Before the End (Beyond Series Ultimate Glom Edition)

by Kit Rocha

  "Could be," Six replied, keeping her arm tight around Rachel. "Or it could just be random. People are poking at the edges, trying to see if Dallas is paying attention. Like those kids who robbed Ford's new assistant. Some people are just bad. The second they can't feel your boot on their neck, they act up."

  It was more words than Rachel had ever heard Six say at once, maybe ever, and it tipped her hand. She was nervous, too. They all were, and for good reason.

  Six might have been nervous, but she also spoke the truth. The attack could've come from anywhere.

  Before Noah Lennox, Cruz had been confident he knew every way in and out of Eden.

  Lord, had he been wrong.

  The tunnels that ran beneath the city and out into the sectors were kept secret from most of the inhabitants on both sides of the wall. The military police knew of their existence, of course, and the Special Tasks teams were intimately familiar with them. Teams like the one Cruz and Bren had once belonged to used them to ghost in and out of the city, invisible to the people whose lives and well-being they were supposedly working to secure.

  But the tunnels were even more extensive than Cruz had realized, and Noah knew how to access areas marked incomplete on every map they'd ever seen.

  "My grandfather's work," the hacker admitted as he used a handheld tablet to descramble the lock on a door Cruz had walked by a dozen times without really seeing. Noah had revealed an access panel by prying away a plate that blended almost seamlessly with the whitewashed cement wall, and the door itself was only outlined by a faint shadow--one of many in the poorly lit tunnels.

  It whispered open on a silent mechanism once the code was complete. It was dark on the other side, and Cruz held up a flashlight as Bren guarded their backs. "Your grandfather?"

  "Mmm." Noah unhooked his tablet and slid the panel back into place. "He helped design the city's networking, back when it was supposed to be utopia. Before the military--"

  He cut off abruptly with a wary look Cruz's way. If Noah had access to Eden's files, he'd know where Cruz had come from. He might even think he understood what it meant to be from the Base.

  No one understood. No one could, not even Bren. "Before the military took it," he finished quietly. Not that the General had ever framed it quite like that--rescuing an important resource from the chaotic panic of civilians sounded far more inspiring than outright theft. "I know what happened."

  Noah cleared his throat. "Right. Well, long story short--my grandfather hacked the records. Erased plenty of places from the city plans, which means we should be able to get right on top of this speakeasy without anyone noticing."

  "Provided Jared gave us accurate directions," Bren said.

  "Provided that," Noah agreed, already moving deeper into the darkness, shining a tiny light ahead of him.

  Cruz let Bren precede him before slipping through the door, which slid shut as quietly as it had opened. A surveillance mission hadn't been at the top of his list of things to do after coming back to the compound to find out that someone had tried to snatch Rachel off the street. He'd rather be back in his room, with her cuddled safely against his side. Preferably with Ace there, too, both where he could see them. Protect them.

  But there were other O'Kanes guarding her back tonight. Mad and Ace were there, along with Zan, the quiet bouncer. And Six and Lex were just as deadly, not to mention a whole lot more likely to be underestimated by someone out to cause trouble.

  Rachel was damn near as safe as she could be, and Cruz was doing the only thing that could truly make her safer--getting the intel they needed to end this shit.

  Knowing that didn't make it easier to be gone, something Bren would understand. "How was Six after the fight?"

  "Angry," Bren answered. "Mad at the assholes who attacked them, and mad at herself for not managing to take one alive."

  Taking someone alive was harder than simply winning a fight, but Bren knew that, and undoubtedly Six did, too. They were all lucky that alive had been one of the requirements the kidnappers had been operating under--though Cruz's fingers curled into a fist at the thought of what often happened to prisoners who needed to be taken alive.

  Cruz forced himself to exhale, to relax his hand. Calm and reason, that would keep Rachel safer than rage. "I'm assuming she told you what she remembered. Did any details stand out?"

  "They were looking for a quick pickup." Bren grinned, wide and feral. "And they weren't ready for three O'Kane women to fight back."

  No, they wouldn't have been, and Cruz shared Bren's smile. "Poor planning on their part, then."

  "And poor planning means bad intel."

  Noah bit off a curse from the other door, his face eerily lit by the glowing tablet screen. "Speaking from personal experience? It takes an act of fucking God--or access to secret Council files--to get reliable intel on the O'Kanes. Bren has one of the most complete files I've ever seen. Took me forever to figure out half of it was faked."

  "Serves you right for snooping." Bren jerked his head toward the door. "Through this one, then the tunnel to the left, yeah?"

  "Dead on." Another few seconds of cursing, and Noah opened the door. The tunnel on the other side had lighting strips along the top of one wall. The floor sloped gradually upwards, toward a dead end with another door. "I'm sure you guys know this tech better than I do," Noah said, swinging his pack around before tossing it to Bren. "But I made some upgrades to the facial-recognition algorithms. It's always iffy with pictures taken in the dark, though, because intensity and contrast--"

  "Clear pictures are better," Cruz cut in. Noah was terse as hell until you got him rolling on some fine point of technology or code, and then the man couldn't seem to run through words fast enough. "Got it."

  Bren slung the bag over his shoulder. "Call it, Cruz--you want to plant the tracker or deploy the drone?"

  Cruz grinned, and for a moment it was like a decade had fallen away, like he and Bren were on just another mission, ready to give each other a hard time right up until the bullets started flying. "You're out of practice, Donnelly. Stick to the easy shit and leave the tracker to me."

  "You saying I've gone soft?"

  "Maybe."

  "Whatever," Noah interjected as the door slid open. "You're both crazy scary motherfuckers, so get out there and do your thing."

  Cruz slipped through the door, into the darkness of an abandoned office. This section of Eden was mostly warehouses, empty caverns of space that had once held surplus supplies looted from cities within driving distance. But Eden churned through resources faster than necessary, and didn't trust a populace that got poorer every year. Anything of value had been moved to a more secure location years before Cruz had run his first mission.

  Short-sighted. Stupid. No wonder men like Ashwin Malhotra no longer considered loyalty to Eden their first priority.

  Bren held up one hand in a silent gesture--stop--and cocked his head. Activity bustled on the other side of one thin wall, the sounds of wood scraping and glass clinking. He scanned the room, pointed two fingers to his eyes, then indicated the far side of the warehouse.

  With one finger, he quickly sketched a box in the air. Window. At Cruz's nod of understanding, he slung the bag containing the surveillance drone off his shoulder and melted into the shadows.

  The window wasn't large, but Cruz didn't need it to be. It squeaked slightly when he lifted it the first two inches, but through the gap he could hear the men in the alley, talking over an idling engine. No shouts--they wouldn't want to call attention to what they were doing any more than Cruz did--but they weren't good at stealth.

  Cruz was. With the tracker and the rest of his tools secured to his belt, he opened the window all the way, slipped through it, and lowered himself silently to the ground. Gravel stirred beneath his boots, just a whisper, and he dropped to a crouch in the shadows and looked to his right.

  The truck was facing him, parked at a crooked angle, as if backed up to the door by someone without much skill. Even better fo
r Cruz--they'd swung the truck doors open to unload the merchandise, blocking their view of the narrow space between the vehicle and the building.

  He could have strolled in and slapped the tracker into place in broad daylight.

  Not that he was careless. Too much was riding on this for any accidents. Cruz stayed low, inching along the side of the building, thankful that Eden didn't waste energy on streetlights here. He made it within a few feet of the front fender before dropping to roll under it, careful not to disturb any stray garbage. He was close enough to hear the men clearly now, and all it would take was one slip--

  "I can't believe they go through this shit so fast."

  "No kidding. Good thing for them it's cheaper than the real stuff."

  A snort. "You been in this joint? They charge more than the real stuff. Didn't think that was possible."

  "Fancy fuckers," a third voice replied as Cruz dug out the tracker and affixed it to the undercarriage. "Money makes 'em stupid."

  "Amen." Bottles clattered, followed by a vicious curse. "You drop that, and the boss'll have your ass."

  "Hell, you think I'm scared of--"

  The third man, the one with an unmistakable thread of intelligence running through his voice, hissed. "Shut the fuck up. You know the MPs have eyes and ears all over the goddamn place."

  It was truer than they'd ever know. Bren might have already deployed the surveillance drone, which would send video back to Noah's tablet as long as he stayed within range--a limitation the official drones didn't share. By the time Cruz crawled back through the window and into the tunnels, the hacker would be cleaning up whatever shots he'd managed to get of these men's faces. If he was fast, he'd be comparing them to Eden's files.

  The drone would tell them who, and the tracker would tell them where. Knowing both would give them time to do real surveillance, to plan an attack that wouldn't just lop off a few branches, but tear the whole messy operation up by the roots.

  Cruz made sure the tracker was secure before crawling back to the wall, but he was still three feet from the window when the truck doors slammed behind him.

  No time for careful. He hoisted himself and went through the window headfirst, biting off a curse when his shoulder smashed into the cement floor. Not the most graceful roll, but he managed to come up on his knees, crouched just low enough to watch the men pull the delivery truck past the window and out of the alley.

  He turned and found Bren standing there, grinning. "Now who's out of practice?" he asked, tossing the bag to Cruz. "Come on. Let's see if Noah's turned up anything yet."

  "Impossible," Cruz retorted, but a few minutes later he was standing next to Noah, eating his words for a second time.

  Noah was fast. He was good. Scary good, because Cruz had known techies who could make computers sing, and they would have been hard-pressed to pull a clean image and a facial match out of thin air, much less using a portable tablet and home-brewed algorithms.

  Noah didn't just have the faces. He had dossiers, and a serious expression that spelled trouble.

  With dread building in his gut, Cruz lifted a brow and tried to sound casual. "And?"

  Instead of speaking, Noah handed the tablet to Bren. He stared down at it for several endless moments before shaking his head and passing it on to Cruz. "One unidentified...and two known associates of Liam Riley."

  Fucking hell.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dallas had thrown the gang into lockdown mode, which usually led to a lot of pissed-off O'Kane women, resentful of the restrictions on their freedom.

  Tonight, three of their own had been attacked. Tonight, lockdown had led to drinking.

  Ace heard the voices from the first floor of the living quarters, the kind of wild feminine laughter that only seemed to happen when men weren't around. Ace had gate-crashed enough girls' nights to know just how ribald a group of women could get before they broke out the liquor.

  On any other night, that would have been reason enough to climb the stairs to where Lex and Noelle had claimed Dallas's party room for a different sort of debauchery. But tonight--

  Tonight, he really needed to see Rachel.

  Nessa's voice rose as he approached the door, edged with liquor and laughter. "--so then he was like, 'most women only get off from anal sex--'"

  "Wait, wait, no--" Noelle gasped, barely getting the words out around her giggles. "He said that while he had his hand in your pants?"

  "Yeah, but I didn't let him keep it there after that," Nessa retorted. "Maybe that works on women who've never stuck their own hands in their pants. But even then, fuck. If he gives up after thirty seconds with his fingers, what are the odds he knows what to do with his dick?"

  "Zero," Trix declared confidently. "Well, maybe two percent--but only because he could've gotten lucky and hit the right spots by accident."

  More laughter, as Noelle and Six started to argue over whether two percent was too high or not high enough. Ace paused in the shadow of the doorway, peering in. Most of the women were there--even Amira, with tiny Hana nestled in a clever sling and sleeping against her mother's chest.

  Rachel sat there right along with the rest of them, a drink in her hand and a bright smile on her face. But the smile was fixed, nothing like her usual, gentler expressions, and it didn't quite reach her eyes.

  She was trying. Lord, she was trying, because she knew this was for her benefit. The stories, the drinking, the women gathered together--they were here for Rachel, to have her back, to make it clear she'd never be alone.

  So Rachel would be here for them, because that was who she was. Giving until it broke her.

  Fuck that.

  Ace swung into the room, grinning. "Okay, ladies, I'm here. The party can start now."

  "Uh-uh, no penises allowed." Amira threw a pretzel in his direction. "Not even yours."

  "I'm wounded," he retorted, swooping down to kiss her cheek. He spared a moment to stroke Hana's dark hair and trace a fingertip over her tiny little ear.

  Babies were a new addition to the O'Kane compound--unsurprising, considering the danger of their lives and how much it cost to get reproductive drugs that made them possible--but Hana was enchanting when she wasn't screaming or puking. Small and perfectly formed and capable of a surprising range of emotion between her papa's big blue eyes and her mama's pretty smile.

  Hana stirred, and Ace stroked her cheek again. "Hey, peanut."

  "Oh, that's cheating," Noelle groaned. "Being adorable with the baby is out-of-bounds. Lex, make him stop."

  "Can't." Lex arched an eyebrow as she reached for a half-empty whiskey bottle and refilled her glass. "Adorable is Ace's middle name."

  "You know it, sister." Ace offered Noelle a wink, grabbed the bowl of pretzels, and parked his ass next to Rachel. He threw an arm around her, too, trying to make it look casual even as he tucked her close to his side. "So, Nessa. Tell me more about this ass-lover so Bren and I can round up Jas and Mad and kick him into next year."

  "Oh, God." Nessa shot him both middle fingers. "This is why I never get laid, seriously."

  Rachel poked him in the side. "Being an idiot isn't an ass-kicking offense."

  "Being an idiot to an O'Kane woman about sex is," he retorted.

  Hana fussed a little louder, and Amira squinted at Ace as she eased her daughter from the sling. "He who wakes the baby holds the baby, Santana."

  Maybe he shouldn't have been pleased, but Ace still smiled as he held out his hands. "Give her here. She loves me just as much as the rest of you do. As she should, because I'm damn lovable."

  Amira settled the infant into his arms. Ace shifted her carefully, tucking the blanket more snugly around her body. He'd been scared of holding her at first, terrified of breaking her. Everyone had been, except Jas and Six, who'd grown up on farms where Eden didn't bother with birth control in the water. Babies meant workers on the farms--everywhere else, they were just more mouths to feed, a drain on resources.

  That's what they were in Sector Fou
r, too, but damn, they were cute.

  Rachel finished her drink and slid her finger into Hana's outstretched hand, like it was the most natural thing in the world. The baby gripped it and cooed, eliciting the first real smile Ace had seen on Rachel since walking in.

  It slayed him.

  "She's sweet," Rachel said quietly. "Reminds me of my baby cousins."

  Ace had only had one "uncle"--a man who may or may not have been related to him--but that grumpy bastard sure as hell hadn't reproduced. "Did you have a lot of them?"

  "More than my share," she admitted. "In my old neighborhood, babies were a sign of prosperity. The bigger the family, the better off everyone knew you were because it meant you could afford to pay the bribes and take care of them all."

  Eden supposedly had limits on children for the same reason they pumped birth control into every source of water they could reach. You could only balance so many rich people on the backs of the poor, after all. It figured they broke the rule as fast as they could make it, as if that extra bribe money would do them shit-all good when they were outnumbered ten to one and everyone was hungry.

  They'd never realize it, though, not until it was too late. Ace had nailed enough wives and daughters of councilmen to know those fancy bastards couldn't see what was going on right under their noses--or in their own beds.

  Hana made a pleased, burbly sound and waved her little fist with Rachel's finger still firmly in hand. Ace hadn't known about her cousins. He hardly knew shit about her life before, because it wasn't the sort of thing you asked about. Life in Eden was bad--and if hers hadn't been, why grind salt in the wounds by reminding her she could never go back?

  A safe enough rule, but it felt shallow now. Not because he thought he should ask, but because he honestly wanted to know. "What about your family? Did you have brothers or sisters?"

  Rachel's smile went rigid again. "No. Pregnancy was hard on my mother, so there's just me."

  And she'd been exiled, taking the fall for her father's bargain with Dallas O'Kane. Way to go, Santana. He couldn't even manage basic human bonding without the verbal equivalent of kneeing someone in the guts. Cruz should have been there, petting her or holding her or saying all the right things.