by Kit Rocha
His eyes didn't open, but he squeezed her hand. "Emma. Promise me. Only Emma."
It took her a moment to figure out what the hell he was talking about, and when she did, she burst into tears. "You motherfucker." Only he would be worried about her goddamn tattoos when he was lying there, dying right in front of her.
He shook free of her hand and reached for her side, smearing blood across her shirt. "Let her finish it, angel. Don't fall forever."
Not in a million years. She'd wear his half-finished ink in her skin until she died, a mark and a brand and a reminder that she, too, was undone. Incomplete.
Doc burst through the door, bags in hand, already barking orders. "Donnelly, where's my IV access?" He halted by the stage, cursed viciously, and tore off his jacket. "Stabbing?"
"Straight blade. Five or six inches." Cruz didn't relinquish his place next to Ace until Bren nudged him aside, and even then he stayed crouched on the stage, his face blank. "It wasn't clean. The bastard twisted it good before I got to him."
"I'll have to open him up." Doc pulled the cloth away from Ace's belly and swore again. "Not much opening to do."
The world went white around the edges, and Rachel swayed. Trix steadied her, then slid both arms around her.
Doc tore open one of his surgical prep packs. "Want to help me with this, Ra--" The words cut off with a cough as he glanced up at her. "Never mind. Sorry."
Jade appeared at Doc's side, her hair tied back from her solemn face. "I can help."
"Good. Everyone else, get the fuck out."
Rachel stood, rooted to the spot, until Trix steered her toward the back door. "Come on," she whispered. "Let Doc take care of Ace. Cruz needs you, too."
Cruz. If she was reeling from the trauma of seeing Ace laid out and bleeding like this, how bad did it have to be for him? To not only see it happen, but to have it come as Ace was protecting him?
She circled the stage and fell into his arms.
"I'm sorry." His voice broke. "God, I'm sorry, Rachel."
They made it as far as the back hall, and she slumped against the wall while the others filed past them. She wrapped her hands around his forearms, stared at the splashes and smudges of blood--Ace's blood--on his bare skin. "He'll be okay. All Doc has to do is stabilize him, and Dallas will get a regen tech out here to do the rest."
Cruz shuddered. "It shouldn't have happened. I was distracted. And--Christ, Rachel, we fought. I was punching him before this started. I was--"
"Shh." She slid her hands up to frame his face, stared at her own terrified misery reflected back at her. "This isn't your fault."
"I should have protected him." Cruz clasped her waist, but his fingers were too tight, digging in until it hurt. "I can't just wait. I have to do something. I have to--" His hands flexed, and he released her abruptly. "Christ, I'm sorry."
"Cruz--" She bit off the words. There was nothing she could say to soothe him, no comfort except for her touch...and Ace's survival.
Chapter Twenty-One
Things went from bad to worse.
Doc stood there, his hands clean but his shirt still bloody. His words ran together, and Rachel struggled to make sense of them, even though his first were the ones that kept ringing in her ears.
It doesn't look good, O'Kane.
"...managed to repair most of the damage, but the deep vessels in his liver must have been compromised." Doc rubbed his eyes and sighed. "He's oozing blood, and I can't stop it. He's stable enough for now, but if you want him to last the night, get that goddamn tech out here."
"Jas is working on it," Lex told him.
"Working on it?" Cruz hadn't gone more than a few steps from Rachel, but nervous energy kept him pacing back and forth. "I thought you had a tech."
Dallas cast a look at Rachel and then shut Cruz down with a curt, "Jas is on it."
"No, I'm not," Jasper said from the open door to the dancers' dressing room. "She's not coming."
Rachel shuddered, the words propelling her up and off the couch. "What?"
"What the fuck does that mean?" Dallas growled at Jasper. "I pay her ridiculous fees, and that means I want her ass here when one of my people needs her."
"It's Fleming," Jas answered hoarsely, dragging his hands through his hair "Payback for the warehouse. I hit up all my other contacts--I even went out to Two. I couldn't find anyone else."
"Because he'll hold back the drugs they need if they give in. Fucking hell." Dallas paced away from them, his shoulders rigid, every step measured. "I should have seen this coming. The bastard has no honor."
Rachel clenched her hands to still their trembling, but it didn't help. The stark, brutal reality of the situation was there, laid out before her like a nightmare, and she couldn't wake up.
She couldn't fucking wake up.
"How long?" Lex asked flatly.
Doc shook his head.
She advanced on him. "Operate again. Fix the bleeding."
"The damage--"
"Fuck the damage. I'll go drag Fleming over here and give Ace his goddamn liver, you watch."
"I can't!" Doc exploded. "I don't have the equipment or facilities for this kind of procedure. And frankly? I don't have the skills either. It's out of my hands, Lex."
Rachel stepped between them, harnessing every last bit of composure she still possessed to speak past the choking lump in her throat. "There's nothing you can do for him?"
The man froze. For once, his expression of cool arrogance was gone. He stared down at her, anguish and remorse darkening his features. "I can end the pain."
Red clouded her vision, something deeper and more visceral than rage, and she slapped him.
"Rachel!"
She reached for Doc's throat, but an arm went around her waist, hauling her back. "Stay with us, sweetheart," Dallas murmured against her ear.
Stay with them. The world was spinning away, slipping through her fingers, and all she could imagine was Ace gone. Day after day of loss, of emptiness.
Of watching the light in Cruz's eyes die, too, a little bit at a time.
"I can't." The words ripped free of her burning throat, carried on a sob. "I can't do this. I can't--I can't--"
"I can get a regen tech." Cruz stared at the open door, into the looming darkness beyond, his eyes blank and unseeing.
Jas flinched as if Cruz had struck him. "I tried, man. I swear to Christ, I did."
Cruz turned slowly, but his gaze skipped over Jas and settled on Rachel. Her pain was echoed there, shared and multiplied. "I can get a tech," he repeated.
"How--?" Dallas started.
"Don't ask, because I can't tell you." Cruz touched Rachel's cheek. "Trust me, O'Kane. This is a favor you can't afford to owe. You can't even be here. The only one it's safe for is Bren."
Rachel reached for him, clenching her fists in his borrowed shirt. "No, Cruz. You can't go. Please don't leave me."
He framed her face with both hands and pressed his forehead to hers. "I don't have to go anywhere," he whispered hoarsely. "But you do. Go back to the barracks with everyone else, and trust me. Can you do that for me, angel?"
Angel. It shredded her, because it was more than an endearment. It was a plea, Cruz's way of saying that he had to do this, because he needed Ace as much as she did.
Loved him.
She took a deep breath--and nodded. "For Ace," she said quietly. "For you."
Cruz placed his call and made his promise, and then there was nothing to do but wait.
Wait, and finally tell Bren everything.
"He took Miller's spot as head of Military Police after Miller went down for the trafficking," he explained as they stood in the empty parking lot together. "I don't know why the Base sent him, but it must mean something. He's Makhai."
"Shit." Bren lit another cigarette. "No wonder you couldn't tell Dallas."
"Yeah." Even the people who believed the rumors were better off not having them confirmed. Especially someone in Dallas's position. "Eden should be worried, Do
nnelly. He's not just a soldier I happen to know from the Base. He's my contact."
A muscle jumped in Bren's jaw, the only outward sign of his sudden, palpable tension. "That's a dangerous fucking game, Lorenzo, and it doesn't belong in Sector Four. We'll all get dead."
"Do you trust Coop?"
"Coop's not planning a rebellion," Bren whispered. "A revolution."
A dangerous word. The kind that could get a sector firebombed. But for all that he trusted Bren's instincts, his friend would never understand the Base. If the Makhai soldiers had decided Eden wasn't deserving of their loyalty, they had the skills and power to make a rebellion swift and successful.
If revolution was coming, Cruz wanted to know.
A black car turned the corner up ahead, and Cruz straightened. "The favor I owe him will be between us, soldier to soldier. No O'Kanes, no Ace. I knew what I was doing when I made the call. And if you tell me you wouldn't have done worse if Six was bleeding out in there..."
Bren didn't hesitate. "I would have burned the world."
So would Cruz. And he'd be twice as dangerous, because he had two reasons to strike the match.
The car pulled into the lot in silence, and Cruz watched as Ashwin Malhotra slipped from the driver's seat. The back seat held three heavy silver briefcases Cruz recognized as the portable regeneration kits, but there was no sign of the regen tech.
Of course there wasn't. She wasn't here willingly.
Ashwin passed them the cases, then closed the car door and walked to the back of the car. "She sees no one. Hears no one. No threats, and no payment. Those are the terms, soldier."
"I've cleared everyone else out," Cruz replied, keeping his voice flat. Emotionless, as if he wasn't negotiating for Ace's survival. "I'll explain the situation to her."
Ashwin's hand hesitated on the trunk release. "That would put her life at risk. Unacceptable."
And to a Makhai soldier, the lines were perfectly clear. He'd calmly kidnapped the woman from her secure lab, had transported her blindfolded and bound in the trunk of his car toward an unknown fate that must have her paralyzed with fear--and he'd take her straight back to Eden if Cruz did anything that might endanger more than her emotional well-being.
Practicalities. Black-and-white variables. That was what a man like Ashwin Malhotra saw, and Cruz had drifted farther from that world than he'd realized.
It was hard to shut himself down. To consider the options. Every time he tried, he saw Ace's horrified face as the knife twisted in his gut. He saw the pain in the other man's eyes. The blood on his own hands.
He saw Rachel's heartbreak when he'd called her angel.
"We could leave her in the room with her supplies and a note," he said finally. "But how do we know she'll help him?"
"It's who she is." He opened the trunk.
The woman inside lay still, unmoving except for her quick, shallow breaths. Her hands were secured behind her back, and the blanket around her had fallen away to reveal pajamas. A pair of noise-blocking headphones had been secured to her head with the blindfold covering her eyes.
Then she shifted, and the delicate lace edge of her sleeve rode up to reveal two bar codes on the inside of one wrist.
Bren exhaled sharply. "Motherfucker. That's not just a tech from Eden. She has Special Clearance."
Cruz shifted his gaze to her face again. Her features were obscured by the blindfold, but even in the darkness he could pick out enough identifying characteristics. Regen techs were rare. Regen techs with Special Clearance...
"Dr. Kora Bellamy," he whispered. She was young but brilliant. She'd put Cruz back together more than once in the short time she'd been caring for the elite soldiers, always with a kindness and compassion he didn't often see.
She'd be terrified. She'd be upset. But if he shut her in a room with Ace, she'd get past all of those things and do what she always did.
Preserve life.
Ashwin pulled her up out of the trunk. She began to thrash, only stopping when he set her down and squeezed his hand around the back of her neck. Not hard enough to hurt, but she stiffened and stilled with a whimper.
Then he led her into the club.
Bren held back. "Nothing like this comes for free. You know that, right?"
He knew it better than Bren did, because he knew Makhai soldiers had a code, one that transcended military protocol and city laws. Nothing transcended a promise between soldiers. When the time came to pay the price, Ashwin would be ruthless in collecting.
As long as Ace survived, Cruz would pay. "Let's hope he doesn't ask me to set the world on fire."
"And if he does?"
For the first time since he'd left the Base, Cruz didn't feel pulled in opposite directions. Blood had a way of simplifying things. He'd do his best for Dallas, for all the O'Kanes, but his loyalties would never be divided again.
Rachel and Ace were his. If that meant razing everything in his path, it would be worth it. As long as they were alive. As long as they were safe.
"Cruz?"
"If you see me reaching for my lighter, start running."
Chapter Twenty-Two
Hell shouldn't have been so comfortable.
Ace was warm. Peaceful. Pain had been replaced by a bone-deep lethargy, the kind of exhaustion so far beyond tired that he drifted there for minutes or hours, wondering if opening his eyes was worth the trouble.
Probably not. This had to be a dream, because he wasn't alone. A solid wall of muscle radiated heat along one side of his body, and the other side was pressed up against soft curves. A pair of entwined hands rested on his chest, and sleepy whimsy imagined them guarding his heart.
If he really was in hell, this was a trick. Rachel and Cruz had slipped from his life, shoved out of it before they could walk away, and this moment could never be more than a fantasy. A dream. A cruel taunt, reminding him of what he'd lost, what he'd never been worthy of trying to take.
But if he kept his eyes closed, he could pretend. Just for a little while longer.
"His breathing changed," a feminine voice whispered, the words seeping through the layers of cotton around his mind. "Should we go get Doc?"
"Not yet. Let's see if he wakes up first."
What a shitty trick. It didn't even sound like Cruz and Rachel. Comfortable illusion shattered, and there was no point in trying to reclaim it.
Ace turned his head and opened his eyes, blinking until a pale face framed by brunette hair swam into focus. He parted his lips to ask where he was, but his throat was so dry he only managed the first word in a rusty whisper. "Where...?"
Soft fingers framed his face. "Shh, you're okay. Jas will get you some water. You've been asleep for a long time."
The bed shifted, and Ace twisted his head in the opposite direction. Jas was reaching for a bottle of water, the worry etched on his face already giving way to a grin. "Here."
The water helped. Ace drank half of it in slow sips before sinking back to the pillows, struggling to hide the ache of loss as Noelle smoothed the blankets back into place. It wasn't fair to feel so empty with the two of them beaming at him like he was their own personal miracle.
Maybe he was. But not enough of one.
"What happened?" he asked finally, glancing back to Jas. "Is everyone else all right?"
"Fine. Cuts and bumps, nothing a little med-gel couldn't fix. We won, by the way."
"Of course we did." He owed it to them to find a smile, so he squeezed Noelle's hand and gave her a grin. "Did Dallas get a chance at that bootlegging bastard, or did Lex get to him first?"
"Dallas killed him." Noelle curled up at his side, her hand settling on his chest again. "Lex knows the value of a symbolic victory."
"Yes, she does." Jasper hesitated. "How do you feel?"
"Tired." He stretched, flexing his feet and taking mental inventory. His last clear memory was being stabbed, but aside from a general ache, no part of him hurt much worse than the rest--which meant Dallas had opened his cashbox and purchase
d Ace a new lease on life. "Dallas called the regen tech and her magical silver briefcase, I'm guessing."
"Not exactly. I called, but she wouldn't come." Jas looked away. "Fleming pulled a power trip. He figured he'd punish Dallas one way or another, I guess."
It didn't make any damn sense. He slid his hand over his abdomen, searching for a wound he already knew he wouldn't find. His fingertips found only smooth skin--too smooth. "Dallas obviously found someone who was willing to show up. If he had to ask Jared or Gia, I can deal with the payment."
"Cruz called in a favor."
Ace stared at him, his heart suddenly thumping. How big a favor did it take to make Jasper look that wary? "From where?"
Jas shook his head. "He wouldn't tell us. All he said was that it would be too dangerous for us to know."
"He went a little crazy," Noelle whispered. "It was bad, Ace. We thought..."
She didn't finish, but she didn't have to. They'd thought Ace was going to die. He couldn't blame them. He'd thought it, too. By all rights he should be dust on the wind, but Cruz was a hero, and a hero never let anyone slip away.
Noelle kissed his cheek and climbed from the bed. "I'm going to go find Doc. If he says it's okay, we can get you some real food."
Ace watched her leave the room, a smile curling his lips in spite of himself. If anyone had told him a year ago that he'd be harboring a sincere fondness for a councilman's daughter, he would have laughed himself sick.
Women from Noelle's world had traded Ace between them like a dirty secret, but she'd rejected the lessons of that life with a courage that made them all look a little cowardly. Ace was twice a coward, because he couldn't even ask the question burning a hole in his chest. "Alright, brother. I suppose picking her up off the street wasn't your worst idea."
"Not by a long shot." Jas sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Turned away, but Ace didn't need to see his face to understand the gravity of his words. "You fucked up."
Which time. But if he said it like that, Jas would think he was joking. There was no reason to assume he wasn't. Everyone knew he couldn't be serious.