by Kit Rocha
Pain twisted in his chest, breathtaking in its intensity, worse than any of the boots or blades sinking into his skin. The way they'd left things would hurt, maybe someday even more than his loss. Grief was something you could work through, but regret lived forever, tormenting you with everything you might have done differently.
"I'm sorry." He had to say it out loud, put it out into the world, one way or another.
"For what?" Ashwin again. He captured Jared's gaze and held it, an intensity in his dark eyes that hadn't been there before. "Choose your final words carefully. I can't offer mercy, but you still have a chance at peace."
So many layers of meaning. For a heartbeat, it felt like more than an admonition to a dying man. It felt heavy, like a message.
Or a chance to send one.
There was only one thing that mattered now. "I love you," Jared whispered. "It's not your fault."
The doctor caught her breath. "He's delirious. There's nothing more I can do."
"Fine." Metal brushed leather, followed by the unmistakable click of a gun safety being thumbed off. "Anyone who'd like to step out—"
"Anyone who doesn't want to face charges of treason should absolutely step out." Nikolas Markovic stepped through the door, flanked by burly, silent soldiers with the same nondescript, insignia-free uniforms Ashwin wore.
Special Tasks soldiers. And they had their weapons trained on the counselor, who looked nothing if not confused. "I'm here on Council orders. This man is a suspected sector spy."
"No, this man is a confirmed spy." Markovic stepped forward, looming over the counselor. "My spy. And your idiocy has almost cost us the single most precious weapon we have against sector corruption."
Jared had to give it to the man—he recovered quickly. "My mistake. I should have confirmed my orders. He held up under interrogation, if that's any consolation."
"I would expect nothing less." Markovic glanced at the doctor. "Take her to a holding cell. Lieutenant Malhotra will debrief her once we've handled this situation."
Turning pale, the doctor scurried for the door, and one of the soldiers followed her out into the hallway as Markovic turned back to the counselor. "I trust you understand the delicacy of this, and how swiftly the Council will move to contain it. This man is within weeks of full infiltration into O'Kane's organization. If anything were to interrupt his progress…"
"I understand, sir. No more interference."
"Perhaps this isn't a complete loss. Lieutenant?" Markovic nodded toward Jared, and Ashwin stepped forward and drew a switchblade. In another moment, Jared's wrists were free. "Mr. Capello, while I apologize for this unpleasantness, I trust you have the wits to use it to your advantage. A car is waiting to return you to the sectors. Once there, perhaps your injuries will allow you to gain O'Kane's trust. Full membership would make you an invaluable Council asset."
Whatever game he was playing, Jared wasn't about to question it. He climbed to his feet, surprised and grateful that his legs would still hold him. "Don't worry, Markovic. I can make anything look good."
Markovic smiled easily at him. "I have every confidence. Lieutenant, the car is waiting for him in the east alley. Discretion is of the utmost importance."
Ashwin wrapped a firm hand around Jared's arm and guided him out the door. Quickly, silently. And by the time they turned the third brightly lit corner, away from the interrogation room, Jared worked up the nerve to say it. "I don't understand."
"What don't you understand?"
"Dallas wasn't supposed to come for me. That was the deal."
Ashwin hurried his steps, forcing Jared to move as fast as his legs could carry him. "Sometimes deals change. Like your deal with Markovic."
He had one now, whether he liked it or not. "What will he want?"
"I don't know." Ashwin shoved open the exit, revealing an alley wreathed in shadows. "Get the hell out of this city, and you might live long enough to find out."
A car with tinted windows sat idling a few feet away—exactly the kind of car Gia used when she needed to travel inside the city walls.
Jared's heart wrenched, and he dragged open the back door, already growling as he climbed in. "Giovanna, what the fuck—" He cut off as he found himself face-to-face with Lili.
"Close the door," she said hoarsely, her hands already sliding over his stained shirt. "Oh God, Gia, he's covered in blood."
Gia rapped sharply on the tinted glass dividing them from the driver, and the car rolled forward before Jared managed to shut his door. "He walked here under his own steam, darling, and has enough energy to chide me. I think he'll be all right."
Jared stared at Lili. He was going to kill Dallas—stone fucking dead. "He wasn't supposed to send anyone," he choked out. "And he sent you?"
"No one sent me." She caught his chin in gentle fingers, her thumb the softest glide along his jaw. "They never would have asked, but they didn't have to. You were mine to save, not theirs."
"So you went to Markovic?"
"I went to Markovic," she agreed. "I convinced him Dallas O'Kane repays his debts, and I told him how to save you. If you want to be furious with someone, be furious with me, because I took away your choice. Now you have to become an O'Kane. A public one."
He was furious, all right—furious and relieved, grateful and mad as hell that she would risk this, risk anything, for him. He'd been ready. He'd made his peace with his fate, only to have that peace snatched out from under him in a confusing whirlwind of subterfuge and secret deals.
It was too much to process. Even trying left him dizzy, lightheaded, so Jared did the only thing he could do. The manly thing.
He passed the fuck out.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Regeneration technology was one of Eden's true miracles.
The moment Jared slumped into Lili's arms, Gia had pulled out a tablet and sent a message to the O'Kanes. By the time the car pulled into the O'Kane compound, someone had already been dispatched for the doctor.
Lili's composure, which had survived Eden, negotiating with a councilman, and waiting outside a torture compound to see how much of Jared was left to save, nearly shattered when Dallas tried to peel her away to discuss her meeting with Markovic while the regen tech worked.
Lex's swift intervention had bought her a respite. Gia's strong arm around her waist while they waited held her together.
The O'Kanes rallied. They always did. Within hours, Jared was tucked into Lili's bed, asleep and breathing easily. Lili listened dully to the list of complications to watch for, promised Dallas a full report first thing in the morning, and closed the door on the world.
And then she watched him breathe until she believed he wasn't going to slip away.
Regeneration technology was miraculous. But the worse the damage was, the worse the scarring it left behind. Jared's perfect body was a latticework of pain, some marks white and barely visible, some pink, some red and angry.
Each an accusation. If she had trusted herself sooner. Moved faster. Spoken with more conviction. She hadn't believed in her own power, so she hadn't used it in time to spare him this abuse.
She wouldn't make that mistake again.
As much as she wanted to curl around him, she couldn't crawl into bed with him. She'd been too selfish to let him sleep under anyone else's care, but the fury in his eyes before he'd passed out haunted her. She didn't have the right to hold him. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Lili sat at her piano instead. She stroked her fingers over the keys and remembered the way he'd smiled at her on the day he'd given it to her, as if being the one to introduce her to the possibilities of a better world had truly pleased him.
"Lili?"
His voice was hoarse and broke on her name, but Lili didn't care. She spun on the seat, her heart kicking violently when she saw his eyes open. The clock beside her bed, illuminated by the soft glow of a candle, told her hours had passed since they'd tucked him beneath the sheets.
Time was an odd thing, bending and tw
isting—unsurprising, when she hadn't slept in nearly two days. Her own voice was as rough as his. "Jared. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine." He struggled into a sitting position. "My head hurts."
Lili hurried to his side and indulged herself by settling another pillow behind his back. "Dallas called a regen tech. She said that's natural, and that you'll be tired and hungry for a few days."
He tipped his head back and closed his eyes. "What a fucking mess."
She reached for his shoulder and froze, her fingers hovering over his skin. "I'm sorry. I did what I had to, Jared. I couldn't live with knowing you'd died while I sat at home, waiting."
"But I'm supposed to live with knowing you put yourself in danger, in Eden, for me?"
"Yes." She let her hand fall to her side. "Because you ask the same of me."
"I wasn't in Eden for you." He turned his head. "I was there for myself."
Pain was seeping through the ice, and she'd been wrong to think she understood the reality of it. A life of pain without joy was a life blissfully ignorant of everything you were missing. She could never reclaim that innocence.
This broken heart was going to hurt so very, very much. "Help me understand," she whispered.
It took him a long time to answer. "Twenty-two years. That's how long I was in the business. Don't do the math on it unless you want to puke." He glanced at her, but only for a split second. "Twenty-two years, and I never, ever thought about trying to bring that place down. Not once. I just smiled, did my job, and got paid."
She didn't know what to say, because words couldn't make the ugly truth of it any better. "We survive however we can," she murmured, hating how shallow it sounded. How patronizing.
"Sure, maybe. That was what Ace did, you know—survived long enough to get the hell out. If I'd done that, I think I'd give myself a pass. But I didn't just survive, Lili. I thrived. I got rich." He finally turned to her, his eyes alight with intensity. "Did you know Lex is a thief?"
She shook her head.
"Not so much anymore, but at one point she was damn prolific." Jared leaned closer. "You know what she did with the goods and money she stole?"
"No," she whispered, though she could guess just from the tortured look in his eyes. Something noble, heroic. Something that made Jared feel less than worthy.
"She gave it all away. To people who needed it."
Lili could have told him that Lex was hardly a saint. The O'Kanes did good things, but they indulged themselves without guilt or shame. Lex could give away every credit she stole because Dallas O'Kane had so many already, and his people spent them recklessly in pursuit of passion and pleasure.
But this wasn't about Lex, not really. It wasn't even about Lili, a realization that threatened to shatter her bruised heart, because it would have been so much easier to come to terms with knowing Jared hated her.
She didn't know if she could survive knowing he sometimes hated himself.
Moving slowly, she settled on the edge of the bed and cupped his cheek. "You took a risk no one else could, and now you have a chance no one else has—to be a bridge between Dallas and Markovic."
The first hint of a smile curved his lips. "You did well, Lili. You were smart."
"I was, a little." She touched his lower lip. "But I cheated. I remembered overhearing my father, gloating to Logan about how he'd put a man right under Dallas's nose."
"Noah?"
"Mm-hmm." Her father had been so proud of himself, too egotistical to imagine a world where he'd been fooled. "My first night here, I went to Dallas and told him there was a spy. And he just smiled and said, 'So Noah had everyone convinced, did he?'"
Jared clutched his side and winced through a laugh. "Double agent, huh? I guess that's something he and I have in common now."
She let herself touch his shoulder this time. Softly, ghosting her fingertips along his arm until she could twine her fingers with his. "It works for a reason. None of them understand loyalty the way Dallas does. None of them believe another person could be worth dying for."
He fell silent, and his hand tightened around hers. "Would you do it again?"
She wet her lips. "Every night, if you'd let me."
His eyes shuttered, and he pulled away. "I was afraid you'd say that."
Lili grabbed his hand again, clinging to it too tightly. "I'm not asking for an answer tonight. You need to think about what you want to do, and whether you want to go back. No one would blame you for wanting to just disappear."
"Of course I'm going back," he told her. "But nothing's changed, Lili. I can't be there and be worrying about you and what you'd risk if something happened to me. I can't do it."
As if he could stop her from risking herself for him. It was the culmination of all those steps down the path he'd guided her along, the one toward claiming her own strength.
"So bring me with you," she said, trying to smile to soften the steel in her words. "I'll keep anything from happening to you."
"It's not a joke to me, Lili."
"No." She released his hand and rose, because if she kept touching him, she'd buckle under his pain. "If I thought you just didn't believe in me, I could deal with that. I could try to prove myself. Because I can do this, Jared. I know I can."
"So do I." He moved slowly, swinging his legs over the side of the bed until his feet rested on the floor. "It's never been a question of what you can handle, love."
"Then let me love you." Her voice wavered, tears dangerously close. "Let me be your partner, that's all I want. To be yours, and to have you be mine."
"I'll always be yours." The way he said it, it was more than a promise. It was fact, pure and simple.
And it still sounded like goodbye. "Jared…"
"Just—" He held up a hand. "Leave me alone with it for a while, Lili. Let me try to think of a way it won't kill me to have you there. For you to—" His voice broke.
Her heart was bleeding. It had to be, for the pain in her chest to be so acute. She choked it down and walked back to the bed, pressing gentle hands to his shoulders. "Lie down," she whispered. "You need rest. I'll go, just...take care of yourself. Promise me."
"Yeah." He rolled to his side and faced the wall.
On the worst night of her life, Lili had killed a man and walked through the slums of two sectors with his blood splattered on her nightgown.
The short walk to Ace's room seemed longer.
He answered on her second knock, took one look at her face, and went ashen. "Is Jared—?"
"In my room," she cut him off, barely recognizing her own chilly, remote voice. Everything was remote. "He needs someone. Someone who isn't me."
"Hey." Rachel edged in front of him and wrapped her arm around Lili's shoulders. "Come on. We'll make you some tea, okay?"
Ace stepped aside, and Lili gave in and let Rachel guide her deeper into the room. Her eyes burned, and she couldn't tell if it was the exhaustion crashing down on her or the inevitable tears.
The room blurred, and she stumbled. Rachel caught her, and Lili turned blindly into her friend's strength as the last of her protections crumbled. "It's hopeless. We're killing each other."
"No, you're not," Rachel soothed. "You're figuring some things out, that's all. Like a puzzle, right? Sometimes you have to turn the pieces different ways before they fit."
She shook her head, because she didn't want to give voice to the words on the tip of her tongue. And sometimes they're from two different puzzles.
The one thing Jared wanted was the only thing it hurt her to give. And she could try, she would try, but that was the curse of a lover who could read your pleasure and your pain. He'd know how much it was killing her to stay behind.
And he'd hate himself more for it.
The tears broke free, hot on her cheeks, silent even as her shoulders shook with her sobs. Distantly, she heard murmured voices, the door whispering shut, and she knew Ace had left to watch over Jared.
She tried to stop crying. She tried to pull he
rself together, to be cold and hard again, but pain was like pleasure. Now that she'd started feeling it, she couldn't stop. It bubbled up and up until it boiled over, a lifetime of hurts she had never let herself feel, a string of losses that had seemed inevitable until she'd woken up in a world where everything you loved wasn't doomed to die.
Lili cried for Jared's pain. She cried for the things he'd endured in Eden, for the things he'd endured for twenty-two years, getting rich while his heart bled. She cried for her family, whose deaths she'd avenged without letting herself feel, because the helplessness of the loss had been too great.
Her tired mother, who had never been warm because warmth might have given Lili a false sense of hope. She'd prepared her as best she could for the only life she knew—a hellish one. Her older siblings, already growing wary with the world. Her younger siblings, who barely remembered laughter because it had been five years since Lili had been there to share it with them.
The baby, who'd never had a chance.
She cried until she was empty, until she was hollowed out inside, too tired to sob even as the tears slipped over her cheeks. Then she buried her face in Rachel's lap and let the woman's soothing murmurs and comforting touches coax her into the only sort of relief left to her—numb, exhausted sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Three
After getting the shit beaten out of you by Eden's finest, even ink on the delicate skin of your inner wrists was a piece of cake.
Jared watched the last of the lines take shape, the O'Kane logo centered on an elaborate shield, like the crest of some adventuring medieval knight. Crossed swords completed the design on his inner arms, connected to the shield by twisting vines bearing flowers just shy of bloom. It was beautiful work—but then, Ace's ink always was.
"There we go." Ace sat back and admired his work, a pleased smile curving his lips. "Perfect. How could it not be?"
"The artist at work." Jared turned his arm, admiring the shiny black lines. "Thank you."
"I've been wanting to do these for years." Ace rolled his stool to a cart and rattled around in a drawer until he came up with a tube of med-gel. "I tweaked the design a little, though. Now that you're a big badass hero."