by Naomi West
“I'm supposed to make the delivery this evening,” I responded. “Did you have some information for me?”
“Listen, I've been doing some discreet asking around for you. About this whole thing.” He paused for a moment. “It doesn't sound good.”
I'd heard Damien discuss a number of different missions over the years, and I'd never heard him sound so grim. That made me sit up a little. “What do you mean?” I asked carefully.
Damien sighed. “It honestly sounds like Cat may be staging some sort of prison break,” he said.
“I could have guessed that, given what's in the packages,” I pointed out, shrugging a little.
Damien made a noise of frustration. “Rip, have you thought through what the consequences of this could be?” he asked, sounding agitated. “There's a reason Cat went away to prison. Somebody narced on her. And after that, how many people agreed to stand as witnesses against her to either reduce or commute their sentences? What do you think is going to happen to all of those people once Cat gets out?”
“Don't you think they deserve it, for turning against her?” I growled.
“All right, what about this,” Damien continued. “What do you think she's going to do to remind people that she's not to be crossed?”
I paused for a moment, wondering what he was thinking. “What do you mean?” I finally asked.
“She's done this before, Rip. It was before you were part of the Gemini Riders, but you must have heard the stories. She'll purge every level of leadership that she can and put into place those that she knows are loyal to her.” His tone turned bitter. “Of course, if you deliver the packages, you're probably one of those people — but I had no idea that you were gunning for my job.”
I stared blankly at the floor for a long moment, processing what he had said. Damien had long been my mentor and my friend — one of the people that I could always count on to be at my side when I needed him the most.
“Don't be ridiculous,” I finally said. “I'm not gunning for your job — you know that.”
Damien was silent for a minute, allowing me to continue thinking things over. “Do I?” he asked quietly. “Because at the moment, it sounds like you're getting pretty chummy with the national leader — and ignoring your regional leader in the process.”
I flinched a little, remembering what Liv and I had just been talking about. The thing was, I didn't really know Cat — sure, I'd met her once or twice at Gemini functions, maybe had a couple drinks with her. But I didn't really know her, not the way I knew Damien. But still...
“I think you're overreacting,” I told Damien. “I don't think that's what her plan is. I mean, her plan is probably to get out of jail, and she probably will go after everyone who had a hand in putting her behind bars. But I just don't think she's going to kill off all of our leadership individuals. There would be a mutiny otherwise.” At least, I'd like to think so.
I shook my head. “Anyway, what am I supposed to do, Damien? I've already agreed to carry the packages. I already have the packages, and I'm clear across the country to drop them off. What am I supposed to do, just turn around and leave and somehow dispose of them? It's my life if I do.”
“You'd need to disappear,” Damien agreed grimly. “And the girl who's with you too. It's a shame because you're one of my best people. But we can make it happen, if you're willing to go.”
“I don't want to leave,” I said, shaking my head before he'd even finished talking. “I'm not going to hide like a scared and sniveling little rat, Damien. What do you take me for?”
Damien sighed. “You always did have a little too much pride,” he said, but he sounded almost amused. Then, his voice turned serious again. “As I said, there's a reason Cat is behind bars. It doesn't take a genius to realize she was getting a little too impulsive, and a little too careless. She was becoming a liability. There are plenty of Geminis who would be more than happy to see her continue to stay behind bars. If you chose not to deliver the package, there are people who would support you.”
“But otherwise, I've made myself a target, is what you're saying,” I said bitterly, rubbing at my temples. I should never have gotten mixed up in this to begin with.
But when I glanced over at Liv, who was watching my patiently, I suddenly had the thought that not all of this mission had been unpleasant.
“Damien, I'm expecting a call from Cherri to come through at any time,” I said finally. “I need to hang up.”
There was another long pause. “All right, Rip,” Damien finally said. “But be careful. You're better than this.”
Chapter Nine
Rip
Liv scowled over at me, folding her arms across her chest. “Are you seriously going to do that all day?” she asked.
I looked up mildly from the message that I was in the process of typing out on my phone, ceasing tapping my pen as I did so. “Keep doing what?” I asked.
“Tapping that pen,” she snapped. “You're driving me nuts.”
I gave her a surprised look and then glanced down at the pen in my hand, twirling it deftly around my fingers for a moment. “Sorry,” I said, sounding almost sheepish. “Didn't realize I was doing it.”
“Well, stop,” she said crossly. “It's bad enough that I have to sit here with nothing to do all day, waiting for this phone call so that I can get out of this stupid situation, but it's another thing to have what practically amounts to torture: you incessantly tapping that pen against the armrest.”
I rolled my eyes at my dramatic whine. “I'm sure there's worse things I could be doing,” I pointed out before turning my eyes back towards my phone. But I set the pen down off to the side. She was being much more patient than I'd expected her to be, and I appreciated that. She hadn't even asked very many questions about my conversation with Damien, although I was sure I'd been obvious enough about the fact that I really didn't want to talk about any of it with her.
“What do you do when you're not transporting illegal packages across the country anyway?” Liv asked suddenly, probably desperate to do something. Her phone was dead, and I imagined she must be bored out of her mind.
I smiled a little, amused by the question, but didn't look up. “Just normal things,” I said vaguely.
“Things like what?” she pressed.
“I ride my bike. Get drinks with my friends. Work.”
“What kind of work?”
I raised an eyebrow over at her, deciding to tease her a little. “Do you really want to know?”
She blushed and ducked her head. “Probably not,” she admitted.
I laughed, delighted that I had gotten exactly the reaction that I'd expected from her. “I work as a bouncer,” I said. “It's all strictly legal.”
“Then how'd you get mixed up in all of this?”
I shrugged, trying to figure out how much I could really tell her. But the thing was, there wasn't much to tell. “I guess I just happened to be in the right place at the right time,” I said. “And I needed the money, so...”
“You need money badly enough that you're willing to do something illegal?' she asked skeptically.
“It's not really illegal,” I insisted. “I'm delivering a package from one friend to a ... friend-of-a-friend. Nothing wrong in that.”
“Except that the package contains guns, and somehow Cat Zodiac is involved,” Liv concluded.
“That doesn't mean anything,” I said. “The packages contain bits of plastic that could be assembled into who-knows-what, and I'm delivering them to Cherri Velasquez. As far as I'm concerned, Cat has nothing to do with it.” It was exactly the story that I'd stick to if I was caught in this mess. Not that I anticipated being caught, though.
“You'd have a hard time proving that one in court,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You know exactly what you're doing.”
I was silent for a long moment, thinking back to the phone call with Damien that morning.
Before I could respond to her accusations, though, there was a knock on
the door. I blinked and then shrugged. It was probably housekeeping or something like that. I had already arranged to stay for another night since I wasn't sure when exactly Cherri would contact me.
I rose and went over to the door, pocketing my phone as I went. When I opened the door, a posh-looking man stood outside, scowling at me. He was wearing a well-tailored suit — I'd seen enough of them to know that what he was wearing had to have cost an arm and a leg. And his hair was styled so that it swooped off to the side in a cascading wave. He had a thin, pale face and was the opposite of me in nearly every way.
“Hello?” I asked, wondering just who the hell he was. He definitely didn't work at the motel, that was for sure.
Liv came up behind me and made a noise of surprise, pushing me off to the side a little. “Hollande, what are you doing here?” I wasn't entirely sure how to read the tone of her voice. She sounded at once relieved but also nervous.
Hollande looked back and forth between the two of us, his eyes finally settling on Liv. “Who is this?” he asked, sounding scandalized.
Liv gave me an almost fearful look, clearly uncertain how to proceed.
“This is none of your business,” I snapped, making to close the door.
Hollande stuck a foot out in front of the door, though, and even though I knew I could force the door shut anyway — the man was practically a twig — the last thing I needed was for him to complain down at the reception desk. Or worse, to go to the police and tell them about the strange man in the room with his not-quite-girlfriend.
“I thought you were just on vacation,” Hollande said accusingly to Liv. “And now I find you alone in a room with a man who… Well, to be honest, either you have something you've been hiding from me or else you've been, I don't know, kidnapped or something! Tell me the truth.”
Liv gave me another fearful look, and he looked triumphant. “That's it, I'm calling the police,” he announced, already pulling out his phone.
I wanted to reach out to smack the phone out of his hands, but surprisingly enough, Liv beat me to it. “There's nothing to get the police involved with,” she said icily, and I gave her a surprised look. She tossed her head haughtily, and I wondered how this brave, arrogant woman pretended to be so meek and humble most of the time. “Hollande, this is Rip. I decided that since you weren't ready to call me your girlfriend, it was time to find someone who wasn't afraid to be seen in public with me.” She gave him a challenging look, and I was almost ready to applaud her, having seen how upset she was talking to the man the night before.
Hollande sneered at her. “And this is who you picked? This hulking brute? Don't lie to me; I know that's not your type.”
“How would you know?” Liv asked. “You've never once asked me about anything that I like. It's always been about what you like and about what you want. You pick where we go on our dates, which aren't really dates I guess since we were never actually dating. You pick who I'm allowed to socialize with. You control every aspect of my life. Maybe that's why I'm not more spontaneous, because you don't let me be spontaneous. Did you ever think of that?”
“I don't believe you,” Hollande said, shaking his head, his arms folded across his chest. “I don't know who this man is, and I don’t know why you feel the need to protect him, but I don't believe you.”
“It's not any of your business,” Liv said, scowling at him and mimicking his posture. “We're not dating. I can do whatever I want to do with whomever I choose.”
“Darling, if you're in a bad situation, you should let me help you out,” Hollande said, his tone disgustingly condescending. I wanted to intervene, maybe to throw a few punches because how dare he treat Liv like that. But I held back, letting her work things out for herself.
“What, you don't believe me? I'm sleeping with Rip,” Liv declared. To my surprise, she turned towards me, twisting her fists into the front of my shirt and yanking me down into a surprisingly heated kiss.
It was as though all the tension of the previous few days was spilling over into the kiss. Our tongues battled against one another's, and our teeth clashed furiously. There was almost too much pressure where our lips collided with one another's, but neither of us wanted to ease off and give the other person control of the kiss. Liv's hands stayed fisted in my shirt, and I brought my own hands up to cup the back of her head, tilting it at an angle to give me better access as I licked and sucked and thoroughly explored every inch of her warm, wet mouth.
The kiss seemed to last forever, but it was probably only a minute or so before she was pulling away and fixing Hollande with a triumphant look. “See?” she asked, and I was pleasantly surprised to hear that she was a little out of breath. “I'm telling you, we're sleeping together. Now if you wouldn't mind, I have better things to do than talk to you right now. I don't even know how you found me.”
“You didn't sound okay on the phone last night,” Hollande said, his eyes blazing furiously. “You sounded like you might need help — like you might not even be in a situation where you could ask for help without ... repercussions.” His eyes slid towards me for a moment. “But Liv, do you really mean to tell me that you're totally okay with this? He's not ... beating you or anything like that? Tell me the truth.”
Liv laughed a little. “He's not beating me,” she said. “I wouldn't have kissed him if he was. I wouldn't be in that sort of situation.” She sneered at Hollande. “Do you really think I'm that attractive, that a man like him would be that desperate to get into a relationship with me? Do you really think I'm the type of woman who would be kidnapped? I'm mousy and plain, aren't I? You've said it yourself.”
“Well, of course you are,” Hollande said matter-of-factly, “but—” Whatever he was about to say, he was interrupted by my punching him in the face.
“I've had enough,” I snapped, scowling down at him where he huddled, a hand pressed against his face. “Don't you dare talk to Liv like that. In fact, don't you dare talk to her again. I'm sorry that you were too spineless to call her your girlfriend when you had the chance, but that door has closed. She's mine now.”
I didn't really know where the anger was coming from, and I definitely didn't know where my words were coming from, but I couldn't deny that it'd been an incredible kiss. It took a lot for a woman to catch me by surprise the way that Liv just had, and I was undeniably aroused by what had just happened.
Liv was staring back and forth between Hollande and I, looking momentarily bewildered, as though she could hardly comprehend what had just happened. “Go home, Hollande,” she finally managed to choke out. “Just...go home.”
Chapter Ten
Liv
If there had been nervous tension between Rip and I over the previous few days, it was nothing compared to how things felt after Hollande finally picked himself up off the floor and left, disgust and anger in his wake.
I turned towards Rip, unable to meet his eyes. “Sorry about that,” I said quietly. “I mean, about Hollande showing up, and about the...” I couldn't bring myself to say the word 'kiss'. “But I did okay, right? You don't think he's going to go to the police or anything like that?”
“If he does, it'll be to get me brought up on assault charges,” Rip said, sounding unconcerned. He was avoiding looking at me as well, I realized. I frowned, trying to figure out what he might be thinking. But I didn't really want to just ask outright about the kiss.
The thing was, that kiss had felt ... right, in some strange way. Nobody had ever kissed me like that before. Then again, I had never kissed anyone like that before either, so I supposed it was only fair. It felt like we connected, though.
But we were going to deliver the packages to Cherri later that evening, and then Rip and I were going to go our separate ways. There was no way I could spend even another week with someone who was so unconcerned about human life and everything else that was the foundation of my moral code.
I frowned and walked back over the seat I'd been sitting in before Hollande had arrived, sitting gingerl
y on the edge of it. Rip followed me back across the room and sat just as gingerly on the edge of the bed. “Liv—” he started.
I shook my head. “I don't want to talk about it,” I told him, before I even knew what exactly he was going to say.
“Okay,” he said, his voice impossibly gentle.
I looked up at him in surprise, finding something unreadable on his face. I shook my head again. “Look, let's just get this package delivered this evening and then you never have to see me again, all right?”
“Sure,” Rip said, still staring.
We were silent for a long moment, and then suddenly there was another knock on the door. Rip sighed and stood up, seeming resigned to the fact that Hollande had returned — maybe with police reinforcements, given the forceful nature of the knock.
I swallowed hard and stood up as well, ready to intervene if it was Hollande back again.
