Bonds of Justice p-8

by Nalini Singh

  Max finally fell asleep late into the night, his body still humming with his violent response to Sophia’s fleeting touch. So in a sense, he’d expected the intensity of his dreams . . . but not their subject.

  “You little shit!” Hands shaking him hard, so hard, as a screaming mouth spewed obscenities at him.

  He stood frozen, trying not to cry. He couldn’t cry. That would only make her more mad.

  “Just like your father.” It was screamed into his face. “Piece of filth.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and he couldn’t help it, his voice broke.

  For an instant, her face went unnaturally calm. There were no more screams, no more painful shakes. She just stared at him.

  And he knew that his mother wanted to suffocate the life out of him.

  Max’s eyes snapped open, his hand going for the stunner under his pillow. It took him close to two minutes to realize the danger was only in his head. She’d almost killed him in the memory, come so close that sweat broke out along his spine even now, his skin taut with remembered terror.

  Getting up, he walked into the bathroom to throw cold water on his face.

  It snapped the remaining threads of the dream, his mind beginning to function again. The connection was indisputable—Sophia, a J, had touched him . . . and he’d had a dream from when he’d been small, so small that he couldn’t have been more than three at the time. He’d never before remembered anything from that period of his life.

  The consequences of further contact didn’t escape him—but when it came to Sophia Russo, Max had no intention of retreating.

  Max invited Sophia into the privacy of his apartment the next morning when she came to meet him for the drive to Nikita’s office. Shadows bruised the skin beneath her eyes, her bones cutting blades against that normally lush skin. “Tough night?” he murmured.

  “I should know better than anyone that memories are never gone,” she said in an echo of his own thoughts, “but even I, it seems, have some delusions left.”

  Raising his hand with a slowness that gave her plenty of warning, he began to play with a lock of her hair. She went preternaturally still, but she didn’t stop him. “Memories aren’t always vicious,” he said, speaking to both of them. “I’ll remember the softness of your hair each time I smell your shampoo. Let’s see, vanilla and”—he paused, took a long, indulgent breath—“below it, some kind of a flower?”

  To his surprise, she answered. “Lavender soap. I use it on my body.” Then she lifted her own hand, hesitated.

  He bent his head in invitation, his heart kicking against his ribs. Slow, Max, he ordered himself, take it fucking slow. He waited for her fingertips to stroke through his hair, however she touched not his hair . . . but his lips.

  He couldn’t control the shudder that rippled through him. The leather-synth of her glove was warm with her body heat, the pressure so slight as to be nonexistent—but it held him captive, slave to her desires.

  “This,” she whispered, tracing the shape of his mouth, “will be a good memory.”

  It was tempting to surrender to the pleasure, but she’d come to him with nightmares in her eyes. “Tell me about your dreams.”

  “You said your mother hated you,” she said, the harshness of the words nullified by the delicate way she stroked over his lower lip, as if fascinated by the feel of him. “Mine rejected me as absolutely.”

  The hunger to hold her strained at every one of his muscles, the butterfly flirtation of her touch fuel to his instincts. “Why?” The cop in him said this was important, that it held the key to understanding her.

  “I was imperfect.” Dropping her hand, she took a step back. “We should begin the drive to Nikita’s.”

  Imperfect. Anger burned a steel flame inside him, but he angled his head in acquiescence, not trusting himself to stop with a simple comforting touch—not when he wanted to crush her to him, teach her that he saw her as anything but imperfect.

  Neither of them spoke again until they were in the car and on the road. “My knowledge of Nikita is based on what I’ve seen in the media,” he said as they merged into the morning traffic. “She comes across as intelligent, a cut-throat businesswoman.”

  “I agree.” Sophia felt her muscles relax at the realization that Max didn’t intend to press her to take the next step in this unforeseen, unpredictable dance. The part of her that had been waiting for him for a broken, tormented eternity wanted to rush, to race, but the simple fact was, she didn’t have the capacity to process anything more than what they’d already done. Not yet. “Nikita also seems to be one of the few high-level Psy who thinks in truly global terms—she is, as far as I know, the solitary Councilor who has such close ties with a changeling group.”

  “I heard that Anthony Kyriakus is still subcontracting foreseeing work out to his daughter, Faith.”

  Sophia nodded, having followed the news of Faith NightStar’s defection. Foreseers were rumored to be even more mentally unstable than Js—and yet Faith had survived. Though Sophia had always known that any such defection was out of the question for her, her mind woven inextricably into the fabric of the Net, Faith NightStar’s survival had seemed a victory for all of them who were labeled mad and had their lives erased from existence.

  “Yes,” she said in response to Max’s question. “Anthony is also involved with the changelings, but according to my research, Nikita was the one who took the first step into such an arrangement when she formed a business alliance with DarkRiver’s construction arm.”

  Max switched lanes, his brow furrowed in thought. “Could be something there,” he murmured, and she could almost hear his brain working, making connections with a speed that many Psy, certain of the superiority of their mental abilities, would find extraordinary. “Any more details on the construction deals?”

  Forcing herself to look away from the clean lines of his profile, the sleek strands of black hair that glimmered with hidden red highlights in direct sunlight, Sophia checked her data. “It looks like her firm is gaining changeling housing contracts not only in the U.S., but also internationally. The murders may be motivated by professional rivalry.”

  “It would fit.” Max tapped a finger on the steering wheel. “Each of the victims died on the verge of a major deal.”

  Surprised, Sophia quickly skimmed through the relevant parts of the file and realized he was right. “All three were linchpins, bringing something unique to the table,” she said out loud. “Their deaths derailed the entire process in each case.”

  “Nothing obvious connects the three deals,” Max said. “We need to find out if there’s a link beneath the surface, if one particular competitor benefits with Nikita effectively out of the run—” A beeping interrupted his words. “That’s my cell.” He nodded at where it sat in the holder on the dash. “Can you check the caller’s name?”

  “Of course.” Picking it up, she glanced at the ID . . . and felt her mind go quiet, cold, the otherness stirring to life. “It is the prosecutor, Mr. Reuben.”

  CHAPTER 14

  I can only show you what the defendant did in that room ten months ago. To ask me whether or not he is a monster is to presume I have an intimate knowledge of monsters.

  —Response by Sophia Russo (J) to a question posed by the prosecution in case 23180: State of Nebraska v Donnelly

  Mouth a grim line, Max brought the vehicle to a stop in the half-empty car park of a restaurant that hadn’t yet opened.

  Listening to his end of the conversation, she’d divined the reason for the call by the time he hung up. “Bonner wants to talk to me again.” The thought of trawling through that mind full of malice made her entire body stiffen in revulsion.

  Better to kill him.

  Because he might just be the final weight, the one that would cause her shields to shred beyond any hope of repair. And Sophia wasn’t ready to have her brain crushed, her psyche, her personality, wiped from existence. Not when she’d just found Max, found this man who made the cold
, dark places fill with light. Clenching her fingers on her organizer, she fought past the whispers of vengeance that seemed to originate in the dark tendrils snaking through her mind and soothed the otherness back to sleep.

  “Bastard says he’s got something to share, some memory he’s apparently been able to dig up.” Max braced his arm on the back of her seat, playing with a strand of her hair as he’d done in the apartment.

  She didn’t pull away. They had trust between them now, a fragile thing born in the electrical storm of their first real touch. “I suggest that this one time, we let him play his games.” No matter her hunger to live, to steal and claw every extra day she could out of this life, she couldn’t walk away from Bonner’s evil. Not when the cost of protecting herself would be to abandon those lost girls, leave them buried and forgotten in the dark. No one should be forgotten. No one.

  “If we play it right,” she said, remembering three other young lives that had been willfully erased from every mind but her own, “it’ll only increase his frustration, make him more malleable.”

  Max’s eyes filled with raw, edgy emotions she’d never get the chance to study, to truly know. Not in this lifetime. So she asked, “What are you thinking?”

  “That it’s a pity torture is illegal.” A visceral anger in every world. “We’ll set up a comm-conference. We’re not traipsing up to him so he can have a convenient memory lapse.”

  “The comm systems at our apartment won’t have the necessary encryption.” Sophia’s own anger was a colder thing, a thing that saw nothing wrong in taking an eye for an eye, a life for a life. “We could ask Enforcement if they have a secure link.”

  “Their system was pretty good last time I was here.” Releasing her hair with a little tug that made her scalp prickle with sensation, the ice thawing in a flare of white-hot heat, he rubbed at his jaw. “But they have leaks.”

  “There are leaks in every Enforcement building.” Facilitated, in most cases, by the Psy.

  “I think I know someone else who’ll have a secure link.”

  So it was that half an hour later, Sophia was ushered into a small conference room in the medium-sized office building that was the DarkRiver leopard pack’s city HQ. “They’re not worried?” she asked after their escort—an auburn-haired young male—withdrew from the conference room. “The changeling distrust of Psy is well-known.”

  “This is where the cats do business,” Max replied, setting up the comm-conference using the touch pads. “Some of that business is with Psy. And don’t forget—DarkRiver has several Psy defectors in its ranks.”

  “This building is full of changelings.” The statement of the obvious slipped out.

  Max turned to pin her to the spot with his eyes. “Are you having trouble?”

  “No.” She tugged her gloves more securely over her wrists and snugly below the cuffs of her white shirt, the action more of . . . comfort, than necessity. “Changelings are actually restful.”

  A raised eyebrow, those solid shoulders relaxing as he returned his attention to the comm controls. “Not many people would describe them that way. They tend to have this wild energy below the human surface.”

  She wanted to point out that he burned with that same wild energy—though in his case, it was contained so well, most people would never guess at it. All those women who wanted to own him, she thought, they didn’t understand what it was they dared attempt to harness. But she knew. And she wondered what it would be like to stroke that sleekly muscular body with her bare hands.

  He looked up, caught her watching him. “When we’re alone.” A tease . . . and a warning.

  Closing her hand over the arm of her chair, she jerked away her head. “Changelings all have natural mental shields.”

  “So why are you tense enough to snap?”

  It was impossible not to glance back at him, to watch him as he rechecked the encryption, lines of concentration across his brow. At that moment, the leash slipped free, the reins broke, and everything disappeared but the promise and the danger that was Detective Max Shannon—she wanted to touch the skin exposed at his nape, wanted to know if it was soft or rough, wanted to strip off his shirt and rub her lips over the muscles that shifted beneath that honey-colored skin, wanted to stroke and know and possess. She simply wanted. “Changelings like to touch.” It came out soft, husky.

  Max’s shoulders grew tight, but he didn’t turn. “I asked Clay about that while you were in the bathroom just before. They don’t presume skin privileges, so you’re safe.”

  “Skin privileges.” She tested the unfamiliar term, gleaning its meaning from the context. “And you, Max?” Thought translated into words so fast, she had no chance—or will—to hold them back. “Are you easy with skin privileges?”

  Max moved to brace his hands on the back of her chair, leaning down until his lips threatened to brush the tip of her ear. “It depends on who’s asking.” The scent of him surrounded her as he placed his hands on the table on either side of her. A sensual trap. “But if you’re talking about a certain J, well, for her, I might be very, very easy.”

  A tight kind of heat bloomed in Sophia’s stomach, a strange fire that burned even the darkest, most secret part of her. “Max.” She didn’t know what she was asking for, her heartbeat an erratic tattoo against her ribs.

  Max pushed off the table with a groan. “We can’t do this here. It’s almost time for the conference.” A light touch on her shoulder, holding a protectiveness that shook her, disarmed her. “You ready, Sophie?”

  His voice, his presence, his willingness to be her shield . . . it shook her, but she nodded. “Yes.” This had to be done—those girls had to be brought home.

  Even a Psy without any family of her own understood the importance of children, the ties of blood. To lose a child in the Net was to lose not only your immortality, but also your chance to gain the unqualified loyalty of at least one individual. Unless, of course, you were young enough to sire or carry other progeny.

  Sophia’s parents had been in their early thirties the summer she turned eight and everything fractured. They’d gone on to have two more children—both with each other. Their genes, after all, had already proved a complimentary set. Her siblings, too, were high-Gradient telepaths. Not as strong as her. But they weren’t broken.

  Bartholomew Reuben’s face appeared onscreen at that moment, slicing away the heart pain of the past with the sadistic evil of the present. “Max, Ms. Russo, good to see you. You’ll be transferred to Bonner in a few seconds.”

  “You flew there, Bart?” Max asked. “Waste of time.”

  “No, I’m in another prison.” The prosecutor’s lips curved in a humorless smile. “Bonner’s not going to be pleased we didn’t all start running when he said fetch.”

  A warning countdown appeared in the corner of the screen.

  Ten.

  Max snorted. “I’m not exactly worried about pleasing the bastard.”

  Nine.

  “I’ll be hooked into the comm-conference—”

  Eight.

  “—but Bonner will see only Ms. Russo.”

  Seven.

  The scrape of a chair.

  Six.

  “I’ll move a little,” Max said, “make sure I’m out of the shot.”

  Five.

  “You good, Sophie?”

  Sophie. Tenderness in the way he said that name, making it something special between them, a gift.

  Four.

  “Yes.” She held his gift tight to her heart.

  Three.

  “Instant you want out—”

  Two.

  “—say the word.”

  One.

  Reuben’s face disappeared, to be replaced by the gilded blond looks of a killer so vicious, the tabloids had fought to tell his story. He was a megastar in the shadowy underworld of serial-killer groupies, his “authorized biography” read with religious fervor. She wondered how many of his fans realized the book was mostly fiction.

 
Bonner was incapable of truth.

  “Ms. Russo.” That charming smile, but there was an edge to it. “I was so looking forward to seeing you in person.”

  “That would have been an inefficient use of my time,” she replied, keeping her hands loosely in her lap.

  “But how will you take my memories if you aren’t nearby?” A slow raising of his shoulders. “I’m afraid my mind isn’t cooperating with my need to share.” Deep blue eyes filled with rueful laughter, the charming apology of a man who’d done something a little naughty.

  It would, Sophia thought, be so easy to kill him. She’d just have to be in the general vicinity. Her telepathic reach was long enough—she could make him suffocate himself with a pillow, maybe beat his skull against a wall until pieces of bone pierced his brain. The terror would make him mindless.

  A tap on the table to her left.

  Max. The reminder of the gift she’d been handed, the gift she was determined not to lose, made her snap back to attention, the otherness retreating in the face of her resolve. “The prison officials stated that you’d remembered a place we’d be very interested to learn about.”

  Bonner displayed his teeth in a smile that could’ve graced a toothpaste commercial. But his eyes. Reptilian eyes. She’d seen eyes like that before—on the powerful in the Net, men and women for whom the sanctity of life meant less than nothing.

  The man who’d done her last childhood evaluation—making the final call on whether she was useful enough to be saved or should be put down—had had eyes like the Butcher of Park Avenue. “Mr. Bonner?” she prompted when the killer didn’t reply.

  “The memory seems to have faded away.” A disappointed sigh. “I know it had something to do with trees, but . . .” Another shrug. “Maybe if you came here, used your abilities to jog my recall . . .”