by Kit Rocha
Logan liked a drink after dinner, and it was her job to provide Logan Beckett with the things he liked—and to thank all the gods that existed that she wasn’t required to provide him with her body, too.
She poured his drink herself and only then settled into her chair. Gracefully. Silently. The opening movement of the night’s performance. A dutiful wife. Tempo di adagio.
He ignored her completely.
Most nights, she would have considered the lack of attention a relief. There was a certain safety in knowing she’d done her job so well that he’d forgotten she was even there. She was like a lamp or a hutch—decorative and useful, but otherwise unworthy of note.
But tonight she wanted something, so she sipped her wine and waited until he’d finished his soup. “I hope you like the fish. It’s fresh from Sector Six.”
This time, he replied. “Make sure my charcoal suit is pressed.”
She had too much practice to frown, but the charcoal was his best. The one he only donned when he intended to make an impression. “Of course. Will you need anything else?”
“My blue silk tie.”
He wasn’t going to make this easy. Lili drew a careful breath and put everything into making her voice soft and respectful. “If you’re going to be busy with important matters, perhaps I could visit my mother.”
Logan paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Why would you want to do that?”
Because her mother was a widow, grieving or no, in ill health, and trapped on a remote estate with Lili’s terrified brothers and sisters. “I thought I could help her with the children.”
“She has staff to help her.”
The wise course would be to bite her lip and subside. Her petition had been denied, after all, and that should be the end of it.
God, she was tired of subsiding. “Staff isn’t the same as family.”
Logan blew out an annoyed breath. “My answer is no. You have other things to focus on at the moment.”
She felt some vague stirrings of disappointment, somewhere beneath the chilly numbness offered by the pills she took every morning. The emotion wasn’t strong enough to break through, though. Nothing ever did, except for her exhaustion. “Where should I turn my attentions, then?”
He cast a sharp glance her way. “I don’t like your tone, darling.”
“I’m sorry,” she lied blandly. That was the blessing and curse of numbness—no real fear. “I didn’t realize I had a tone.”
He picked up his drink. “Be more mindful of it in the future.”
The future. It stretched out before her in perpetual sameness, and she felt something now. Claustrophobia, as if the walls of the house were shrinking in around her and one day would swallow her whole.
She pushed her chair back and rose. “Perhaps I should leave you in peace.”
“Sit.”
The ice fractured, just enough for rebellion to seep through. “I’m really not feeling well, Logan—”
He swept out his arm, and his plate crashed to the floor, shattering on the polished wood. But his voice was soft. Deadly. “Have a seat, Lili.”
No one would notice or care if her husband murdered her, so Lili sat.
Logan picked up his napkin and wiped the corner of his mouth. “I’ve indulged you too much, it seems.”
“I just wanted to see my family.”
“Our children will be your family.” He dropped his napkin. “We’ll start your drug therapy now. That way, you’ll be ready.”
Oh, there was the fear. The first stirrings of an old terror, the one that had made her reach for the drugs to begin with. She’d been fifteen, her mother’s wedding-night advice ringing in her ears like a curse. If you close your eyes and stay still, it can be over quickly. It will hurt, but you’ll recover. And then, most terrifying of all, Be sure not to struggle. It will only encourage him.
The unfamiliar strength of the emotion made her voice shake. “You promised.”
“I promised you time,” Logan retorted. “And I’ve given you five goddamn years.”
Five years of making his dinners, entertaining his guests, pouring his drinks. Five years of donning makeup and jewels like armor. She’d played wife like a child playing house, because innocence was safety.
Or it had been.
She met Logan’s eyes—those cold, chilly eyes. He didn’t sample pharmaceuticals to enhance the icy unconcern in them. It was there all the time, a warning she ignored now. “I’ll start the therapy willingly if you let me see my family.”
His lips curved in an indulgent smile, and he pushed his chair back from the table. “Come here.”
She wasn’t stupid. His eyes were empty, still frozen. But there was no escape, so she rose, smoothed down her dress, and circled the table.
He patted his leg. “Sit down.”
Spine stiff, heart pounding, she obeyed.
Logan lifted one hand to her hair, stroking carefully through the loose curls. “Lili. Beautiful Lili.”
He never praised her in private. Compliments were useful only as a means of showing off, of rubbing his employees’ noses in all the things they couldn’t have. She couldn’t trust the words, or the gentleness in his touch. “Please, Logan.”
“You’re a flower. My flower.” His hand tightened, dragging her head back, pulling her hair so hard it burned. “And flowers don’t argue, do they? They look pretty, they remain silent, and they do what they’re fucking told.”
She nodded her understanding, tears pricking her eyes as even that movement threatened to tear the hair from her scalp. Pretty and silent, tears sparkling on her lashes—the image would please him. Just like his gardens pleased him—gardens she labored over for hours every spring, because, contrary to Logan’s silly, stupid words, flowers never did what you wanted them to.
No, he only saw the gardens after they’d been coaxed into life and submission. He only saw roses in vases, once they’d been cut and stripped of their thorns. So there was another thing he didn’t know, would never see coming.
Flowers could be painful, poisonous. Even deadly.
Chapter Fourteen
The view from the VIP section of the Broken Circle was damn good.
Parked in the corner of one of the reserved booths, Finn could see the stage and the bar. As pretty as the brunette swinging her hips on the stage was, though, his gaze kept straying to the bar, waiting for the familiar flash of red hair.
There was a blonde working there now. Rachel, the one who brewed the beer Bren shared so freely. He was starting to match names with faces now, as the women dropped their wary defenses and came around to say hello.
The fact that he and Hawk were sitting with Jas and Bren probably didn’t hurt.
Jas was talking about Sector Three. “Now that we have things cleaned up, we have to figure out what kinds of resources are there.”
Hawk rubbed his thumb along the edge of his glass. “They provided electronics, right? Before Eden firebombed their asses, I mean. So what do they do now?”
“Not much of anything,” Bren answered. “That’s the problem.”
Sector Four had always been heavily populated by crafters and artists, a legacy of Eden’s original vision—a city where handmade and organic were more highly valued than the mass production of Sector Eight. Then the world had collapsed, and the pretentiousness had given way to practicality.
Trades were passed from parent to child, which made a place like Three a pit of hopelessness. All the jobs had been wiped out, along with most of the adults holding them. All that remained were stubborn orphans and opportunistic criminals.
Not exactly a prize, which made Dallas O’Kane even crazier for agreeing to take it on. “They need a purpose, then. One that makes them valuable but not so successful that Eden comes down on you. No small trick, huh?”
Jas lit a cigarette. “Not hardly. But Dallas took it on, and he’ll make it work.” He eyed Finn and Hawk appraisingly. “You two want to be in on it?”
Hawk slammed back his shot and met Finn’s gaze. “You said you came up from the tunnels in one of the warehouses over in Six. You should tell them what you saw inside it.”
He hadn’t seen a damn thing—and Finn’s stomach flipped end over end at the confirmation in the other man’s eyes. He’d taken note of it at the time but had shoved it out of his mind in the chaos that followed.
“It was empty,” he told Bren. A man who’d worked for Eden’s government would understand the terrifying implications. “Harvest was only a few months ago, but it was scrubbed clean. And maybe it’s the only one—”
“It’s not,” Hawk said. “Probably half of them are like that. And it’s even worse in Seven.”
The two O’Kanes at the table traded a sober look, and Bren picked up a bottle to refill their glasses. Casually, as if his next sentence wouldn’t have gotten him shot in Eden. “Nothing sparks revolution like hungry people.”
If the good folks inside Eden ever realized how tenuous their situation was, the rebellion wouldn’t stay outside the walls, either. “Maybe we shouldn’t stop with Jade’s garden,” Finn said. “We got resources, we got roofs, and we got a hell of a lot of useless folk needing work. Hawk can teach them to grow food.”
Jas quirked an eyebrow. “I’ve done some farming in my time, too. Not a bad idea.”
“Fifty-fifty,” Hawk said. “That was the promise when the original stakeholders claimed the farms in Six and Seven. Everything was set up for them, all they had to do was work the land. Fifty percent of the yields went to Eden, the rest they could sell to support themselves and their workers. Now we have to give up close to eighty percent, and it’s still not enough for them.”
“Nothing ever will be,” Bren muttered.
No, it wouldn’t. And when Eden felt the pinch, they weren’t going to worry about splitting what was left fairly between their citizens and the sectors. “If we start soon, we can probably get a lot of garden setups into place before spring.”
“You keep saying we,” Jas observed.
Finn stilled. The word had come without thought, slipping into his vocabulary at some point during the afternoon. It should have felt awkward, especially since the last time he’d felt a part of something...
This is how we go down. Riding Fleming’s hate into our graves.
We can probably get a lot of garden setups into place before spring.
Death and life. No, not just life. Hope. “Is that a problem?”
“No.” Jas downed his whiskey. “I was thinking it sounded kind of good.”
Finn couldn’t help it. He grinned. “Does that mean you’re not gonna kick my ass in the cage next week?”
Jas laughed. “Don’t get crazy, now.”
Jas might still punch him in the face a few times, but then he’d slap him on the back and get him a drink, because part of belonging would always be a willingness to bleed for and with your brothers. And that’s what Jas and Bren would be, if he stayed. The brothers Finn had never had, the family he’d barely realized he wanted.
Hawk was still staring at the liquor. “Are there many empty buildings in Three?”
“There’s a lot of rubble in the old manufacturing district,” Bren told him. “But Eden’s strikes were focused there. Plenty of tenements and residential buildings survived.”
“Dallas should talk to Shipp. We could use a second base of operations, and most of the guys have been working the farm for a decade or more.” Hawk glanced up, and sympathy stirred at the haunted look in his eyes.
Finn owed Shipp and Alya. For the life they’d given up, for the risks they’d taken to get him and Trix home. Demanding so much had been the act of a desperate man. Now that Finn had his feet under him, the right thing to do was give back. “They could be useful as more than farmers. These bastards have the fastest fucking cars in all eight sectors. And they can build an engine out of toothpicks and gum wrappers, if you give them enough time.”
“Maybe,” Jas agreed as the music changed to something older, with blaring horns and a suggestive jazz line. He almost choked on his drink and looked at Finn. “When you said Trix was working tonight, I thought you meant behind the bar.”
He’d thought that too, so he opened his mouth to ask what the fuck Jas meant.
And Trix appeared on the stage. Her breasts nearly spilled out over the top of her tiny green corset, and she carried a spray of peacock feathers at the small of her back. They brushed the backs of her endless bare legs as she crossed the stage, smiling at the audience.
Sweet holy hell.
Her skin sparkled under the lights—that damn glitter the soap lady had sold her, no doubt—and she shimmied as the music sped then kicked into some kind of drum roll. She flicked her wrists, and the feathers spread out into two giant fans.
The crowd whistled its excitement, and Finn wavered between appreciation for how easily she’d captivated every person in the room and the wild, homicidal urge to smash every cheering face into the nearest flat surface until he was the only one gaping at her.
Hawk’s voice cut through his confusion. “You might wanna put that bottle down before you do something stupid with it.”
Finn blinked at his hand, which had closed around the whiskey in a white-knuckled grip. In lieu of smashing it into someone’s head, he took a long gulp and then another, shuddering as it burned down his throat to meet the fire raging in his gut.
She was fucking spectacular. And she was just getting started.
Trix dipped and swayed, the fans flashing around her as she twirled. Every moment of the dance had been orchestrated to tease. The fans obscured what was already covered by the corset and her ruffled panties, but something about the glimpses behind the feathers seemed illicit.
She danced behind a thin screen set up on the corner of the stage. It was directly backlit, clearly showing her silhouette as she moved behind it.
“Here we go,” Bren murmured.
A green satin glove sailed through the air to land on the stage, and the crowd went wild.
For a glove.
Trix had them in the palm of her newly bared hand, and they couldn’t even see it. Because she’d made an art form out of the slow tease, out of letting a man’s lecherous imagination fill in all the details she hinted at.
She wasn’t giving them a damn thing, and they were eating it up and begging for more. “Fucking hell.”
The second glove joined the first, and Finn watched the clear outline of her shadow on the screen as she ran her hands down the luscious curves of her body and back up again.
He didn’t realize she was unhooking the corset until it fell away in her hands, and she reached one long, bare arm over the top of the screen and dropped it to the stage.
She emerged with a flourish, both fans spread over the front of her body. It left her back bare when she spun around, presenting the audience with the one part of her still covered—her full, beautiful, mouthwatering ass.
She moved her hips in time with the music, bumping left and then right before circling in a slow grind. The whistles and cheers swelled again, and Trix’s hair spilled over her back as she craned her head to look at them.
At him.
She winked, then slowly licked her shoulder.
She might as well have licked his cock.
Arousal in public wasn’t a new thing. He’d had Trix crawling in his lap during Sector Five parties. He’d had her hands and her mouth on his dick. Usually while he was bombed out of his skull, high enough for the world to be numb even if his body never was. Not numb enough. Not while she was around.
This was different. Hotter, and flat-out wrong. Every man in the crowd was picturing what was beneath those fans, imagining that her saucy winks and the flirtatious swing of her hips was for him alone.
But it wasn’t. This wasn’t for them, or even for him. Trix was in her element, reveling in every scrap of freedom she’d won, showing off the body she’d reclaimed from the faded wraith she’d been.
She wa
s a goddess, and not a man in this room was worthy of her little piece of heaven.
She resumed her dance. The fans spun in careful time, revealing no more than flashes of pale skin as she twirled. Then the music slowed to a careful, sensuous rhythm, and she slowed with it, sliding the fans over her body.
He couldn’t hear it, so he almost missed her hitching gasp. But when she arched her back, one nipple peeked through the green feathers—hard, a shade darker than usual. The way they got when she was turned on.
Oh yeah, this dance was all for her, and she was getting off on it.
Hawk tried to pull the bottle out of his hand, and Finn bared his teeth. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Let him keep the whiskey. There’s more where that came from.” Jas chuckled and motioned to the bar. “Besides, he looks like he needs it.”
Finn felt secure enough to mutter, “Fuck off,” as a brunette approached the table with another bottle. She was wearing a corset, too, and though her rack wasn’t as impressive as Trix’s, it was on enough display that someone should have tried to catch an eyeful on her way past.
When the girl thumped the bottle to the table and leaned over to kiss Jasper, Finn understood why no one was risking it. Up close, the decorative ink wrapped around her throat proved to be more than simple lace. Jasper’s name was woven into it, the J resting in the hollow of her throat.
Noelle Cunningham, then. Eden’s most infamous refugee. Finn had been vaguely aware of her during her life as a councilman’s daughter, mostly because her father had been bitter enemies with Gareth Woods, Fleming’s pet council member. Her fall from grace had been spectacular, though, and it had altered the course of Finn’s life in ways she’d never know.
It all came back to Woods. Fleming’s ally. Cunningham’s enemy. Jade’s patron, the man who’d demanded her drugged into helpless addiction to ensure her obedience. Every two weeks, Finn had made the miserable trek to Fleming’s private love nest. He’d delivered the drugs that kept Jade weak and docile. He’d hated himself, hated Fleming, hated Woods...