had somehow known--and hadn’t waited to exact his vengeance.
Ashwin watched him, something close to sympathy in his dark eyes. “I thought the same thing. Until I didn’t.”
Everyone had things that would hurt them. For some, it was a small, precise number. For others, it was an expansive list, one that could be--and often was--weaponized easily and frequently.
But there were deeper things, weaknesses that went straight to the heart and soul of a person, like permanent bruises. Places where one swift blow could break you into so many pieces that putting them back together wasn’t just impossible, it was unthinkable.
Ashwin proved it a moment later, when Zeke entered the room and held the door open. “Hey, I’m gonna handle Deacon’s scans. Kora had to sit down for a few minutes. She got a little dizzy.”
Ashwin pushed off the wall in one swift, graceful movement and somehow made it halfway to the door in two steps. “Where is she?”
“Down the hall in that sitting room with the couches. I got her--” But Ashwin was already gone, brushing past Zeke as his final word fell into the empty air. “--settled.”
Deacon snorted. “You didn’t actually expect to get that whole sentence out, did you?”
“Hey, I talk fast.” Zeke let the door swing shut and moved to Deacon’s side. “How’s the head? Are you dizzy? Because I’ll carry your ass down the hall if I have to.”
“I’m fine. How’s everyone else?”
“Mostly good. Ana and Reyes have scratches. Ivan’s got a black eye.” Zeke snorted. “Gabe missed half the damn fight because one of Six’s foxy femme fatales hauled him into a shipping container to keep him from running into a trap.”
Well, that made one of them. “Too bad she didn’t bring a friend.”
“Yeah, you stuck your foot in it good, boss.” Zeke picked up one of the tablets Kora used to store medical data and grinned. “So, let’s get these scans rolling. And then I get to stick to your ass for the next three hours. Excited?”
“That depends.” Kora refused to be intimidated, and Ashwin would always have her back. But maybe Zeke could be swayed. “You do the scans, then let me go, and I promise I’ll have someone check in on me.”
“Uh, and when Ashwin murders me for making Kora sad?” Zeke’s fingers slid over the surface of the tablet, but when Deacon’s gaze didn’t waver, he sighed. “Fine, but I’m going to hide until three hours is up. And if Kora asks, I was with you.”
“Deal.” If Kora really was feeling ill, Deacon would bet every weapon in the Riders’ arsenal that Ashwin would make her rest, hovering over her the whole time. The last thing on his mind would be the state of Deacon’s brain. “It’ll be fine, Zeke. Trust me.”
Chapter Eleven
Ana’s arm itched.
She ignored it, working carefully around the bandage wrapped around her biceps as she rubbed body butter into her skin. The scent was sweeter than she preferred, some sugary mix of vanilla and cinnamon, but if she closed her eyes, it was almost like being on the bakery side of her aunts’ shop.
Maybe that was why Naomi had chosen it. Her elder aunt’s quest to lure Ana back to a less dangerous life hadn’t abated when Ana was initiated into the Riders. It had just gotten more...
Passive-aggressive.
Subtle.
The itching on her arm was her own damn fault. She should have demanded that Reyes slap a few butterfly bandages on the shallow knife wound and turn her loose to endure the throbbing ache as a reminder not to drop her guard. But regeneration tech took a lot longer...and had given her an excuse to linger in the infirmary while Zeke ran scans of Deacon’s brain.
Leaving hadn’t been an option. Not when her heart hadn’t been beating right from the moment they found him, sprawled unconscious in an alley, his hair so dark they didn’t notice the blood at the back of his head until Ana’s hands came away smeared with it.
She’d scrubbed them raw and rubbed enough lotion into her fingers that she’d smell like cinnamon for a week, and she still couldn’t get the feel of it off her.
Her fingers drifted back toward her freshly healed skin, and she wrapped her fingers around her arm to stop herself from scratching. Seeing
Deacon had brought her crashing back to earth, hard. She still felt hungover. Hollowed out, aware that her fingers covered unmarked skin that would soon sport six new ravens.
Taking a life should hurt more. But that hollow feeling wasn’t guilt--not at the easy way she’d killed, anyway. Every man who had fallen beneath her knife or dropped at one of her bullets was a man who would never kill again. She didn’t regret stopping them.
That was the source of this uncomfortable guilt--her sheer lack of remorse. It had blazed in full strength last time, sorrow for what had been necessary clashing with the immeasurable weight of the deaths she’d caused.
This time, whenever she tried to feel bad, she remembered Deacon’s blood on her hands.
If he hadn’t opened his eyes again, she might have driven out to the Kings’ compound and figured out a way to blow them off the fucking map.
A single rap at her door interrupted her mid-shudder, and she embraced the distraction. “Come in.”
The door cracked open, and Deacon peered inside. “I need to talk to you.”
Relief at seeing him up and moving crashed over her, swift and unwelcome. Being relieved was fine--she was always worried about her fellow Riders. But this felt raw, revealing. Deeply personal.
Smashing it back down, she twisted the lid onto her glass jar and tilted her head toward the spare bed in her room. “Have a seat.”
He didn’t even argue, the surest sign that something really was wrong. “Thanks.” He dropped heavily to the bed, with little trace of his usual easy grace. “The op tonight was a ruse to draw me out. I guess you’ve all figured that out by now.”
“We talked about it,” she acknowledged, which was a mild description of the curse-laden conversation that had ensued as Ana burned the treads off the tires in her haste to get an unconscious Deacon back to Sector One. “I should have double-checked the intel before I passed it on. I knew we were dealing with worse than the usual petty sector criminals.”
He shook his head. “It was inevitable.”
Wariness prickled up her spine, far different from her typical awareness of him. She twisted to swing her legs over the side of the bed, planted her feet on the floor so she was facing him, and for a silent moment she just...looked at him.
Deacon was tired.
His dark eyes were shadowed. His beard wasn’t as neatly trimmed as usual, lending him a rougher, rawer edge. His body was a riot of conflicting messages--tense muscles but slumped shoulders, as if he was gearing up for a fight he’d already forfeited.
“Nothing is inevitable.” She leaned forward to rest her elbows on her legs. “We just need to work together, now that we know what we’re facing.”
“Working together isn’t always the best option.”
“Why not?”
He faced her squarely, some of the tension melting out of him. “Killing me would have been too easy. They want to make me suffer instead.”
It was an impulse Ana couldn’t fathom. Suffering was the enemy, and its alleviation the goal. Sometimes that meant ending a life, but there was no honor or glory in inflicting pain. She could feel satisfied with her skills, sure. Relief that she’d done her job well. Even the guilty pleasure of winning.
Hell, she wanted to kill the Kings, to burn their world to the ground. But if she got her chance, she’d be damned if she would waste an opportunity to end their ability to do harm simply to prolong their agony.
That kind of sadism wasn’t just cruel. It was fucking stupid tactics.
“Fuck them.” She pushed off the bed so she wouldn’t have to look up at him, but he was so close that she still had to tilt her head back. “Fuck them and anyone like them. If that’s what their goal is, I’ll happily kill the shit out of them.”
“You don’t understand. You wouldn’t understand.” He turned away, toward the window, bracing his arms on the sill as he stared unseeing through the glass. “These aren’t strangers. I’ve known their leader for thirty goddamn years, Ana. We grew up together, joined the Kings together. He knows--” Deacon bit off the words.
“What?” she asked softly. “What does he know?”
For a long time, he didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Then he asked softly, “If you wanted to hurt Reyes, how would you do it? Zeke? Ashwin? And don’t say you don’t know, because it’s a lie.”
She wanted to argue. To say she couldn’t imagine wanting to hurt anyone. But that was a truth wrapped in a technicality--the only people she wanted to hurt were the ones already doing too much damage to ignore. That might feel righteous, but it didn’t leave her hands clean.
And she knew what the Kings would do, because her father had raised her idealistic, but he hadn’t raised her stupid. To fight evil, you had to understand evil. You had to know how bitterness and hate and rage twisted inside people, how darkness always sought to obliterate the brightest thing it could find.
If you wanted to hurt Reyes, you gave him a victim he couldn’t save. The straightest path to Ashwin would always be through Kora. And Zeke... Zeke would deny it until the sun set in the east, but his guilt over Jaden’s death was a quietly bleeding wound, and until Jaden’s sister was settled somewhere safe, it would never heal.
She knew how to hurt them because she knew them.
It cut deep to realize she couldn’t say the same about Deacon. She knew how to irritate him. How to get under his skin, to make him snap and snarl and, on rare occasions, even smile. But if she had to cut the heart out of him...
Ana wouldn’t know where to start. The leader of the Suicide Kings did.
“So...” she said finally. “He knows you.”
“Not the same as he used to.” He looked at her with an expression she couldn’t begin to decipher--until he reached out and smoothed the hair at her temple. “But it won’t take him long to figure it out.”
Her skin prickled under his fingertips, but it was his words that slammed into her, and for a heartbeat she couldn’t breathe under the force of them.
Deacon was staring at her like the path to his heart led through her.
She wet her lips. “Deacon--”
“I can’t stay,” he whispered. “Once Seth figures it out, it’ll be too late. You’ll be a target.”
Anger pricked at her, battling the seductive spell cast by his softly stroking fingers. “Don’t,” she said, twisting away from his touch as her voice cracked. It was every fear she’d ever had about Deacon doubting her, refracted through affection to turn her into his weakness. “Don’t do this to me. Don’t blame this on me.”
“There’s only one person responsible for this shit, and it’s him.” He heaved a sigh. “But that doesn’t change reality. I have to go to Kings’ Canyon.”
She had already braced herself for some patronizing speech about pulling her from active duty for her own protection, so this abrupt turn stunned her. “You what?”
“Rejoining is out of the question, but I have to face this head-on.” Determination squared his shoulders. “He thinks I betrayed him, so he wants to punish me. I’ll let him. It’ll keep him away from Sector One.”
“You’ll--” She bit off the words, fisting her hands to stop herself from shoving him. “So that’s your big plan? Walk over there and let him kill you slowly?”
The bastard had the gall to smile. “It’s what a Rider would do, isn’t it?”
“It’s what a martyr would do,” she snapped. “And only an idiot Rider becomes one of those before it’s necessary. I’m not going to let you do it because--because--” Her frustration boiled over, and she thumped one fist against his chest. “It’s hormones, Deacon. Your dick got hard once, and now you think you have to protect me. You don’t. No one does.”
“I’m not asking you for anything, Ana. I just thought--”
“What? That I’d shrug and wave goodbye?” This time she did push him, spreading her fingers wide on his chest and pinning him back against the windowsill. “Stop giving up on us, Deacon. Let us fight for you.”
“I�
��m not giving up.” She hadn’t wrapped her hair yet, and he slid his fingers into the loosely bound strands, tugging them lightly. “Why is the worst thing about me always the first one you think of?”
Because she had to. Because he had always been the single greatest danger to her ambitions, the one man whose disappointment could shatter her. He was the one who decided where she got to fight and how she got to prove herself--but victory was only proof if everyone knew Deacon hadn’t gone easy on her.
She couldn’t afford his affection, couldn’t afford to feel it in return. She had to hate him, at least a little, just to keep putting one foot in front of the other without going mad from the pressure.
But even that wasn’t the full reason. Maybe Ana needed to hate him, but Deacon had made it easy. So easy. She curled her fingers into his shirt, gripping the cotton until the soft weave of the fabric abraded her skin. “The worst is all you ever let any of us see.”
“Fair enough.” He stared down at her, searching her face. “What would you do? Tell the truth.”
He was asking seriously, as if he not only cared what she thought but valued her insight. Nervousness should have seized her, but her thoughts fell into the well-ordered soldiers her father had been training since she was old enough to understand the word tactics.
“First, I’d make sure the most vulnerable people were protected. The ones who can’t defend themselves. Maricela. Isabela’s children. Del and her initiates. Kora.” She paused. “Ashwin would have to guard Kora. He wouldn’t have the capacity to do anything else, not while she was in danger. But the royal guard could take care of the rest.”
“Gideon alerted them the moment Lucio and I came back from the fire in Three.”
Logical. It didn’t surprise her they were on the same page about that--though he wasn’t going to like the next part nearly as much. “Then I’d set a trap. Use bait they wouldn’t be able to resist. Someone they’d underestimate.” She didn’t flinch away from his gaze. “Someone you cared about who could take care of herself.”
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “And what if that’s what Seth wants me to do? I can hear the son of a bitch now--work smarter, Deacon, not harder.”