by Kit Rocha
The corner of Cruz's mouth ticked up. "That too. But mostly? Brotherhood."
"It's true, then? You and Ace are getting along?"
"Most of the time. He's not like anyone in Eden, is he?"
"Nope." Then again, Ace wasn't like anyone else in Sector Four, either. "I wondered if you two would be able to settle your shit."
Cruz shrugged one shoulder. "He still irritates me sometimes, but I misjudged him. I thought he stole Rachel from me, but you can't steal these women, can you? You can't own them."
"Only if they give it to you." Six's face flashed in his mind, her lips parted, cheeks flushed with pleasure. "If they don't hold anything back."
"Doesn't matter," Cruz said, his voice firmer. Like he was trying to convince himself. "I don't have any business wanting to keep a woman, not until I know the sectors. And Ace can teach me that faster than anyone."
So could he, but Cruz and Ace seemed to have a connection that went beyond work. "You'll do good. You already are."
"It's not just him, it's everyone. It's good to belong to a team again."
Bren had had that once, the security of knowing that he was part of something, a team, and that he made it stronger by being a part of it. They'd lived together, fought together, laughed together. And then it had all fallen apart.
Bren cleared his throat. "Did things get so bad after I left?"
Cruz didn't answer at first, not until the car had zipped past the last of the original buildings that had been built at the same time as Eden. They were into the true slums now, dwellings cobbled together from debris and whatever could be scavenged.
"We rotted," he said finally. "From the outside in, I guess. From the top down. The day before you left was the last day we all trusted each other."
A breakdown in trust meant a breakdown in operations. A unit like that couldn't function if you weren't one hundred percent sure the man at your back would have it covered if you dove into the middle of a firefight. And Lieutenant Russell Miller, their intrepid squad commander, wouldn't have been able to fix that dissolving trust.
He was, after all, the cause of it.
"You saw the truth," Bren said simply. "Miller gave me a direct order to plant that evidence, and when it was uncovered, he sold me out. But he betrayed every single one of us."
"He picked the wrong man for the setup." Cruz glanced at him. "You may be crazy as a Sector One preacher, but every damn one of us knew you wouldn't balk at a mission like that. So half of us were left thinking about what loyalty earns you, and the rest broke something inside themselves, trying to believe in Miller."
Bren snorted. "Just glad I can put you in the former category."
Cruz didn't smile. "We all were, to start. But once Miller started talking people around... I can't prove shit, but people who never warmed to him had a higher chance of coming back in a body bag."
"I wish I was surprised." The past was past, but maybe Cruz needed some closure, too. "He comes out into the sectors sometimes. Unauthorized. Uses forged passes."
"And you haven't done something about that yet?"
He could have. He'd followed Miller around the sectors, cataloging his movements...and waiting. "Can't move on it until I can be sure it won't come back on the O'Kanes."
"Understood." Cruz slowed the car and pulled off the road beside a hovel with a collapsed roof. "It's supposed to be a quarter mile past this building. How do you want to approach?"
They could cut the lights, but the sound of the engine would carry out here in the desolate stillness. "Pull up and head in. I'll go around the back and cover you."
Cruz obeyed. "How big a mess are we making?"
"As big as it needs to be."
The drive was short, even at a careful, creeping pace. Their destination was little better than the shack down the road--at least on the outside, and at first glance. A closer look revealed shiny water lines running from a well out back, not to mention not one but two metal chimneys that damn sure didn't lead to fireplaces. Boilers, no doubt, like the ones Dallas used.
Bren cursed under his breath, and cursed again when an inspection of the back door revealed solid steel--and an electronic lock, the kind that cost. A high-dollar operation meant high-dollar weapons, not to mention the muscle to use them. And with Cruz already on his way in at the front, Bren had no time to lose.
He jerked open a pocket on his cargo pants, pulled out his popcard, and jammed it into the key interface. The card activated with a silent flash of blinking lights, and Bren hit the red button on the end. It could take the card up to thirty seconds to isolate the lock's code, but it only took two to overload the circuits.
The lock popped with a sizzle of sparks, and he pushed open the door just as the first shot sounded in the front room. Bren raced down the narrow hall and ran headlong into two men. He took out one with a quick blow to the temple, but the other wheeled back two steps, already groping for his gun.
Bren knocked the pistol out of his hand, caught it by the barrel as it flew through the air, and spun around. He harnessed the force of it into a blow, striking his other attacker in the jaw, using the pistol grip like a club. The man reeled and slammed against the wall.
Gunshots sounded in the next room, two loud retorts followed by a shout and a third, then silence. Bren kicked through the door to find Cruz examining a graze on his upper arm, his booted foot resting on a groaning thug's face. The man's knee had been blown out, and four other bodies lay unmoving, necks at awkward angles, a path of efficient carnage from the front room.
Bren frowned. "I only got two."
"Sorry. You can have this one." Cruz lifted his foot and jerked his head toward a table set against the wall. "I kept him alive after I saw that."
"Oh, shit." Not merely a well-funded distillery, after all. The bottles lining the table all bore identical labels emblazoned with a familiar logo, the same one printed on the sheets of unused labels in a crate at the far end.
The suicidal bastards were bootlegging O'Kane liquor.
Cruz stepped away. "New mission objective?"
"Yeah." Bren hauled the remaining survivor up by his collar. "We drag this piece of shit back to Dallas."
"O'Kane!" the man sputtered.
"O'Kane," he agreed. "My boss. The man you're ripping off."
"But I'm not! I didn't take anything. Every bottle's there--you can count it--"
Bren cut him off by twisting his collar tight, but only for a second. "Who do you work for?"
The man's eyes rolled toward Cruz and back. "For Dallas O'Kane."
"Then why the fuck were you shooting at me?" Cruz demanded, lifting an arm to flash his new ink. "Look familiar?"
The man shook so hard, Bren thought he might piss himself. "I didn't-- Shit, if you're an O'Kane, why did you come busting up in here?"
"Because this isn't Dallas's operation." Bren released his captive but stayed ready to snatch him back up, just in case. "He doesn't farm out O'Kane liquor. We make it ourselves."
Confusion knotted his brow. "Buzz is one of you. He has the ink."
Cruz stalked back to the front of the room and rolled one body with the toe of his boot. "Which one is he?"
"He's not here."
Through the open doorway, Bren could see four stills, which were powered by the two boilers he'd noticed outside. "We'll let Dallas sort it out," he told Cruz. "Take him out and put him in the trunk. I'll destroy the equipment."
Cruz bit off a curse, but he locked it down and dragged their captive toward the exit.
The larger room had a woodpile in the center, between the stills, but both boilers were cold. A quick tap on the large tanks resounded dully, which meant they weren't empty but full of fermenting mash.
Not for long.
Bren picked up an ax from the woodpile and smashed the first tank, slicing through the thin metal with each swing. Sour-smelling mash flowed out of the holes and onto the floor to splash his boots.
He hit the other three tanks, as well. It w
as impossible to patch tanks without leaks, and there was no way the bastards would be able to replace them.
Not before he brought Dallas back to see what they'd done.
Chapter Eight
The pants she'd borrowed from Lex's closet were dangerous and sexy, and by some miracle fit Six like they'd been made for her. The leather hugged her skin but was supple enough for her to move freely, and the laces climbing from her knees to her hips flashed enough skin to tease without making her feel naked.
They were hot, and they made her feel hot.
And they'd been in a heap on Bren's floor since just after midnight.
Clad in her underwear and a tank top, Six alternated between nervous pacing and restless dozing, mostly trying not to wonder how many ways a job could go wrong. Bren and Cruz could handle anything between the two of them. Whatever was keeping Bren away from his bed--and the woman he'd invited to it--it couldn't be serious. And if someone had been hurt, she'd know. This whole place had boiled up like a hill of fire ants when Lex and Noelle had gotten shot.
She'd given up pacing for another round of fitful half-dreams when the click of the door brought her upright.
Bren came dragging in and dropped his jacket over the chair by the door, leaving him in dark pants, a dark T-shirt, and a worn leather shoulder holster. "Sorry I'm late."
She took a more complete assessment of him, letting her gaze slide from his face down to his boots in search of any sign of injury. Finding none, she exhaled in relief and rose. "You're okay?"
"Tired." He shrugged out of the holster and draped it, pistols and all, on top of his jacket. "Run tonight got complicated. They weren't just selling liquor, they were putting Dallas's name on it."
Then they were idiots. Even Trent had briefly considered--and quickly discarded--the idea of reusing empty O'Kane bottles to sell knock-off liquor. All it took was one inferior bottle getting back to Sector Four, and you'd wish Dallas O'Kane had only crushed your balls.
No wonder Bren looked exhausted. Too exhausted for fucking, which was why it didn't bother her to sink to her knees and jerk at the laces on one of his boots. It wasn't submissive if she only wanted to get his shoes off before he tipped over.
He shook his head in protest, but didn't move. "I can do that."
"Shut up," she muttered, then cursed under her breath at the tangled, mash-splattered laces. Relief had given way too quickly to an unfair buzz of anger. She wanted to drive a fist into his shoulder and demand to know why no one had told her anything, why she'd been left to stew in ignorance and worry.
Stupid. She wasn't his woman. She wasn't even a member of the damn gang. No one owed her an accounting of Bren's whereabouts, and that was the way she wanted it. This thing between them was about bodies and friendship, nothing more.
The laces gave way, and she made a face as she gripped the boot. "These need to be cleaned. I'm not doing that."
"No shit," he said mildly. "Leave the other one and come up here."
She ignored him and set to work on the second boot. "Don't tell me what to do unless we're fighting or fucking."
He wound one lock of her hair around his finger. "So you are mad."
"Only if you think you can boss me around," she lied, hauling the boot free. It joined its partner by the door, and she looked anywhere but at Bren as she started to rise. All she needed was an excuse, a few minutes to shove her wobbly-kneed reaction back where it belonged, and she had the perfect one. "I need to wash my hands, and then we can talk."
But he held her, wrapping strong hands around her upper arms. "Look at me."
At first she refused, fixing her gaze on his chest, but that did fuck all good. He was patient enough to stand there all night, and strong enough to keep her there if she tried to jerk free. The only way out was to do her best to shutter her eyes before meeting his.
"I'm sorry," he said gently. "We had to bring a guy back for Dallas to talk to, and it's a huge fucking mess. But I should've sent someone to tell you I was back instead of letting you worry."
She could taste the tears that threatened, and it had been so long since she cared about anything enough to cry. "You don't owe me anything," she told him, the words pleasantly bland. "We're square."
His jaw tightened. "I owed you that much, especially tonight."
"It's just sex," she started, but she could hear the lie when her voice hitched on just, as if her body couldn't handle her self-destructive audacity after she'd wasted hours tying herself into knots by imagining his hands on her, his mouth, his cock sliding home as he drowned them both in pleasure.
"I'll make it up to you." The low promise, whispered against her temple, stirred her hair, and she thought her shiver was one of reaction until the shaking grew stronger, and suddenly she was trembling like some virgin out of Eden.
She wanted to tear herself out of his arms or burrow deeper, and not knowing which made her voice waver. "I really do need to wash up. I smell like a still."
"Me too. I need a shower." He reached for her hand. "Come with me."
She tried to think of a reason to say no, and a dozen boiled up. She was too raw, too vulnerable to strip physically naked on top of everything else. She wanted to be angry, numb--anything so that the sex that followed was only about bodies. It was too intimate, sharing that private space with him, giving in to the temptation to follow the water over the hard planes of his body.
One reason overrode them all. She wanted to. "Okay."
He led her into the bathroom, turned on the water, and tugged at his belt. By the time he'd undressed, steam clouded the room. But it couldn't cloud the look in his eyes as he pulled at her tank top and her panties--hunger tempered by patience. "Get in."
She stepped into the narrow stall without hesitation and only a brief moment of worry that being naked made it feel natural to obey without question. Then he was there with her, taking up all the space, and she couldn't think at all.
He stretched past her and adjusted the showerhead so the spray hit her hair. Then he stroked his fingers through the strands as the water soaked them. "I like your hair."
She'd always kept it long for sentimental reasons, as a stupid way of clinging to a memory she wasn't sure was real anymore. But the soothing warmth of the water, the sensual brush of his fingers, and the steam all combined to twist the world into something safe and surreal. A place where it was okay to be silly and sentimental.
"My mother liked to brush it," she said, barely loud enough for him to hear over the water. "It's the only thing I remember about her. They'd call me to chores, and she'd say, 'Hope can't come, I'm not done fixing her hair.' And we'd giggle at fooling the head wife."
"Hope," he echoed just as quietly. "Tell me?"
She closed her eyes as he reached for the shampoo. "She was too young. Six and Seven aren't so different from the communes. They breed you as soon as they can because they need workers, and sometimes it kills you. I think she was fourteen or fifteen when she had me..." And had named her Hope because Six was the first child she'd carried to term. No one had expected her to be the last, too.
Bren hummed soothingly and worked the shampoo through her hair.
"That's mostly it. I don't know how old I was when the last pregnancy killed her. Eight or nine?" Too old to be escaping chores--too old to grieve, according to the head wife, especially when she had so many other mothers to respect and obey. "It happened a lot. Getting a doctor or meds might mean not being able to afford the tithe, so if you got sick or hurt..."
"She was important to you."
Tears stung her eyes again, but it was safe to let them slip away with the water as Bren massaged her scalp. "I barely remember her. I don't even know if my memories are real, or if they're daydreams. Almost everything that happened to me before Three is like that. Another life."
He rinsed her hair in silence, then turned her to face him. "It's like rain, sweetness. It can wash some stuff away, but not everything."
Six tracked a drop of water as
it rolled over his collarbone. When it strayed toward his nipple, she leaned in and caught it with her tongue. "Help me forget the rest."
His hardening cock nudged her hip. "When I'm done. Soap."
"Bossy," she muttered, but she was smiling as she reached past him for the rough bar. "Remember, you only get to do this when we're naked."
"So you say now." He grinned as he worked the bar between his hands. "But once I have you up against the hood of a car with my hand in your pants, you'll change your mind."
He rubbed one soapy hand across his chest, and her retort died on her tongue. As many times as she'd seen his bare torso, it had never been this close, this intimate. She followed the path of his hands with her gaze before drifting up to his shoulders and back to his flexing arms, trying to look everywhere at once.
He pressed the soap into her hand. "Tease me a little, Six. Show me what I was missing tonight."
This was the part that always felt awkward. Flirtation. Foreplay. It was easy when it was all about groping hands and stroking what you could reach on your frantic path to getting in each other's pants, but this was deliberate, thoughtful, utterly focused on getting someone to crave more of you. She'd spent too much time learning to send out the opposite vibe--touch me and I'll kill you.
Of course, that vibe hadn't derailed Bren. Maybe she'd been trying too hard to be someone else, sultry Lex or sweet, bratty Noelle. It was about survival, a hard-learned defense mechanism. Imitate the people around you, and you became less of a target.
It felt strange to stop trying altogether as she smoothed the soap up his arm. "I borrowed those leather pants from Lex, the ones that lace up the legs."
"That doesn't seem very sturdy."
"They show skin, Donnelly." She soaped her hand and stroked it lower, over the tense muscles of his abdomen. "But only a little."
He sucked in a harsh breath. "Skin's good."
"Only a little," she repeated. The backs of her fingers almost brushed his shaft before she changed direction and smoothed back up. "That's how I'd dress up. A little skin and big knives, so anyone who wants to see more knows I'll probably cut their fingers off."
