Sunscapes Trilogy Book 1: Last Chance

by Michelle O'Leary

  A brief, humorless smile touched the corners of her mouth, and she tilted her head to one side quizzically. “Don't tell me you've forgotten about all those answers you demanded, have you?” She brushed by him and sank gracefully onto the couch, patting the cushion next to her and raising her eyebrows at him. “Make yourself comfortable, Del. My father's mistake is only half the story."

  Sin watched Del's grim face and listened to the slow thump of dread between her temples as she waited for his response. It was possible that he would leave. It was possible that he would hate her, now that he'd heard who was responsible for the darkness in his life. In all their lives. Telling Cassie hadn't been nearly this hard, though part of that was because Cassie'd had time to figure out some of it on her own. Still, her skin had not felt this icy or her stomach this unstable when she'd faced Cass with the truth.

  Without looking at her, Del ran a hand through his hair and gripped the back of his neck with enough force to cause his fingertips to whiten. Then he let out an explosive sigh and dropped his hand, his dark eyes finding hers as he moved to stand before her. “My brother said it was a blood feud,” he accused, tension pulling his skin taut across his cheekbones.

  "Your brother is a bright man without all the facts,” she said carefully. “He is both right and wrong. Please, sit."

  His mouth compressing in a grim line, he lowered himself next to her, facing her with one arm along the back of the couch. If he lifted his hand, he could brush the nape of her neck, and Sin suppressed a quiver at the thought. She couldn't shift further away, though—he would read it wrong.

  "Thank you,” she murmured and cleared her throat, dropping her eyes so he wouldn't see how his nearness affected her. “It's only a true blood feud if there's animosity on both sides. My father was careful enough about that, at least. Griffin has never suspected how much we despise him, probably because he wouldn't understand the reasons why. After all, it was my father who opened the door for him to become what he is today. And I don't believe he can grasp such concepts as duty, honor, and compassion—if anything, he sees them as weakness instead of strength."

  Sin glanced up through her lashes to see Del's expression turn impatient. He didn't look as though he was interested in the inner workings of Webster Griffin's mind. She wished briefly that she could afford not to be.

  "My father began to try to rectify what he'd done in the manner that he'd been taught by my grandfather—all out, no holds barred, no quarter given. It didn't work. It couldn't even begin to work. Griffin had too great a hold on a world that was out of my father's reach, the underbelly of our society. Desperate, my father tried to solicit help from other sources, even asking the Orders for advice."

  Del tensed at this, and Sin curled the unbruised side of her mouth in a faint smile. “That's when the Red Sun Order took an interest in him and our company. Ordinarily I would say that the Reds don't care who wins the battle as long as there is battle, but in this case I don't think they like the idea of Griffin controlling them any more than we do. And even back then, they could see the threat of Quasicore, the potential for destruction and grief. My father asked for advice. They gave it. His strategies became ... much more long term."

  Del's impatience hadn't abated—he narrowed his eyes at her and growled, “Get to the part where you explain your actions. What your father did was—"

  "What my father did was raise his children to understand responsibility and duty and honor and compassion, quite a bit different from how he was raised. We still have that Shay stubbornness, though, and that inability to fail. My actions have and always will reflect that."

  Del shifted and frowned at her, the dark depths of his eyes edged with confusion. She knew he was having a hard time correlating her words with what she'd done tonight, but she had to tell this her way. If she skipped ahead, he wouldn't understand everything and might not believe what she told him.

  "A long time ago, a young, inexperienced Red Sun ascetic suggested to me that my brother and I were being trained as assassins, that one day we would be unleashed on Griffin. I laughed in his face. For one thing, our father would never be so cold-blooded with his own children. For another, even back then I understood the true nature of the Core. Griffin might be a megalomaniac, but he didn't allow his ego to stand in the way of his creation. He built the Core to stand even if he should fall. That's our main problem. We can go after Griffin, but the company would remain. Someone would take his place, and the Core would go on as it always has, devouring everything in its path. Perhaps it would be someone who is less maliciously intelligent as Griffin—but I doubt it. He has a daughter, you see."

  She could see the comprehension in the widening of his eyes and the tension around his mouth. Now they weren't talking about one megalomaniac's dreams of empire, but of his dynasty.

  "So my father went to the Orders and got advice from the Red Sun. Then he went to the FPA and got their cooperation. And then he began playing Griffin's game against him. It wasn't easy for him—making contacts that were already under the Core's shadow was difficult at best. My brother and I made it easier when we were old enough, but it was still an uphill battle, for all of us. As he was bound to do, Griffin discovered what we were doing. And as we expected him to do, he offered to help."

  "I don't understand,” Del protested, shaking his head.

  "I know,” Sin sighed. “We studied him for years before we understood him enough to try what we're doing now. You see, Griffin has always admired my father, or seemed to at least. I believe he even held some affection for him. Ezekiel Shay offered him a new life, through an act of moral and ethical—not to mention legal—corruption. In his mind, that act placed my father in his circle, and he always believed Shay Enterprises to be his friendly rival. The competition between our companies was something he welcomed, even relished, for how it honed his own skills in the business. But I think he always saw my father's clean business practices as a show of weakness, and when he discovered us delving into the dark corners of his world, he rejoiced. Finally, my father was becoming the kind of adversary that he needed."

  "Sin,” Del interrupted, rubbing his temple with impatient fingers, “you're not making any sense. Are you enemies or not?"

  "In Griffin's eyes, we aren't. We're his official business rivals and his unofficial cohorts in corruption. For our part, we play his game in the hopes that some day we'll be able to bring his company crashing down around his ears. To put right what my father made wrong so many years ago."

  Del made a rude noise with a sharp wave of one hand. “How does that make you different from him? All this talk of fighting him and fixing what's wrong doesn't make your actions any better than his. I watched you sell out dangerous cargo to a bunch of pirates tonight, Sin. How is that right?"

  She smiled despite the pain it gave her tender lip. “My father would have liked you, Del,” she murmured, and watched his brow crinkle and his eyes pull away from hers for a moment. “Fine, let's talk about what happened. Do you remember asking me why we were carrying so much Abantium?"

  He nodded, his eyes narrowing again as if he expected her to evade him.

  "We carried so much because we bought extra, twice the contracted cargo, as a matter of fact. Paid for by Shay Enterprises, because we'd already made it clear to Griffin that we'd be carrying that cargo and we knew he'd want it. Left to his own devices, Griffin would have had the pirates take it all from the Cortecans after we'd delivered it. So we made sure that we were around to control the deal, for the half of the cargo that was ours."

  "Wait,” Del cut in, holding up a hand and shaking his head. “That's not what happened. They attacked us."

  "Yes, well, sometimes these pirates can get it in their heads that they've got more brains than they actually have. They disregarded Griff's orders and tried to cut out the middleman aspect by stealing the cargo from us and doing the deal with the Core themselves."

  "I still don't buy that it was just a good deed for the Cortecans. You said
yourself that you let Griffin know you were carrying Abantium. You made sure he would come after it."

  "Of course we did. We had to have some way to flush out someone in this sector of space who would know the location of Griffin's secret facility."

  He scowled at her and she couldn't contain a quick grin. “What in the name of the Suns do you want with a Blue factory?"

  Sobering, Sin leaned closer to him and locked her gaze with his. “I want to destroy it.” Pausing long enough to see the beginnings of belief in his face, she continued, “But I won't. Griff knows we're in the area, so if we went there now, he'd know it was us and the game would be over. We'll come back later and scout it out."

  With a thoughtful frown, he studied her. “How big of a factory are we talking about?"

  "As far as we can tell, it's the Core's largest producer of Blue."

  "So it would be a pretty big blow to him if it was destroyed,” he said in a musing tone.

  "Yes and no. Sure it would hurt Griffin, but it wouldn't stop Blue production."

  "So what good does it do to destroy it?"

  She gave him a lopsided smile in deference to her throbbing lip. “Exactly. Now you're catching on. We've done countless things like that before with no effect to the strength of the Core. We've got to think bigger. That's where the FPA comes in."

  He tilted his head quizzically to one side. “You'll tell them where it is?"

  "Yes, but not until we've had our crack at it."

  "What does that mean?” he asked with suspicion tightening the skin around his eyes.

  "It means that we need more than one Blue lab to take down the Core. We need to find out who is running Griffin's Blue production. We need to cut off that particular field of his operation at its base. This factory is the key. It's big enough that they'll know who is controlling things. Once we have that info, we turn that person or persons in to the FPA, along with proof in the form of the location of that factory."

  "It's a pretty wild plan. If it works, though ... The FPA would take the Core apart with that kinda proof of illegal activities."

  "That's the hope,” Sin responded, but didn't say how unlikely she believed that to be.

  He seemed to catch some of her skepticism, though, his head lifting like a prelude to challenge. “You don't think the FPA's got the balls to do it?"

  "Some do,” she qualified. “Those are the ones my brother and I are working with. But some...” She sighed, closing her eyes and rolling her neck in an attempt to ease the aching muscles at the base of her skull. “Like I said, Griffin made sure the Core would stand. He's infected so many other areas of our society—does it surprise you that he'd corrupt the FPA as well?"

  He swore in a low voice and Sin nodded without opening her eyes.

  "So he's got ‘em in his pocket? Then what's the point?"

  "The point is they aren't all on his payroll. The point is someone has to stop him before they are. The point is—failure is not an option.” Sin met his gaze with grim determination. “The Core continues to grow, Del. Griffin isn't sitting idle. If we don't stop him now...” she let her voice trail off and shook her head with slow deliberation, eyes still locked with his.

  His mouth compressed as though he was holding back bitterness, but his eyes searched hers with an intensity that stole her breath. “And the factory?"

  "It's the beginning of the Endgame.” Unwilling to explain too much and strain his fragile acceptance of her word, she sought to distract him. Tilting her head, she gave him a faint, challenging smile and asked, “Want to come with us when we go after it?"

  The tightness around his mouth eased somewhat with a cynical half-smile. “Why do I get the feeling that you're asking me to shoot the rim again?"

  "Because you're the suspicious sort,” she retorted. “All we mean to do is slip in, get the info we need, and slip back out. Nothing to it."

  He snorted, lifting his hand off of the couch and giving a lock of her hair a gentle tug. “Little liar. A place like that won't exactly leave the front door open and the landing lights on for you. They're gonna have security."

  Sin dropped her eyes, shifting to curl her legs under her. The action twisted her more towards him and she tried not to lean into his heat like a frozen comet pulled into a sun. “We're good at improvising,” she said. “Been doing it for years."

  She felt the return of his touch, and she lifted her lashes to see him studying her face with an expression that was difficult to read as his fingers tested the silk of her hair. He had the look of a man who was seeing something astonishing for the first time.

  "You're really one of the good guys ... aren't you?” he asked in a low, surprised murmur.

  She laughed softly to cover the sudden wave of relief and longing that weakened her muscles and flushed her skin. “We do our best. You didn't believe it until now, did you?"

  He grimaced a little, his eyes drifting down to her mouth and speeding up her heart. “What'd you expect?” he grumbled, but in an absent way, as though his thoughts were elsewhere. His face darkened, and his brows drew together as he lifted his hand, still entwined in her hair, to touch his thumb to the bruising at the corner of her mouth. “Should've hit him a few more times,” he muttered with a spark of grim violence in his eyes, but his touch was infinitely gentle as he brushed his thumb over the abused flesh.

  "Well, I would have, but you knocked him out,” she said, trying for a light tone, but hearing the shiver of yearning at its edges.

  His expression lightened as a fleeting smile passed over his mouth, but he didn't lift his eyes and his thumb continued its soothing and mesmerizing passes over her skin. “How bad does it hurt?"

  "Not—not bad,” she stuttered as his thumb skimmed the edge of her lip, leaving behind a tingling sensation that sparked an answering response throughout her body.

  "Mm,” he hummed in a thoughtful tone, leaning towards her with a faint, absorbed frown. “Maybe we should put ice on it."

  She barely heard him, watching with her breath caught in her throat as he bent his head down to hers. He was moving slowly, giving her plenty of time to pull away, but Sin couldn't move. It was all she could do not to lean into his touch, to reach out to him, to turn her mouth up to his like a supplicant.

  The first touch of his lips on her bruised flesh sent a shiver of longing down her spine and she couldn't stop a faint whimper from escaping. Del whispered wordless contrition against her skin, cupping his hand against her cheek. The strands of her hair trapped between his fingers were cool in contrast to the warmth of his large hand. With slow gentleness, he covered her bruised skin with kisses, his other hand caressing her arm with soothing strokes, as if he was trying to erase his earlier brutal grip.

  The tenderness in his touch brought the sting of tears to her eyes and she closed them in dismay, trembling on the edge of restraint. In slow motion, she raised her hands, placing them against his chest and trying to find the strength to push him away. But with each sweet and seductive brush of his lips against her skin, it became harder and harder for her to remember why she should.

  He moved his attention from the corner of her mouth to her lower lip, the brush of his mouth soothing and gentle—and maddening. She quivered, her hands slowly closing around fistfuls of his shirt. When she felt the silky slide of his tongue against her swollen and sensitive flesh, she sighed in surrender and turned her mouth to his. He went still for a moment, and then whispered something broken against her lips before sliding his hand into her hair and deepening the kiss with slow care.

  It stung her split lip, but she couldn't have cared less. It only seemed to add a poignant edge to the sweetness of his mouth moving over hers. He kissed her with tender, thorough deliberation, and the aching promise in that caress stripped her defenses away as if they were meaningless, exposing her every vulnerability. In that moment, if he'd asked, she would have whispered her heart's desire.

  "Oh! Um, s-sorry..."

  Cassie's voice was a hard slap of r
eality, shocking and painful. Sin pulled back from Del with a gasp and a shudder of dismay, turning her face from them both in desperate self-preservation. She lifted a trembling hand to her temple as Del said her name in low protest, his rough murmur overlaid by Cassie rattling off something about activity on the troller.

  Sin ignored them, pushing to her feet and spinning around the end of the couch to head for the exit. At any other moment, she would have stayed, brazened it out or smoothed it over, but not now. It wasn't that she'd lost control with Del twice in one night, though that was bad enough. The discovery she had just made while in the cradle of his hands and under the spell of his kiss was too much of a shock for her to stay. She needed to be alone, to come to terms with the fact that, despite the sheer folly of doing so, she had hopelessly, ridiculously fallen in love with him.

  "I'm really sorry,” Cassie whispered as Sin passed her, but she just waved a hand in a sharp gesture of negation and stepped out of the room without a word.

  Chapter 19

  Cassie winced, wishing hard that the floor would just open up and swallow her whole. She had never seen that look on her friend's face before, and it wrenched at her heart like a jagged hook. That kiss was not something she should have seen.

  With slow dread, she turned to Del—and winced again. He had a hand to his forehead, shielding his face from her eyes, but his fingertips were white where he gripped his temples. Cassie chewed on her lower lip, trying to decide if it was prudent or cowardly to scurry out of the room. After a brief moment, she grimaced and took a deep breath. Brave people didn't scurry.

  "Del, I apologize for interrupting."

  His only response was a grunt. Not exactly encouraging.

  Bracing herself, she rounded the end of the couch and sat gingerly next to him. “I wouldn't have come in if I'd, uh...” Nope. That wasn't going to do it. She could tell by the deepening craters he was making in his temples. “Do you ... want to talk about it?” she asked without enthusiasm.