by Kris Delake
The double doors opened inward and they appeared to be manual, which was extremely annoying. She had to tug them open. They were heavy. She slipped through the slight opening and stepped into the corridor, where she stopped.
It was colder out here, and brighter. The white walls were a shock after the dim lighting inside that ballroom. She adjusted her dress. It felt askew, even though it hadn’t been.
His touch just affected her that much.
She looked at her finger. This was the moment of truth. The DNA inside that little pouch would answer some questions. He had told her that he was with the Guild, and part of her wanted to believe him. But she had believed the night before that he was actually concerned about her, that their time together in his suite was something spontaneous, not something he had planned.
She had believed him because she wanted to.
And now she didn’t believe him at all.
Control her. Yeah, right.
She took a deep breath, and set her plan into action.
Chapter 13
Misha stood a half second too long in the middle of the dance floor. Several couples had to swerve around him at the last minute. One couple nearly hit him, and the man swore at him, loudly, creatively, and noticeably.
Misha moved.
But he kept his gaze on Rikki. She stalked past the orchestra and didn’t even look at them, although at least one of the clarinet players tried to catch her attention. He pointed the instrument at her, leaned in her direction, and she didn’t even notice.
Misha had never been close to a real clarinet. He had no idea if they sounded louder when they were pointed at someone than when they weren’t.
But the clarinet player wasn’t the only person who noticed Rikki. Several other people did as well, mostly men, some of them dancing. They gazed at her over their partners’ shoulders, often with longing, as if they wanted to be with her instead of with the woman they were dancing with.
Hell, he still wanted to be with her.
Although he had effectively blown his chance.
What had he been thinking? What was that line about trying to control her? Jeez. No one wanted to hear that even if it was true.
And it was true. But not in the way that it sounded. He didn’t want to control her every move. He had just wanted to make her stop interfering with his life.
The fact that she hadn’t been doing it intentionally rankled more than he wanted it to. It rankled a lot.
A couple nearly hit him, then another, and another. He had to get off the dance floor.
He did, keeping his gaze on Rikki. She stopped in front of one of the side exits and put her hands on her hips as if the thing offended her. Then she sighed, grabbed the handles, and pulled.
Apparently the fact that it hadn’t been automatic had offended her. That thought made him smile, even though he didn’t want to. He liked her, even though he didn’t want to. Even though he had learned over the years that for him at least, like and lust were mutually exclusive.
Or as his friend Hazel Sanchez had once told him, every woman he fell for reminded him of his mother—cold, brittle, terrifying, and without a soul. Every woman he liked couldn’t get near him.
That comment had made him stay away from Hazel for a while too, even though it had been hard. They’d been in the same class in the Guild, and they usually partnered with each other. But after that comment, he had been afraid that she had been interested in him.
She hadn’t been, but it had taken her weeks to convince him. They remained friends, good friends, even though she had hated every single woman he had been involved with.
He wondered what she would have thought of Rikki. Rikki certainly wasn’t brittle, and she wasn’t terrifying, but her eyes had been cold tonight. Or maybe they had been cold to him, because beneath that chill, he had seen anger.
She was furious at him, and when he had said that stupid thing about control, her eyes had flashed.
His mother’s eyes had never flashed. They got flinty when she got angry, and anyone in the vicinity could feel the chill.
He stopped beside a pole in the very center of the room, away from the floor. The pole was clear and allowed anyone to see through it to the floor. He leaned against it, shattering the illusion that it wasn’t there.
The ship’s employees running the room probably hated that he was doing this, but they couldn’t stop him. To them, he was Rafael de Brovnik, a man who made more money than all of them combined would make in their lifetimes.
If only that money were his instead of the Guild’s.
He wondered what it would be like to work off the grid, to keep all the money he earned instead of paying a large percentage of it to the Guild. Of course, then he would have to defend himself if he got into legal trouble, handle his own health care, handle the cost of all of his jobs, and deal with any angry colleagues/friends/family of his targets on his own.
That was the biggest problem, in his opinion, anyway. Dealing with the angry people attached to his targets, people who didn’t understand that he wasn’t the one who ordered the hit, that some client had done so, and that by law in almost every part of this sector, the client was the one responsible, not the assassin himself.
“What did the bitch do to you?”
Misha started at the sound of the male voice on his left. He looked, saw no one, then looked down. For a moment, he felt disconcerted. Not only was the man shorter by a significant amount, but he was square.
And he shouldn’t have been able to sneak up on Misha. Misha never lost track of who or what was beside him.
Yet he had in his contemplation of Rikki.
“What?” Misha asked.
The man held out his hand. The thumb was hidden in a mound of flesh and it took Misha a moment to realize that the skin around it was swollen.
“I think she broke my thumb,” the man said. “Then she dances with you, and I think, that’s why she wasn’t interested. She knew she had some pretty guy on the hook.”
Misha felt his cheeks heat. Pretty? Really? He wasn’t pretty. Or maybe he was in this outfit. His mother had always dressed him down in the early years, telling him that no one would pay attention to a wispy too-thin boy, and that made him a good weapon.
It wasn’t until he went to the Guild that he started to dress up, and then not often. Mostly he continued the dressing-down thing.
“But,” the guy was saying, “then she gets that look, the one that I swear could have killed you mid-waltz, and stops, and you nearly fall over, and then she stalks off. So I figure that she did something to you too.”
He was talking about Rikki. Misha blinked, and managed to focus. Jeez, Rikki wasn’t even in the room, and he was having trouble focusing.
“She did that to you?” he asked, indicating the thumb.
“Okay,” the guy said. “Granted, I’m not suave or debonair or pretty like you, but I got money, and most women recognize that. So I asked her to dance and reached for her and she bent my thumb back so hard that I heard something crack. And now look at it.”
Misha beckoned with his own fingers. The stubby man held up his hand. The swelling had worked its way down to the wrist. Something was broken.
“She did that?” Misha asked. “Really?”
He wasn’t as surprised as he pretended to be. Everyone in the field knew how to bend a thumb backwards to bring a target to his knees.
“She made you get down on your knees?” Misha asked, wondering if the guy was some kind of target.
“Naw,” the guy said. “She let go before it hurt that bad, but believe me, I was thinking that I’d better get away. I was heading to security when I saw her hook up with you. I thought I’d watch for a minute, and wow, that was some show. You two know each other, huh?”
Misha’s eyes narrowed just slightly. “Not really,” he said. “Although we did have a rather surprising time last night.”
“Hah,” the short guy said. “Thought so. Didn’t end so well for the lady, huh
?”
“Actually, it didn’t end so well for me,” Misha said.
“So that’s why she was waiting. She wanted you in her clutches again. Well, lucky you. You’re better off without her.”
His words made Misha’s heart clench. And he didn’t want his heart to clench. He wanted to nod and sagely agree with this guy, and then forget Rikki ever existed.
“Women like her,” the man said. “Dangerous. Wouldn’t surprise me if she was some kind of pro. You got money, right?”
For a moment, Misha had forgotten who he was supposed to be. “Yeah,” he said a bit too slowly. “I’m comfortable.”
Which was what all the rich people said.
“Thought so,” the man said. “You were targeted, buddy. Now you’re supposed to go after her, and lay some funds on her to make her feel better. If I were you, I’d report her to security.”
“For what?” Misha asked coolly. “Abandoning me on the dance floor?”
He almost said that the guy had a better case against Rikki, at least for shipboard security, but Misha didn’t want to mention that. He didn’t want to call too much attention to her. Attention might lead to the Testrial incident, and ultimately, he was the one liable for that, not her.
“Looks like you should head to medical with that,” Misha said.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” the guy said. “Who’da thought that just asking some broad to dance would get me a broken hand. I’d rather get it for a good grope, if you know what I mean.”
Fortunately, he was trundling away before Misha could come up with a response to that. He watched the man to make sure he didn’t trundle out the same door as Rikki.
He didn’t.
Misha sighed with relief. Although he wasn’t sure why he sighed with relief. He was angry at Rikki, too, wasn’t he?
But not quite. He was more confused by her.
And he hadn’t been confused by a woman in a long, long time.
Chapter 14
Rikki staggered forward as if she was injured. Adjusting her dress had probably been the proper thing to do, if anyone reviewed the security footage later. She ran a hand over her face and she made certain that hand shook.
Then she stumbled across the corridor as if her eyes were blinded with tears. She walked as if walking hurt until she reached the nearby ladies room, and let herself inside.
The front part of the room was a gigantic lounge, with soft chairs and tables. Individual mirrors lined the wall, with partitioned counters in front of each one, along with a stool, so that a woman could sit down, adjust her makeup, fix her hair, and make certain she still looked beautiful.
Rikki paused in front of one, then sat down hard, almost as though her legs had collapsed beneath her. She peered in the mirror, started at her green eyes like she always did, saw that her skin was paler than usual, and leaned forward.
With a shaking hand, she pulled down the collar of her dress. Yep, the love bites were there, worse than they had been that morning. And yep, they looked like bruises.
That would probably be enough.
She sat for a long moment, then closed her eyes. She reminded herself that she was trying to find out information; that was all. Security was lax on these ships; they couldn’t do much to Misha even if they felt the need to hold him.
And they wouldn’t hold him, because he had money. He could be the worst criminal in the universe, and they wouldn’t hold him. Not if he could buy his way out.
They’d only hold him if he killed another passenger.
And so far, he hadn’t done that.
She had.
She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. She could back off on this. She wasn’t quite sure how much she was doing because she was mad and how much she needed this information.
But if he was lying, if he wasn’t connected to the Guild, if he was law enforcement or, worse, one of Testrial’s men, then she needed to know. She needed to escape him, and quickly.
God, she was so attracted that she was worried about what would happen to him. And really, she should have been worried about what would happen to her.
She’d manipulated information before to get something; it wasn’t like she was doing anything unusual.
This was part of her job.
She had to see it that way. It was just a job. Like she had been a job to him. I’m trying to control you.
Well, screw that, buddy. She’d show him what control was like.
She pulled just a few random strands loose from her hairdo, then adjusted her dress again. She left the collar bunched on one side, as if she had forgotten it.
Then she made her way back to the corridor.
Security was on the main passenger deck. The big area, which also included medical facilities, took up a large portion of the middle of the ship. There were corridors and rooms on the outside—no sense wasting exterior portals on a part of the ship that few passengers saw—but those were considered lower class accommodations just because they were in the center of things.
She knew because she had had a choice between those and a room in the lowest deck on the ship. She had taken the lower deck, even though the room was just a bit smaller. She hadn’t wanted to be noticed.
That was her usual M.O. She never wanted to be noticed.
And here she was, about to be noticed.
But sometimes, she had to alter the plan.
She lurched toward security, hoping she wouldn’t turn an ankle in these shoes. She took the lift with relief, because that way she wouldn’t have to walk for a few minutes.
Then she got off the lift on the main deck, used a hand to steady herself, and silently cursed that no one seemed to notice she was having trouble. Misha had noticed the night before.
Of course, that had been suspicious behavior on his part: she had to remember that. He had been following her. He had hired her to kill Testrial so that he could keep track of her, capture her, and have his way with her.
Um, she meant, do away with her.
Um, oh, never mind.
She let the confusion happen, because she knew it would add to her story in security. She pushed open the ivory colored door, with security written on it in half a dozen languages, and stepped into a utilitarian space.
Most of the places on the ship—at least the ones she had been in—had either been highly decorated or extremely opulent. But this wasn’t an area that catered to passengers. Here the walls were unadorned, the chairs looked as uncomfortable as the one in her cabin, and in the distance, she could see cubicles marked off by the same ivory colored material that covered the door.
A man in a green uniform sat on a clear plastic chair. Five screens floated around him, and he ignored all of them. Instead, he stared at her.
“Yes?” he said in a tone that almost made her regret coming here.
She licked her lower lip. “Security, right?”
“Yes, ma’am. Can I help you?”
“I think I got myself in some pretty serious trouble.” She made sure her voice broke. She raised one shaking hand to her neck and pulled down her collar as far as it would go without ripping. “See what he did to me?”
To his credit, the guard didn’t stand. Instead, he sent a small round drone about the size of her fist to examine her skin. The drone flew just under her chin and hovered. She could hear it whir.
“Who did this, ma’am?” the guard asked, his voice not quite as calm as it had been.
“He says his name is Rafael,” she said. “But I don’t believe him. He—knew things—no rich guy should know. Last night, he gave me something.”
“Besides the bruises?” the guard asked, and Rikki silently thanked him. She had made a deliberately misleading statement and he had gone with the safest question. Although she knew his mind had silently asked a dirtier one. He gave you what, ma’am?
A woman came out of one of the cubicles. The male security guard looked relieved to see her.
“Why don’t you come talk to me?”
the woman said.
She wasn’t the guard Rikki had seen the night before. This woman was in shape as well, but older, her face lined as if she was permanently tired. Her name badge read Bess Windham.
Rikki followed her past the main guard, into the hallway formed by the cubicle walls. Most of the doors into those cubicles were open, but no one sat inside. She didn’t know if that meant security was understaffed or if they were all out on assignment.
She rubbed a damp palm on the side of her dress. She didn’t have to pretend to be nervous. She was nervous. She hated being anywhere run by authority figures.
Windham’s cubicle was at the very back, and it was larger than the others. The sign on her door read Passenger Relations, but the words were in a holographic font. Rikki wondered if they got changed for each crisis that someone reported.
This cubicle actually had a desk, and several comfortable-looking chairs around it. The cubicle looked friendly enough, but Rikki recognized some of the displays above her: they were made of tiny lenses, so that everything could be recorded multiple times.
Normally, she would care. But she didn’t here. She wanted this interview to get recorded.
“How may I help you, Miss—?”
“Carter,” Rikki said as if she didn’t know that the woman already knew her name. “I’m Rachel Carter.”
“Miss Carter.” Windham had a gentle voice. “What’s happened to you?”
Rikki ran her hands along her sleeves. She made her eyes as big and vulnerable as possible. Then she swallowed hard.
“Last night,” she said in a small voice, “I really wasn’t myself.”
That was true enough.
“I met this man, and he dragged me to a bar on B Deck. I couldn’t get in without him. And then he gave me a beer—I don’t drink much, but I drank that, and then I couldn’t keep my hands off him.”
“But not before?” Windham asked.
Rikki shook her head. “He was dragging me around. I thought it pretty strange, but he had said he needed my help.”
“To do what?”
She shrugged. “Something about putting one over on someone? I don’t know. It’s all pretty fuzzy.”
