by Wren Weston
“Well, I’m glad that they’re on it.”
Lila nodded, vaguely annoyed that she had been forced to put any spies on the case, pulling them off their regular assignments. It would have been suspicious not to pretend an interest, though. Besides, she needed to know what the other families were finding out. She needed to know if she had a chance at convincing her father not to hand over Tristan’s name to Shaw, not that the idiot deserved it.
Lila holstered her Colt and short sword, then walked Sutton out of her office. She waved at Sergeant Jenkins, her private executive admin, as he rolled his wheelchair behind his desk, the Colt at his waist gleaming and polished to a shine. It wasn’t disuse but love that kept it so beautiful. He could outdraw and outshoot nearly anyone in Saxony, even edging out Sutton, who had once been a sniper for the army. Lila had studied hard under his and Commander Sutton’s tutelage. She’d even won several state competitions, but only when the pair chose not to compete.
Jenkins settled in front of his computer, his shirt starched and his jacket crisp, and bowed his head toward her. “Morning, chief,” he said, pulling off the top to his morning coffee. “It’s omelets today, before you ask. French toast, too. I suppose you could pour syrup all over them and pretend that they’re waffles.”
Sutton snickered.
“I might.” Lila escaped her office and headed for the elevator. She rode down to the first floor cafeteria, a large, plain room filled with plants and long rows of tables carved in oak. She filled her plate with an omelet, several slices of French toast, and a pile of fruit salad from the buffet. She then found a seat among her militia, those Randolphs who either had a drive to protect the family or who suffered under dividends that shrank with each generation, due to their birth plunging them further away from the matron’s chair.
These highborn needed a contract with the family.
They needed one that paid, and paid well.
It did not take long for a few lieutenants from the overnight shift to settle beside her, wanting a word about militia business and department budgets while they ate.
When Lila finished, she dumped her tray into the slot in the back of the cafeteria and peeked out the window. The sun had risen while she had been catching up on her work.
The sight was too tempting. She’d give herself fifteen minutes before returning to her office.
Walking along the gravel pathway that circled the compound, she pulled out her palm. After deleting several new messages from Tristan, she checked her alerts, those anonymous notices sent by her snoop program.
Zephyr must have been at work this morning, too.
He had chewed through another layer.
Lila sent a hasty message to her father. I’m killing that damn spider.
Her mood only worsened when she spied a familiar motorcycle across the street from the south gate. Whereas Lila’s Firefly had been built like a greyhound, the black Amazon resembled a pit bull, strong and sturdy with a barreled chest.
The rider dipped his helmet.
Lila thrust her palm into her pocket and stalked past two blackcoats manning the gate house. Both eyed one another nervously, choosing only to salute their chief, rather than offer good mornings.
Her temper thanked their better judgment.
She passed by the Amazon and its rider, continuing two blocks beyond the south gate until she reached Simone’s, a restaurant with an outdoor dining area. The windows were dark so early in the morning. Thin chains threaded through the chair legs, tables, and patio umbrellas, each ending in a little padlock. Lila shook a chair loose from the jumble and sat down, waiting.
The rider pulled up beside her and cut off the Amazon’s motor. It gave out one last halfhearted sputter and died.
“You’re still in the city,” Lila said icily. “You should take my advice and leave Saxony with your people. I might not be able to call off my father. I hear Westminster is nice this time of year.”
He popped up his visor, not bothering to get off his bike. He set his jaw, either in anger or annoyance.
Or both.
“Yeah, Westminster is nice if you want to freeze your balls off. You didn’t even look at my messages, did you?”
“Why would I? I told you that I was done. Don’t you understand the meaning of the word?”
“You complained about me not answering my messages?” He dug into a mesh bag on the side of his bike, tossing Lila her helmet.
She barely caught it before it slammed into her chest.
“Your Firefly is parked one block east of the south gate.”
“I’m surprised you went to the trouble. Your expression seemed to indicate a certain amusement at my predicament last night.”
“Amusement? I winked so you’d know I intended to take care of your bike. How much plainer could I have been?”
Lila considered the gesture. Tristan wasn’t the type to go out of his way for no reason. It was either a peace offering or he wanted—
“Go change out of those ridiculous clothes and get your bike. We have real work to do.”
Lila’s chin jutted out, and she drummed her fingers on her helmet absently, watching his face grow redder and redder when she refused his command.
He had only retrieved her bike because he wanted something.
He always wanted something.
“Thank you for rescuing my Firefly, Tristan, but it doesn’t change the situation. I was taken in for questioning once already. I’m done being tethered to you.”
“You said that you were done. I never said I was.”
Lila propped her boots upon the table, her spirits somewhat lifted when he gritted his teeth. “Done,” she sang out, hoping he’d take the hint. She’d seen the stubborn glint to his eyes before. It said he would tie her to the back of his bike if he had to, blackcoat be damned.
Her hand brushed her Colt. Dixon could always pick up Tristan later. A few hours of sleep and a tranq hangover would serve him right. She’d do it. They both knew it, and they both knew how fast she could draw and how accurate her darts were, too. He’d be snoring before he even got off the bike.
“You can’t be done. I’m here to hire you.” He squeezed the grips on his Amazon, just as Shaw had worked at the doorknob the evening before.
“I’m not looking for work. With my dividends, I hardly need whatever paltry cash you could offer me.”
“I’m not offering cash. I’m offering you something better.”
“What could you possibly offer me that I can’t get for myself?”
“Chairwoman Wilson and her estate, a couple of decades early,” he said, smirking when her eyes widened. “I thought that might interest you. Go get changed.”
Lila considered Tristan, considered the amount of trouble he might get her into with this latest ploy, considered whether or not she could trust him.
The answer was simple. She couldn’t.
It couldn’t hurt to hear him out, though. Chairwoman Wilson’s estate would bring in hundreds of millions of credits for the Randolph family, not to mention what it could do to the New Bristol economy if the businesses had proper management—her family’s management.
Even better, her mother would be far too busy with the changeover to talk of senators and babies and the season.
Intrigued, Lila did as he bid.
Chapter 9
Lila followed Tristan into East New Bristol and turned onto Shippers Lane, passing the Plum Luck Dragon, which now bore a Closed until Eleven sign behind the glass.
They stopped next door to the restaurant in front of a run-down gray brick structure. The five-story building seemed slightly out of place in a slum, for the windows on the top floor arched so expansively that they would have fit nicely in a gothic cathedral. The ones on the other floors imitated them like a baby brother emulating his elder. Someone had nailed a piece of weathered
plywood over the busted window near the front door. It had been tagged by graffiti dilettantes, rather than artists, with one of them stenciling a red phoenix in the corner. Above the plywood, a neon sign spelled out Mechanic. Half the letters had dimmed or cracked. Only the M remained whole.
A familiar man with a shaved head sat on a little wooden chair in front of the unfamiliar shop. He balanced on the back two legs, bouncing a green ball the size of his fist, and a purple scarf covered his neck. Before Tristan had even stopped the bike, Dixon hopped to his feet. He tugged on the handle of the steel dock door at the front of the building, allowing it to roll up into the ceiling.
The entire first floor had been hollowed out as a working repair shop. The sign out front had not been mere cover. Tristan rode his Amazon inside, stopping behind several new trucks. All were black Cruz N-47s.
Lila followed him inside, the oil and grease covering the smells next door. She parked her Firefly near a jumble of other cars and motorcycles, many rusted and likely dead. They were so tightly packed that only the most careful driver might untangle one from another. Tool benches and shelves sat along one wall, everything neatly packed in its place.
Lila traded her helmet for a mesh hood and threaded her way through the Cruz trucks toward the front of the shop, pulling her workborn peacoat around herself more tightly.
Two men in their early twenties bent over the frame of a Barracuda, unscrewing rather important-looking parts from the motorcycle, a hushed string of curses flowing freely between them. An old woman dressed in coveralls and a brown coat supervised them from a workbench, underneath a sign that read Clean Up or Suffer. She adjusted her bifocals and squinted at a piece of thick tubing in her hands. Several of her fingers and part of an ear were missing.
“Hello, Hood,” she said, her voice more crotchety grandmother than criminal mastermind. She didn’t look up from her work.
“Hello, Shirley. Hiding the evidence, I see.”
“You’re one to talk. You ever going to tell me who you stole that bike from?”
Lila shrugged.
“Let me know if it needs a repaint. My boys work fast. I’ll even cut you a deal. Course, my prices—”
One of the men dropped the Barracuda’s gas tank. Its echo boomed in the metal shop. “Sorry, Shirley,” he said instantly, chasing after it.
“I’ll let you know about that repaint.”
Lila turned and followed Tristan, who had moved toward a door at the back of the shop. “You weren’t eating your dinner last night, were you? You were here the entire time.”
“I was eating dinner. I just wasn’t eating at the Plum Luck Dragon.”
“You moved for the food, didn’t you?”
“No, it didn’t hurt, though,” he admitted, pulling open the door. He turned and started up a narrow flight of stairs.
Dixon tapped Lila on the shoulder before she could follow. The tongueless man held up his notepad. A shamrock charm dangled from a silver bracelet at his wrist. Lila skimmed through the notes from earlier in his day, which was something of a guilty pleasure. Dixon never seemed to mind all that much unless he was in a hurry. Today’s page had started with a hastily scribbled eggs and two biscuits please and led into a boast about a blonde, mid-20s, nice ass, nice everything soon after. An all caps DON’T BE SAD. I’ll find another for you tonight poured into a note about Lila. Tristan’s getting her? Good.
Dixon tapped his smooth, aristocratic fingers in the middle of the page, and she found her place. Are you ok? Last night you limped. He cocked his head to the side, squinting through the mesh, watching her face.
Lila nearly shivered at the intrusion. His blue eyes always seemed to catch more than others, and she sometimes wondered if he knew who she was. “I’m fine, Dixon. It was just a few blisters. Thanks for asking.”
You lost me last night. He wrote quickly. Next time, you won’t.
“Oh yeah, what’s the score again?”
Dixon narrowed his eyes, bit the air in front of her hood with a twinkle in his eye, and returned to cover the dock door.
“Words, words, words,” she called out.
Dixon flipped her the bird, then rolled down the steel door behind him, returning to his chair outside.
“Are you done yet?” Tristan asked impatiently, leaning on the wall at the top of the stairs.
Lila took one last look around the shop, closed the door behind her, and followed him up to the fifth floor. Someone had strung fairy lights across the entire ceiling in the hallway, which ended in a window at the back of the building. The latch hadn’t been locked, or perhaps it was broken, for the window hung slightly out of true. Many things in the building seemed broken, little things like door knobs, the stair railing, the moldings. Lila supposed that Tristan’s people fixed things as they had time, but clearly, Tristan did not give them enough of it.
Perhaps she should speak to Shirley. The woman had proven time and time again that she knew how to handle her business. The whole shop might fall around their ears otherwise.
Lila sprinted forward to catch up.
Tristan ducked into an apartment at the end of the hall. Thick black drapes had been placed over the grand windows to trap in the heat, darkening the interior. He flipped on the lights, though it didn’t help much. The front room looked like a cocktail lounge for frugal moonshiners, with most of the kitchen ripped out and styled like a bar. Two wine barrels supported a darkly stained countertop, and four black barstools stretched along one side. Several tables and old black couches lined the sides of the room, couches that had once belonged in the lobby of the old hotel. The room smelled slightly of wine.
Lila pulled off her hood and tossed it on the counter. Pacing from one side of the room to other, she eyed everything like a cat might explore her new surroundings. “Nice apartment,” she said at last, falling into the couch.
“It’s not an apartment. It’s more of a meeting room, though I do sleep here.”
Lila peeked through the two doors in the back. A string of bottle caps hung in the window inside one bedroom, while the second was a world of color. Strips of flags hung from the walls as well as posters of bands and sales and festivals, only right side up half the time. They seemed to be collected for color only. Purple, blue, and green took center stage.
“Dixon, the resident magpie, sleeps in that one.”
Lila stifled a laugh and crossed her legs on an ottoman. It had been made from a smaller wine barrel, chopped in half and covered with a blue faux-leather cushion. Several like it had been placed around the room. Three coffee tables had been made in much the same way as the counters. The wine barrels had been cut a bit higher than the ottomans, then attached on either end to a stained slab of wood. “What’s with the barrels? Did you rob a winery?”
“No, we didn’t rob a winery,” he muttered.
“Then where did the barrels come from?”
“Here and there.” Tristan flipped on a heater abandoned in the middle of the room.
Lila could not find a label or a brand. It was likely that it had been etched into the top of the barrels and cut away by Tristan’s people or covered up. “Tell me more about this deal, then.”
Tristan opened a free-standing locker in the back of the room and withdrew a bottle of whiskey. “You want a drink?”
“No, I don’t want a drink. I don’t drink whiskey, and it’s far too early for it. I need to get home, Tristan. It’s almost nine. I’ll be missed.”
The whiskey disappeared back into the locker, and Tristan found a bottle of wine. Delicate calligraphy hovered over an orchid on the label.
La Sangre de las Flores.
“You sure?”
“Sangre?” Lila asked, impressed. “I suppose you liberated this as well?”
“I’m always liberating people and things that need it.” He poured the wine into two black coffee mugs adorned wit
h the Jolly Roger. “A housewarming gift from Dixon. They suit me, don’t you think?”
Lila took a mug and sipped the sweet wine, tasting an undercurrent of blackberries, breathing out happily at the first sip. It wasn’t that she couldn’t afford Sangre; it was only that her family boycotted the family who produced it. The chairwoman had a falling out with the Holguíns when Lila was a little girl. Ever since, her mother refused to stock the wine in their cellar, as did every Randolph establishment and every lowborn business who leased land from the family. It had been written into their contracts. The slight had hurt Holguín’s label so much that it had nearly gone out of business a year later.
Somehow the label still clung to life. If Chairwoman Holguín and Chairwoman Randolph ever made amends, both stood to make a great deal of money. But for that to happen, a great deal of highborn drama would likely pass first.
“Tell me about this job,” Lila prodded.
“Don’t you ever just take a break? Is there ever a moment when you aren’t all business?”
“I don’t have the time.”
“Make time.”
“If I had the time, I’d rather sleep.”
“Fine.” Tristan dropped a manila file on the coffee table and sat next to her on the couch. “I told you last night that my people bombed Slack & Roberts. What I didn’t tell you is that Toxic downloaded every file on their servers beforehand.”
“Why?”
“For information, of course. To prove some suspicions we had. Toxic spent all yesterday morning hacking into their files, and we spent the rest of the day and night going through the data. We didn’t find anything in the legal files, of course. Someone important might request them.”
“Someone important?”
“You know what I mean. No one puts a smoking gun in a file that Bullstow might request at any time,” Tristan said, and sipped his Sangre. “We moved on to the billing data soon after.”
He picked up the file on top of the coffee table and dropped it in her lap. “Like I told you yesterday, we’ve suspected that Slack & Roberts have been colluding with several highborn clients on a number of defense cases, ignoring the people they should be defending in order to pass the prisoners onto the highborn as slaves.”