by Kit Rocha
He did anyway. “Dead. I barely remember them.” His hand tightened on her hip. “Not sure if that’s better or worse, but it’s how things are.”
“I understand.” He was still giving off scary monster vibes that cleared a path for them as they rolled with the music, but the low, tense rumble of his voice and those fingers clutching her hip … She stroked her thumb up and down the strong column of his throat, softly comforting. “I never knew my parents. Most of the time I think it’s easier. Nothing to miss except the idea of what parents are supposed to be.”
“You can still miss something you’ve never known.”
The words slid over her, low and oddly intense. She couldn’t tell if they were supposed to be suggestive or if everything sounded suggestive when you were practically riding a guy’s thigh to a bass beat that promised the kind of sex she’d never had and was pretty sure she wouldn’t survive.
Her limbs felt loose. Her whole body felt loose, except the parts that were wound too tight. Her heart pounded, and she waited for him to ruin it. To take the silent invitation in her flushed cheeks and parted lips, to slip his fingers under the thin cotton of her layered tank tops, for the hand at her hip to slide down to cup her ass. To drive this fluttery feeling inside her from warm and melting to the sharp edge of too much.
His hands stayed fixed where they were, one splayed wide between her shoulder blades, the other gently gripping her hip. His gaze roamed her face, his focus so total that his brow furrowed when an uncontrollable shiver shook through her. His fingers flexed, gentling their movements, putting careful space between their bodies before she had to ask.
Gray would never take advantage of an unspoken invitation. He’d never push. He’d always give her exactly what she asked for.
Anything she asked for.
Just tell me what you need.
Maya had no fucking idea what she needed right now, short of finding an improbable Atlanta snowbank and flinging herself into it.
Her whole body was buzzing. No, her wrist was buzzing. It was buzzing the impatient staccato of someone trying to get her attention. Tearing her gaze from Gray’s felt like trying to defy gravity, but she managed to lift her wrist and squint at the gentle glow from her watch.
The flex of her wrist displayed the message. Just one word.
Boo.
Maya raised her voice to be heard over the music, fighting the urge to jump back as if she’d gotten caught doing something wrong. “She’s here. Let’s find Rafe and Dani.”
Dani was at the bar, a line of smoking, rainbow-colored shots lined up in front of her. The crowds had stepped back, clearing a space around her as the bartender counted off each drink as she downed them. One right after another, until she finished the last shot with a flourish amidst cheers—and a loud groan.
A young man in a sleek, bespoke suit stood to one side, a dismayed expression on his baby face. Dani plucked a credit stick out of his hand, then leaned in with a wicked grin. “Remember this,” she purred, “the next time you think about challenging a lady.”
Maya choked back a groan and caught Dani by the only part of her dress that looked sturdy enough not to snap in two—the waistband. “You are so gonna feel those shots later.”
“Are you kidding me? They’re 150 proof, max. And I got the arrogant rich boy’s money.” She flipped the credit stick over her knuckles. “Is it go time?”
“As soon as we find Rafe.”
Rafe was leaning against the wall not far beyond Dani, engaged in easy conversation with a tall figure clad in jeans and a T-shirt. Dark-pink hair cascaded over one shoulder, with the other side of their head shaved. Big, brown eyes stared up at Rafe with surprising familiarity, considering this was one of the names on Maya’s mental dossier of former TechCorps revolutionaries.
Nat had been one of the leading experts in food synthesis, their breakthroughs of a magnitude that could have helped eliminate hunger throughout Atlanta—except the TechCorps did not particularly want hunger eliminated. It was too effective as a lever of control. Only Birgitte’s direct intervention had saved Nat from the kind of “promotion” that ended with your body turning to ash in an incinerator while all of your colleagues muttered jealously—and obliviously—about the posh, new private lab you’d supposedly taken over.
The kind of promotion Birgitte had gotten, in the end.
Rafe grinned as they approached. “Hey, this is—”
“Maya!” Nat reached out as if to hug her but checked themself at the last second and offered a hand for a high five instead. “You look good. I didn’t know you and Rafe were tight.”
“We recently became acquainted,” Maya replied dryly. “I’m more surprised you two know each other.”
“What can I say?” Rafe held up both hands. “I’m just that loveable.”
Maya rolled her eyes and jerked her thumb. “Sorry to bounce, but we have a meeting with someone you don’t keep waiting.”
“No worries.” Nat gave Rafe a swift hug and offered Maya a wave as they started off. “Thank Nina for those books she sent me, would you? And tell her I think I finally have a prototype for y’all to test…”
The music swallowed the rest, but Maya shot back two enthusiastic thumbs up. No need to fake the excitement—a potential prototype food synthesizer from Nat would definitely perk Nina up. Something like that could push back the threat of hunger in Southside this winter, and when people weren’t struggling to feed themselves, they could turn that extra energy toward building a little more security.
That was the hope Maya carried with her as she used Rafe’s size and Gray’s menace to carve a path across the dance floor, straight to a single booth set directly beneath the VIP section, a table that rested in a relative oasis of peace.
Nobody would fuck with the woman sitting there. No one would even get close without an invitation. She lounged on one of the leather-padded benches, her no-nonsense black tank top showing off tattooed brown skin a shade darker than Maya’s. Her dark braids were studded with silver rings, and she wore dark denim jeans, knee-high motorcycle boots, and high-end tinted smart glasses that obscured half of her face.
Persephone. Queen of the criminal underworld. She owned the GhostNet’s black market—and hackers rose to prominence or tumbled to oblivion at her whim.
What few except for Maya knew was that Persephone had created the GhostNet.
Persephone turned to study them as they approached. No doubt those glasses were already running facial recognition scans on the three she hadn’t met before. By the time they sat, she’d know that both the TechCorps database and the GhostNet had been scrubbed clean of any trace of them, thanks to Conall’s industrious work.
Maya had hoped the mystery would intrigue her. But Persephone’s brow furrowed, and when they were still a few paces from the table, she pushed her glasses up to the top of her head and quirked one eyebrow in silent challenge—and not at Maya.
Gray stopped short and sighed. “Well, shit.”
“Fuck me,” Rafe groaned.
Maya froze, looking from Persephone’s furrowed brow to Rafe’s dismayed expression. Hell, even Gray looked vaguely agitated. For an endless, torturous moment, no one moved. Even the music seemed far away, as if the tension between Persephone and the men had formed an impenetrable bubble.
It popped with Persephone’s sudden wry laugh. “You know I went a month without a decent night’s sleep because of you assholes? Every tight-ass on the Board wanted their security tripled until they managed to kill y’all.”
Gray turned to Maya. “Charlie is your contact? Conall’s nemesis?”
“I don’t—” Her brain buzzed, the sudden spike of adrenaline unleashing a hurricane of remembered conversations. Conall’s voice first, in an overlapping litany of grievances against Charlie, his chief competition for the top spot in the elite tech training program. Charlie … Charlie …
Charlotte Young. Birgitte’s cool voice drifted through her memory, bringing with it the full sensory
memory of being seated next to Birgitte in their penthouse. A rare January snowstorm swirled outside the windows, and the fireplace crackled. A nonentity, for our purposes. She’s settled in to do security for the Board. Disappointing, really. She had so much potential.
Maya’s head still throbbed painfully with other people’s voices when Persephone—Charlie—laughed again. “Nemesis? He wishes.”
“He made a pretty compelling case,” Rafe drawled. “Wouldn’t shut up about how you two were always fighting for the number one spot.”
“If I had wanted it, I’d have it. I mean, how did that number one spot turn out for him?” It was clearly a rhetorical question. Both Gray and Rafe seemed to vanish from her world as she stared at Maya, humor and tension in her eyes. “So.”
“So,” Maya echoed. That same tension burned in her gut, and she knew Charlie was doing the same thing she was—reassessing a relationship built on fragile strands of slowly growing trust wrapped around ropes of mutually assured destruction. The punishment facing the founder of the GhostNet balanced against the reward coming to whoever turned in Maya. Knowing Persephone was Charlotte Young balanced against the knowledge that the Silver Devils hadn’t died in a warehouse a few months ago.
So many secrets and lies. So much potential destruction. Maya had just accidentally exposed the Silver Devils … but the Silver Devils had, in turn, exposed Charlotte Young.
Those fragile strands of trust stretched. The potential for violence throbbed more loudly than the music.
Dani giggled.
Maya couldn’t tear her gaze from Charlie’s. “You okay, Dani?”
“I’m sorry, but you were right. That was too many shots.” She laughed even harder. “Because this is hilarious.”
Charlie’s full lips twitched. In that moment, her brown eyes softened, and Maya knew they wouldn’t be killing each other today. Charlie slid from the booth and rose to face them, her hands braced on her hips. “I trust Maya. So I’ll trust the two of you. As long as we all agree there’s no reason to go spilling secrets that’ll only do more harm than good.”
That was meant for Maya as much as the two men—a warning that Charlie didn’t want her identity as the founder of the GhostNet betrayed. Maya answered her the same way. “I trust her, guys. She has as much to lose as any of us. Maybe even more.”
After a beat, Rafe held out a hand. “If Maya trusts you…”
“Just like that?” Charlie asked, clasping his hand. “Conall will be devastated.”
“Conall will understand,” Gray retorted. “He has faith in Maya’s judgment. Besides, what’s going on is more important than a little workplace rivalry.”
“All right.” Charlie waved a hand to the booth before resuming her seat. “So tell me.”
Rafe and Dani slid into one side. Maya ended up next to Charlie, with Gray’s body a solid, protective wall between her and the dance floor. A quirk of the building’s acoustics made the music vibrating up through her shoes feel farther away, and they sat in a relative circle of quiet while Maya outlined the bare bones of the story.
She knew before she finished that she was looking at a dead end, even before Charlie shook her head regretfully. “The underground market in Atlanta doesn’t trade in people,” she said flatly. “At least no part of it I control.”
“We assumed that much, based on what Maya told us,” Gray assured her. “But if you’ve seen or heard anything suspicious, it might give us a solid starting point.”
“I didn’t make myself clear.” Charlie leaned forward, elbows braced against the table, and the intensity in her eyes burned. “The last thing anyone with a truck full of kids would do is get within a hundred miles of me. I have a temper and a reputation.”
Gray subsided with a nod and a resigned sigh. “Fair enough.”
“However…” Charlie leaned back, her fingertips tapping the table thoughtfully. “You said this started with independent labs selling genetic data?”
“And other labs buying it,” Rafe confirmed. “Or at least some sort of mobile lab unit. They cleared out of that place too fast and too clean for it to have been the first time.”
Charlie nodded. “Then y’all need to go upstairs.”
Maya’s stomach sank. “Upstairs, like to the VIP section?”
“Not just that.” Charlie flashed a grin. “Upstairs like straight to Savitri herself. If you want to know who’s trading genetic IP, that’s who you have to ask.”
“Okay, then.” Dani pushed up from her seat with both palms on the table. “Let’s do it.”
“Wait,” Maya protested. “It’s not that easy. Unless Charlie can get us up there…”
“I could get you into the VIP section,” Charlie acknowledged. “But I can’t promise you face time. The only way to get that with Savitri is to intrigue her so much she wants to see your face. Or more than your face.”
“Mm-hmm.” Dani held out her hand. “Rafe? Care to show these nonbelievers how it’s done?”
“It would be my pleasure.” He clasped Dani’s hand and rolled to his feet. Then, after a moment’s thought, he peeled his shirt over his head with an effortless grace any stripper would have envied.
The shirt hit Gray in the chest before falling to the table in a heap. Rafe’s full arsenal of weaponized muscles flexed under the neon lights, and he winked at Dani. “Ready, cupcake?”
She rolled her eyes and pulled him toward the dance floor.
“Well.” Charlie propped her chin on her hand. “This should be interesting.”
She sounded amused—and more than a little doubtful. That would change. Rafe’s resting state was smoldering, and he threw sparks whenever Dani entered the same room. The question wasn’t whether Savitri would notice them.
It was whether Savitri would notice them before they burned the whole place down.
DANI
Dani didn’t do self-denial.
The reasons were few and vital. For starters, it wasn’t fun. Beyond that, it wasn’t even effective. Oh, people pretended it was, that their sacrifice and discipline would allow them to reap multitudes of rewards at some nebulous point in the future.
What bullshit. Fortune favored the bold.
And she was feeling very, very bold.
The music filling the cavernous space throbbed through her, repetitive and heavy with bass. It sounded a little like that procedurally generated FlowMac shit that Maya loved so much, only deeper. More primal.
It had an edge to it, one she felt keenly as Rafe spun her in a tight circle before catching her against his body, her back pressed tight to the blazing heat of his bare chest. His hand slid down her side before settling over her navel, fingers splayed wide. He rolled his hips, taking her with him in a slow, deliberate circle, and warm breath tickled her ear.
“You sure you’re up to this?”
“Says the walking hard-on.” She slipped around to face him again and slid up his thigh. “Check your four.”
Rafe’s fingers found the bare skin at the small of her back, flexing as he urged her higher. He moved with the pulse of the music, making it look natural as he turned them. “The blonde by the bar?”
“Mmm, she’s armed. Heavily. And the guy under the sign for the bathrooms?”
“Corporate mercenary.” Rafe made an amused noise as he dipped her back over his arm, giving her an upside-down view of the hulking soldier lurking beneath the sign. It lasted for only the space of a heartbeat before he pulled her back up. Her hair flew around them as their upper bodies collided, the space between their faces millimeters at most. “Knox couldn’t scrub the soldier off, either,” he rasped, his voice too intimate for such pragmatic shop talk, “but at least he ditched that damn haircut.”
Dani couldn’t help it—her gaze dropped to Rafe’s mouth. It was unstoppable, a chemical reaction. This pull had always been there between them, but lately it was getting more intense. It drew her in faster, deeper—and she had a harder time swimming free of the undertow.
“
Uh-huh.” She broke away, raising her arms to dance in a circle before facing him again. “So … tell me about Charlie.”
The flashing neon lights intensified the play of muscle. Rafe’s bare chest was drawing covetous glances as more space opened up around them. Onlookers swayed to the music and watched as Rafe dragged his hands up her sides before twining their fingers together above her head. “Charlie’s trouble,” he rumbled, rolling his hips toward hers. “She and Conall were the top of their class during training. Probably means she’s the smartest hacker left on the Hill.”
“Maybe. But she’s obviously not much of a company gal, if she’s down here, slumming it at a place like Convergence.”
“Interesting, isn’t it?” He used their joined hands to spin her, dragging her back against his chest as he ground against her ass to the rhythm of the throbbing bass beat. His lips brushed her ear this time. “Nobody’s ever who they seem.”
It was the very definition of preaching to the choir, but Dani found herself strangely reluctant to remind him of that fact. Instead, she bit her lip, and a jolt of something suspiciously like longing streaked through her when he reacted with a low groan from so deep in his chest she felt the vibrations against her back.
Then he was gone, leaving a trail of hot kisses down her spine as his fingers molded to the curve of her hips.
Startled, Dani turned. “Rafe—”
Then her eyes met his, and the words vanished. Her protest, her question, whatever the fuck she’d been about to say—just gone, like he had the power to crawl inside her head and take up so much space there wasn’t room for anything else.
His fingertips ghosted over her calves and trailed up her legs. His brown eyes glinted with heat as he passed her knees and finally encountered the hem of her dress—then inched higher.
Rafe’s thumb found the strap of her thigh sheath. He stroked along the edge until he reached one of her knives, and his lips quirked up.
“Hot,” he mouthed to her silently.
