by Kris Delake
Her eyes narrowed. “If I go, you’ll figure out how to disentangle yourself and then you’ll be gone before I get back.”
Now that she had shown him where the entrance controls were with a single glance, she was probably right: he could do that. He could free himself and leave in the time it took to get to the bathroom and back.
But he didn’t confirm her hypothesis.
He continued, “I came down the hallway and saw the open door. Honestly, I’d been wondering about these walls. I thought they were the wrong size to be simple bearing walls. I figured they were hiding a small staircase—”
He stopped himself before he added to your other apartments. In her mood, those words would probably not have the desired effect. She didn’t need to know how thorough the background check he had done on her was.
“—or some other escape route from the apartment. I just wanted to if I was right.”
Her expression didn’t change. He couldn’t tell if she had caught his near slipup or not. He couldn’t tell what her emotion was.
And here he’d been thinking she wore every single emotion she ever had on her face. He had been very wrong about that.
“I looked in,” he said, “and I was quite frankly surprised at the room itself.”
“So you stepped in and started looking through my files.”
He almost said no, which was ridiculous considering he was half in and half out, holding onto one of those files. It was just his instinct—and not a very good instinct—that made him want to deny it.
He smiled at her—his most charming smile, a sheepish smile, a forgive-me smile, one he had used in cons and preps for jobs.
The smile didn’t seem to have any impact on her at all.
“I wouldn’t have,” he said, “except you had left these tablets scattered and I thought I recognized one of the people on them.”
“Friend of yours?” she asked in a decidedly nasty tone.
“Actually, yes,” he said, and he waved the tablet up toward her. “I know this woman. I know her really, really well.”
Chapter 40
He had succeeded in distracting her. Damn him, he seemed to know exactly how to get to her.
Rikki stood across from him, feet planted, pistol braced. She was cold and probably covered with goose bumps, and she felt oddly exposed. Or maybe not so oddly, since she was naked, after all.
But she had learned a long time ago that she usually didn’t feel naked when she was holding a weapon.
“You know her well, huh?” Rikki asked. “Who is she?”
“Get me out of here first,” he said. “We have to talk.”
She didn’t like the way the door was groaning as it kept pressing on him. But she wasn’t sure she could trust him either.
She moved the pistol to her left hand only and extended her right. “Give me the tablet.”
His lips thinned. He didn’t want to, which was interesting. Did he think he had some kind of advantage by holding it?
“I’m not getting you out of there until you do,” she said.
He extended the tablet toward her. She took it and it automatically came back on. The tablet only worked when she touched it. If someone else held it, it went blank. It also sent her an alarm, warning her that someone else had picked up the tablet.
She glanced down at the image of the beautiful older woman, the one who had intrigued her.
“You going to let me out?” Misha asked.
He could have a weapon in his left hand. He could have one of a hundred weapons—all hers—in his left hand.
She would be foolish to just open that door.
She set the tablet down. “Tell me how you know this woman.”
“You tell me why you have her image,” he said.
She put both hands on the pistol. “No.”
He lifted his right hand and slammed it against the wall behind him, coming amazingly close to the controls. Not that he would be able to open the door with a single flat palm against the panel.
“Do that again, and I will shoot you,” she said.
She sounded convincing. But she was no longer convinced herself. She wanted to find out about that woman.
“Tell me how you know this woman,” Rikki repeated.
He looked at her, and that expression had returned to his face, the one that closed him off from her. Even though she was angry at him, even though she no longer trusted him, she hated that sudden feeling of separation.
Which made her feel even odder that she had felt connected, even though she was both furious and betrayed.
“She’s in the Guild,” he said after a moment. And while he didn’t seem to be lying, he didn’t seem to be telling the entire truth either.
“What did you leave out?” Rikki asked.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Oh, I think you left out a lot,” she said.
He raised his chin just slightly. “And I don’t think this door is going to work much longer.”
It was making a slight whistling noise.
She had to give in now, whether she liked it or not.
With one hand, she picked up the tablet, double-tapped the screen with her thumb, and it moved away from the woman’s image. The control panel appeared. She had backups and more backups all over the apartment so she wouldn’t get trapped anywhere.
She tapped the door-open command, but made sure she hit the five-second delay.
Then she set the tablet down, put her hand back on the pistol, and braced herself in case he came out shooting.
He seemed to understand what she was thinking, because as the door eased off him, he raised both hands.
Both empty hands.
Keeping her gaze on him, she leaned over, double-tapped the tablet, and the door eased closed behind him.
“Come with me,” she said. “I’m going to get dressed.”
Chapter 41
Rikki indicated with her head that Misha should walk in front of her. She wanted to keep the gun on him.
He kept his hands up, like a man in some kind of old Earth vid.
“Maybe you should look at my message in the bathroom,” he said.
“Maybe you should shut up,” she snapped.
He took a few more steps, then stopped. “Are we going to the bedroom or to fetch your clothes from the kitchen?”
There was something suggestive in his tone. She didn’t like it. She didn’t like the reminder that she had slept with him yet again, and the next morning (Was it the next morning? She had no idea how long she’d slept) he had betrayed her once more.
How stupid was she? How often did she have to learn the same lesson? Misha couldn’t be trusted no matter how sexy or handsome or unbelievably desirable he was.
He didn’t know where the weapons were in the bedroom. She did. Even though he probably had put all of his weapons back, since he had all of his clothes on.
“Bedroom,” she said.
He started walking again.
“Seriously,” he said. “If you listen to the message—”
“I believe that you were going to get breakfast,” she said. “I believe you got distracted when you realized you could get into my office. I am a bit surprised that you triggered the alarm. That was very unprofessional of you. But from that moment on, I don’t believe a word you said.”
He glanced over his shoulder at her when she said “unprofessional,” so she knew he understood the dig. She kept her face impassive, but she was furious.
Furious at him for snooping.
Furious at herself for falling for him again.
What was wrong with her? It was like she had been hit with touch drops, even though she knew she hadn’t.
So he wanted to find out what she was working on? Why? It made no sense, just like his being here made no sense. Not even that touchy-feely crap about needing to get her out of his system.
“Stand near the bed,” she said.
She was half-tempted to make him undress and cuff himself.
Then she would take advantage of him.
But she was too pissed to do that. Besides, that would make her as bad as he was.
She kept the pistol pointed at him, and backed up toward the closet. Once there, she grabbed a set of clothes. She didn’t even look at them. But they would have to do.
His eyebrows went up. “You want me to help you dress?”
Because they both knew she couldn’t dress without using both hands.
“There are laser cuffs on the table beside the bed,” she said, making a decision. “Put them on.”
He tilted his head sideways. “Rikki—”
“I said put them on.”
He gave her a baleful look, and beneath it was such anger that it almost made her gasp. But he went to the table she indicated and pulled out the top pair of cuffs. He put them on loosely.
“Move your arms apart,” she said.
His mouth got thin. If he moved his arms apart, then the cuffs would tighten. “Rikki, seriously—”
“I’m not screwing around, Misha. Move your arms apart.”
He did, and winced as the cuffs tightened.
“Now, sit down,” she said.
He shook his head once, but sat on the messed up sheets. Sheets she had slept so easily between not too long ago.
She glanced at the clothes she grabbed. Tan pants, white blouse. She hadn’t done half-bad when she picked them blind. She set the gun on a shelf inside the closet, and dressed quickly, this time remembering undergarments and shoes.
Then she picked up the pistol again. Misha hadn’t moved at all, except to watch appreciatively as she slid clothes over her body. Just the way he watched made her flush.
She picked up the pistol, keeping it pointed on him. She felt better dressed. Less vulnerable. Even more in control.
“The information I have says nothing about that woman being in the Guild,” she said.
“It wouldn’t,” he said.
“Why not?” she asked.
“It’s a target instruction, right? Would you want to go head-to-head with a Guild member?”
She shrugged one shoulder, then gave him a pointed look. “It doesn’t seem so hard.”
He grimaced. “You know what I mean.”
“I don’t, really,” she said. “I don’t understand any of it. You came to me, ready to shoot me—”
“I wasn’t—”
“And then you somehow convinced me that we were pals—”
“I wouldn’t say that what we did made us ‘pals’—”
“And then you break into my office—”
“I didn’t break in. The door was open—”
“And now you’re lying to me about that woman.”
“I’m not lying,” he said.
“No,” she said, “but you’re leaving something out, and I’m not letting you out of this room until I know what it is.”
He stood up, then sighed heavily, as if he was thinking about it. He didn’t look friendly or charming or even amused anymore. His expression was hard.
“You do realize I could get out of here,” he said.
She set her jaw. “Not without a fight.”
“Someone would get hurt,” he said, “and that someone wouldn’t be me.”
She laughed without any amusement. “You’re so sure of yourself.”
“Yes,” he said. “I am.”
“So,” she said. “Is whatever you’re hiding worth fighting over?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” he said. Then that harsh gaze of his met hers. She felt like he was assessing her, like he had no real idea who she was, and was trying to figure her out just with his eyes.
She waited, let him look. He had seen a lot of her. He had seen her vulnerable, and sad. He had seen how lost she felt because of her family. And he had seen her naked—not just naked, but in the middle of a deep passion.
But he had never seen what she could do, how ruthless she could be.
Although she wasn’t exactly sure how ruthless she could be with him.
“Okay,” he said after a moment. “I’m going to tell you this because I need some answers as well. Will I get them?”
“I’ll make that decision after I’ve heard what you have to say.”
He flipped his wrists upward, slammed them together, and the cuffs flared, then opened, and fell onto the floor with a clatter.
It took every bit of control she had not to show her surprise. She had no idea anyone could break out of laser cuffs.
“I’m going to tell you this,” he said, his voice shaking with fury, “even though I’m not supposed to tell anyone, even though everyone in the Guild is sworn to secrecy. It’s part of our code, which I actually believe in, as much as you like to make fun of it.”
Her breath caught. His fury filled the room like a live thing, an extra presence.
But he hadn’t moved away from the bed. He stood there, his arms at his sides, the cuffs lying useless on the floor beside his feet.
“That woman whose image you have there, the one you’re clearly supposed to target, is the director of the Guild. She runs it. She never leaves Guild headquarters.”
Now Rikki did let her mouth open slightly. She was surprised and she was willing to show it. She had no idea. More than that, she had no idea why she was supposed to target this woman or who had sent the contact.
“Clearly,” Misha said, “your friends know this. And clearly they think you can get inside Guild headquarters. Which makes me wonder whether or not all these coincidences when you ran into me, and then when you got in the way of my work, when you let me hire you to kill Elio Testrial, whether all of that was some elaborate ruse to get me to figure you need help, and the only help you can get is from the Guild. You let me make that offer so you could get close to our director.”
Rikki stepped back as if he had slapped her. She made herself focus on his words rather than her (furious) reaction to them.
“If that was the case, I would have stayed and taken you up on the offer,” she said.
He took a step toward her, that hard gaze still in his eyes. “That would have been too easy. I would have been suspicious, and you know it. Instead, you used that incredible body of yours to entice me, to muddle my thinking—”
“And that’s why I fled?” she snapped. “So that you would follow me?”
“I’d be more likely to trust you if I thought you were reluctant,” he said. “This morning, I was getting us breakfast for God’s sake. I thought you were really vulnerable from your father’s death—”
“Do not make light of that,” she said, stepping closer to him. “Do not.”
They stared at each other, the pistol between them. She had stayed far enough away so that he would have to struggle to reach the pistol. But he could do it if he moved quickly, and she knew that.
Then something shifted in his face. That hardness left his eyes. “Put the pistol down,” he said.
She didn’t move.
“You didn’t know, did you?” he asked.
He could have been trying to fool her, to do—what, exactly? If he was telling the truth about the woman, then he only wanted truth from her. If he was lying, if he wanted something else, well, then that laser cuff trick showed her that he had a lot more experience with a lot of things than she ever did.
She lowered the pistol. He still didn’t move. He was just looking at her.
“I had no idea who that woman was,” she said softly. “And yes, she’s a target. The only information I got was that she had killed tens of thousands of people.”
His cheeks flushed. “She did not—”
Rikki raised a hand, stopping him. “If you think about it, that number makes sense. If she really does run the Guild—”
“She does,” he said.
“—then you could say that all of the assassinations are on her shoulders.”
Misha frowned ever so slightly. “Why would someone contact you?”
She shrugged a single shou
lder. “There aren’t a lot of unaffiliated assassins.”
“Especially those who just got invited into the Guild,” he said.
“Would you stop with that?” she asked. “I didn’t tell anyone about it.”
Except Jack. She had told Jack. But Jack wouldn’t betray her. He was her best friend.
Misha’s frown deepened. Had he seen that moment of doubt flicker across her face?
“You’re still with the Rovers, though, right? You work with them?”
She started. How did he know about the Rovers? How did he know that she had once relied on them for vetting services, that she and Jack had used them for training?
Misha continued to stare at her. The Rovers thing was important to him, and she didn’t quite know why.
“I haven’t been affiliated with the Rovers in more than a decade,” she said. “I told you. I don’t join things.”
He frowned just a little.
“Why is it important?” she asked.
“You went to Krell.”
She felt the blood drain from her face. “How did you know that?”
“How do you think I found you?” he asked. “I tracked that lifeship and figured out you’d rented a terrible little ship on Oyal. I waited and examined the logs. You took it to Krell.”
She wanted to hit her palm against her forehead. She had been so mesmerized by him that she hadn’t asked how he found her. And if truth be told, she just figured he was good enough to track her. She no longer doubted that.
“So?” she asked, knowing that was a lame response.
“The Rovers sometimes use Krell as their base,” he said.
She made a face. “Everyone in this part of the sector uses Krell as a base, particularly if they are a bit on the shady side. I’ll bet you’ve used Krell.”
The expression that flashed through his eyes confirmed that. Still, he didn’t let up.
“But you’ve been part of their organization,” he said.
“I’m not denying that,” she said. “I told you: I don’t join things. Where do you think I learned that I don’t fit into an organization, even one that refuses to call itself an organization?”
He kept looking at her, as if he was trying to see through her. “You knew they’re trying to destroy the Guild,” he said.
