by Kit Rocha
The only thing she hadn't known was how many ways he could use her.
Bren was still watching, quiet and intent, so she nodded carefully. "I know a lot."
"You don't have to go," he said again. "I want that clear, all right?"
She couldn't help her doubtful little laugh. "You sure about that? Why else has Dallas been putting up with me all this time? This is where I pay him back, and that's okay. Better like this than some other way."
Bren glowered as he shifted her off his lap and dropped her to the mat. "I don't lie."
"I know." Scrambling to her feet gave her the advantage of height, if only for a few precious moments. Bren wouldn't lie, but what could she say that didn't sound worse? That she didn't believe the same about O'Kane? That she didn't want Bren fighting with his boss over her? After last night, maybe she was stupid to assume he'd even bother. "I just meant...it makes sense. I can do it."
He watched her, expressionless. "It's not only a fact-finding mission. If bad shit is going down over there, Dallas wants me to clean it up."
Her fingers curled instinctively toward her palms, forming fists she didn't try to hide. Her heart was racing--with hope, maybe, though it was too unfamiliar for her to be sure. She chose her words carefully. "There's bad shit going down over there. Really, really bad shit."
Bren rolled to his feet and nodded. "Then I need your help."
The same words Wilson Trent had spoken to her more than four years ago. She'd believed them, and they'd been true enough. It was all the words that had come after that had been littered with lies and broken promises.
It wouldn't be the same this time. She wouldn't let it be. "When do we start?"
"Depends." A little of his humor returned, tilting his lips up in a smile. "How are you on a bike?"
The ruin of Sector Three was disorienting.
Back when the place had been a hub of electronics production, the manufacturing plants had been right in the middle of it all, with homes and shops built up around them. When Eden bombed the shit out of the sector, they aimed for dead center, intent on destroying those factories. The carnage radiated outward, damn near to the borders, like ripples that gradually faded.
Until you made the trip in reverse, straight into the heart of Three, and the destruction snuck up on you until you were surrounded by nothing but stacks of refuse and dirty rubble.
Not that anyone had put forth much effort to clean it up. Bren pulled his motorcycle to a stop in front of the squat warehouse Wilson Trent had used as his headquarters. Even here, piles of debris had been pushed into alleys, forming blockades that might have been deliberate but looked haphazard. Haphazard--that was a good word for the whole damn place. Messy, disorganized.
Chaotic.
Not if Dallas had his way. He'd clean it up, all right, in ways the other sector leaders expected, and in others they'd never dreamed of.
Six pulled up next to him and cut the engine on her borrowed bike. She was all hard edges today, severe in borrowed leather, with her hair scraped back from her face in a braid so tight it looked painful.
Her gaze swept that ugly tangle of rubble before she said something really depressing. "Looks like someone's been trying to fix the joint up."
"That's just fucking sad." Bren slid from his bike and rubbed his neck. "Shit, where do we start?"
"With whoever's minding the shop today." She swung a leg over her bike and turned--not toward the warehouse, but to an equally rundown two-story building on the other side of what passed for the street. "They'll be in the bar."
Bren had heard stories of Trent's efforts to reproduce Dallas's success, but by all accounts the nameless strip club was a pale imitation of the Broken Circle. The tales were confirmed when he walked in. The place was deserted except for a handful of nearly naked women clustered around the bar, drinking. No customers, no music, just the bored dancers.
One looked up, her dull eyes barely focusing until Six stepped up at his side. Shock twisted her features as she leaned in to whisper to the other girls. One by one, heads swiveled while Six stood in silence, enduring their gawking stares.
The moment broke when the first girl slid from her stool and bolted through a beaded curtain without a word. The blonde who'd been seated next to her stubbed out her cigarette and rose to face them. "Fuck, woman, I heard you were dead."
"Damn near was." Six's voice was neutral, with the tiniest hint of a tremor. "Got lucky."
"I'll say." The blonde shifted her black-rimmed gaze to Bren and gave him an appreciative once-over that made Six tense. "You guys looking for a party?"
The denial was automatic, but it died on Bren's lips. Six was wound tight, ready to explode. He wanted to drag her back out of there, away from everyone who remembered the things she wanted to forget. Wrap his arms around her and whisper until that tension melted.
Neither of them had that luxury. Today, they were both soldiers, and they had a job to do. Like it or not, these women had what they needed--information. The real shit, the kind that could matter.
He pulled some cash from his pocket, a single folded bill that he held up between his fingers. "Lead the way."
The blonde snatched the cash and held it up to the grimy light, and Six bit off a disapproving noise. "It's not painted paper, Katie. But you shouldn't be checking where we can see."
"Hey, life ain't as civilized as it used to be," the woman muttered as she tucked away the bill and turned. "You coming or not?"
As they followed the woman through the beaded curtain, Six clutched Bren's wrist and lowered her voice. "This is bullshit. Someone should be here. A bouncer, a guard. Someone."
"I know." At least a bouncer would make sure people paid.
The room Katie led them to was about as subtle as Wilson Trent had been. Ten feet across, with a low couch facing two mismatched plush chairs and cracked, oddly sized mirrors on every wall. Katie nodded to the couch, pivoting her hips in a lazy circle. "Sit down and tell me what you want. Some stuff's extra." A wide, mean-edged smile. "Six knows all the prices."
She didn't rise to the bait, but Bren bared his teeth in a grin. "I'll double your money if you can the attitude."
The girl flicked a look at Six. Her expression quickly settled back into aloof boredom, but there was a hint of uncertainty in her eyes. "It's okay," Six murmured. "He wants information, and he'll pay you for it."
The uncertainty sharpened, but Katie didn't bolt. "What kind of information?"
Bren pulled more money from his pocket. "I need to know who's been coming around lately, flashing a lot of cash."
"You mean besides you?" she asked dourly.
"Besides me."
She paused, her gaze riveted to the money in his hand, and wet her lips. "Girls with big mouths end up in gutters."
"I didn't," Six said softly. "Trent's gone, Katie."
"Sure, everyone keeps saying that, but for all you know--"
"He's gone," Six cut in. "I beat his fucking face in."
Silence. The two women watched each other, seemingly communicating volumes with the tiniest shifts in expression before Katie looked down at the floor. "The Griffen brothers. Those assholes who used to live in the basement of the old church? Rumor is they set up in Trent's old outpost on the border with Two, and they're moving something big. They're in here buying two women apiece every time I turn around."
It was a start. "Thank you." Bren leaned down to meet the girl's eyes as he pressed the money into her hand. "I didn't come here to make trouble. On the level."
Her fingers were thin, fragile and vulnerable as they curled around the wad of bills. "Suz went to find one of the guys," she muttered. "They'll be waiting out front. If you wanna avoid them, you should go out the back."
"Which guys?" Six prompted.
"Riff. Maybe Cain."
"I've got no problem with them," Bren said. They could get on board, or they could try their luck. Either way, it didn't matter to him.
Six pulled the door wide in silent
invitation and closed it after Katie slipped away with her money clutched tight. "You've met Cain and Riff?"
"Dallas figured they'd play nice. They seemed more decent than Trent's lieutenants, at any rate."
"They were outsiders." Six leaned against the doorframe and closed her eyes. "Riff'll probably fall in line if you don't ask him to beat on people weaker than he is. Kids, women, shit like that. But you can't trust him to disobey to your face. He'll agree like he's gonna follow orders, and then you won't see him again for six months. Cain's better. Smarter. He'll talk to you. Not to me, though."
"Why the hell not?"
She laughed hoarsely. "Because I've got tits. Cain is civilized. He doesn't let women do dirty work, and he doesn't think anyone else should, either. It's stupid, but his women are the safest girls in Three, so what do I know?"
"No wonder Lex wanted to stab him." Bren clasped Six's elbow and drew her close. "I don't care what he thinks. You want to talk, you talk."
She almost smiled for him. "All right."
The hallway was empty, and the girls had scattered from the main bar. Six followed him out onto the cracked pavement, where a lean man with a dark ponytail and an impressive array of tattoos was waiting for them. Riff.
His gaze snapped straight to Six, where it lingered with an odd mixture of relief and guilt. "You look good."
"Better than I was," she agreed, shoving her hands into her jacket pockets. Her right hand fisted--presumably around the brass knuckles he'd pressed on her--but she didn't pull them free. "You know Bren?"
"We've met." Riff nodded to him. "O'Kane checking up on us?"
"Not exactly." Bren eased over, edging his body in front of Six. "He sent us ahead of the cleanup crews to check out the situation."
Riff laughed darkly. "Situation is that everything's still fucked up. It's taking every goddamn thing we've got to keep O'Kane's grain coming in. We got control of that part of Trent's operation, but we had to let the rest go."
"Like the Griffens? Word is, they're running something big and swimming in cash. Doesn't exactly sound legit, does it?"
"No." Riff leaned to the side and tried to catch Six's eye. "Since when do you let a man talk for you?"
"He's not talking for me." Her voice was cool enough to freeze a man's balls. "I just got nothing to say to you, Riff. But I vouched for you, so if you fuck up and disappoint O'Kane, I'll kill you in your fucking bed."
The threat made him crack a small, bitter smile. "Some things never change."
"And some things do."
"Some things do," he echoed, glancing to Bren. "Weapons," he said, changing the subject abruptly. "Can't say the Griffens are up in it for sure, but that'd be my guess."
Everything could change in the time it would take to call in backup. Nervous amateurs didn't hold on to dangerous goods. The guns--if there were any--could vanish into the wrong hands, and Bren would be too late to stop it.
Bren reached behind him and smiled when Six slid her hand into his. "We're going to pay them a little visit, Riff. You're welcome to come along."
He didn't look enthused at the prospect, but he didn't look scared, either. "The kind of visit that's a warning? Or the kind that ends in dead bodies?"
"If anyone ends up dead, it won't be us. Best I can do."
Riff took a step back and shook his head. "Maybe some other time."
"Suit yourself."
Chapter Five
The Griffen brothers only had one guard, and Bren choked him into unconsciousness.
Six had seen him fight in the cage before, but now she realized how much of that had been an illusion. A show. She'd never entirely believed the whispers that Bren let his opponents beat on him for his own reasons, but now she knew them for truth.
When it mattered, it wasn't a show. The guard didn't see Bren coming, and he didn't have a chance.
He held the man tight even after he went limp. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he let his quarry slump to the floor, then stripped off the man's belt and cinched it around his wrists. "They must not have planned on being gone long, to only leave one man behind."
Six thumbed the comforting edge of her brass knuckles. "Could be they don't have the manpower. They don't do teamwork so good in Three."
"No shit." Bren swept the room with his gaze, slow and intent, before heading toward a cloth-draped box in the corner. He peeled away the covering, but instead of prying open the top of the wooden crate, he traced the top edge lightly with his fingers. "They may not play well with others, but they're not entirely stupid."
"Booby-trapped?" Her gut told her Riff would have warned them if he'd known. He wasn't the kind of guy who led you into traps, just the kind who walked away to save his own skin if you got caught.
Funny how that hadn't seemed like a crime until she'd spent a couple months with the O'Kanes.
Bren teased out a wire from beneath the lid and followed it around to the back of crate. "See?" A small bundle nestled at the bottom, something that looked like beige putty wrapped with a Velcro strap. "Trent must have had quite the stash of C-4. Any idea where he got it all?"
"He had some hush-hush contact he was really excited about, but no one was allowed to know who," Six answered, her attention drawn to how deftly Bren's fingers handled the mess of wires and explosives. Her heart should have been pounding, but there was something so casual about Bren's movements. So laid-back.
Efficiency. Confidence. They could have been having this conversation over a car engine instead of a bomb.
Okay, maybe her heart was pounding. Just not with fear.
Bren pulled a knife from his pocket and flicked it open. "Stand back. Just in case."
She obeyed, but only to avoid distracting him. It gave her a better view anyway, the full impact of her quiet, deadly protector as his fingers slowly, surely dismantled death. She watched, hypnotized, as Bren carefully eased apart the tangle of twisted wires. He was utterly focused, so hard on the outside. But he handled the bomb the way he handled her, every movement gentle, every touch precise, as if he knew all the ways she could shatter into dangerous pieces.
Finally, he set aside the jumbled mess and opened the crate. "Random guns. Looks like they raided someone's collection." He looked up and caught her eyes. "Trent's?"
She crossed to his side, unprepared for the gut-punch of memory that slammed into her when Bren lifted an antique pistol.
Staring at the engraved stock, she could almost feel the rough scrape of wood grain against her cheek, the threatening press of Trent's thumb on her jaw as his fingers dug painfully into her scalp. How many times had he fucked her like that? It had been the beginning of the end. Weeks of perfunctory sex with her bent over his desk, refusing to wince at his rough handling as he crushed her face into the unpolished wood.
That was before she started fighting back, when she'd still been convinced his increasing cruelty was her fault, and she'd taken every indignity he dished out. Otherwise he wouldn't have dared to leave his prized antique pistol within reach, where she committed the engraving to memory and--as weeks stretched into months and his touch grew more sadistic--fantasized about grabbing the damn thing and shooting him in the balls.
She'd tried, in the end. And that was when he'd thrown her to the wolves.
Bren didn't touch her. But his voice interrupted her thoughts, wrapped around her like an embrace. "Six."
Her mouth was dry, and she curled her fingers until brass bit into her palm. The discomfort made it easier to focus, and she finally met Bren's eyes. "It's Trent's," she said, proud that her voice came out calm, if a little rusty.
"All of them?"
She chanced a quick glance into the crate before turning away. "Yeah, I think so."
"I'm sorry."
The only other furniture in the room was a makeshift table littered with empty beer bottles, cigarette butts, and a ratty deck of playing cards. Six flipped over a card and studied the glaring face of the king of clubs as if it were the most impor
tant thing in the world.
If she had to look at Bren's face, she wouldn't get the words out. "No one ever asks what Trent did to me."
"No."
Her throat ached, but she didn't worry about tears. She knew how to lock herself down before she did something as pathetic as cry. "Sometimes I wish you would. Just so I could pretend everyone doesn't already know."
"That's not why I haven't asked." His voice was closer. Lower. "Maybe...I don't want to know."
She slid her finger over the painted king's face before closing her eyes. "Wanna pretend I'm not all used up?"
"It's selfish, but not like that." He didn't touch her, but she felt his heat at her back. "Trent's already dead, but I'd want to bring him back just to shoot the motherfucker all over again."
It was her responsibility to bridge the gap, to either reach out or invite his touch. But she couldn't--not here, in one of Trent's hovels, with the memories so close to the surface. Any comfort here would feel tainted, and she didn't want his hands coated in the grime of her past.
So she shook off her pain and turned, putting some space between them as she lifted the hand still clutching her brass knuckles. "If you did, I learned my lesson. No more busting up my own hands on some sorry bastard's face."
"Never again," he agreed softly.
God, the way he was looking at her, with no pity or disgust. Intense, with only the slightest softening around his eyes to save his features from harshness. There was something contemplative in his gaze, like he was imagining some future where bad things didn't happen to her. As if he was silently begging her to imagine it too.
Or maybe she was dreaming the wordless promise, seeing what she wanted to see. It wouldn't be the first time. "Bren--"
He covered her lips with two fingers and cocked his head. Then he turned her with his hands on her shoulders, urging her toward a stack of boxes in the corner. "Hide. Hurry."
She swallowed her protest and hauled ass. She'd been in enough street brawls to know her place when the bad guys came armed.
The roar of bike engines grew louder as she ducked behind the boxes and eased a knife from her boot. Bren closed the crate of guns, leaned against it, and lit a cigarette.
