by Witt, L. A.
But things didn’t work out that way.
I looked skyward, as if I could see the penthouse that was my destination, and caressed the barrel of the gun beneath my jacket.
And so here we are, aren’t we, Daniel?
At the top floor, I got out of the elevator, and anticipation quickened my heartbeat as I approached Daniel’s apartment.
The door was reinforced steel with a keypad beside it. Above the keypad, a laser-engraved placard read: D. Harding.
In another lifetime, an identical placard had marked the entrance to his old apartment, and now I caught myself fighting the temptation to run my fingers over the letters, as if the surface might transport me back to the way things were before. Back when—
No, Liam. Fuck no. Don’t even go there. Just kill the fucker and be done with it.
I tore my gaze away from the placard. The way things had been didn’t negate the years that had followed. Being ostracized. Barely surviving. One day I was living in luxury in a place just like this. The next I was on my knees in the Gutter, choking on the haze and begging for . . . For whatever I could get. A bed, shelter from the sun, just one neck from which to feed. While Daniel carried on living like a king, I’d whored myself in exchange for alcohol-saturated blood from the near-dead who could barely work up the energy to collect their halves of our bargains.
I let my eyes dart back to the engraved letters.
D. Harding.
I shook my head and forced back the nostalgia and fondness that tried to tell me I’d regret killing him. No, that wasn’t going to happen. Five years ago, Daniel had set fire to my life and stood back to watch it burn. The only thing I regretted was waiting this long to come to this door with a gun.
Still, I was torn between taking the money and running, or knocking down Daniel’s door and putting a few extra bullets into him for good measure. Yeah, I’d fantasized about this moment, I’d ached for the opportunity, but now . . .
Back and forth my mind went. One minute, I wanted to kill him. The next I wanted . . . I wanted him. And for that, I especially wanted to kill him.
Do it, Liam. Just do it.
I punched in the code Harding had given me, and the door slid open.
The apartment was silent and dark but for the city lights glittering in the night sky through the wraparound glass walls. Daniel must have been asleep, which would make my job a hell of a lot easier.
As the door slid shut behind me, I set my briefcase beside it and withdrew one of my guns from my shoulder holster. I held it in both hands, keeping my finger on the trigger guard, and scanned my surroundings.
Movement threw all my senses into higher alert. Four meters away, seven o’clock, no longer moving—
All at once, every light in the penthouse flared to life, overwhelming my eyes for that instant before my ocular mod adapted.
“Well.” Daniel’s voice spun me around, and even as I leveled my gun at him, he eyed me casually, leaning against a support pillar with his arms folded across his chest. “Liam. This is a surprise.”
He sounded anything but surprised.
Daniel was far too at ease for someone staring down the barrel of a gun. His stance wasn’t defensive at all. More annoyed than anything. Bored, even. His narrow hips were cocked slightly, his hands completely relaxed over his biceps. Those broad, confidently set shoulders belonged to a man in charge, not one about to beg for his life.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
He nodded toward the gun in my hand. “Looks like you’re about to shoot me.” He shouldered himself off the pillar and held his hands out to the sides. “Well? Get on with it, then.”
Cold water slithered through my veins. “You’re not surprised to see me.”
“Oh, I am, and I’m not.”
“Meaning?”
He put his hand to his lips and his ice-blue eyes widened. “Was it supposed to be a surprise? Oh, I’m sorry.” Gesturing at a doorway that must have led to his bedroom, he added, “I can come back in and pretend to be surprised this time.”
His sarcasm set my teeth on edge, but it also raised the hairs on the back of my neck. Electric panic shot down my back and coiled at the base of my spine.
“What’s going on, Daniel?”
“You tell me.” He inclined his head. “You’re the one who’s here with a job to do.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Not a lot of time, though. You might want to get on with it. Oh, and when you’re through with that?” He nodded toward the door through which I’d come. “Good luck getting out of here.”
My throat constricted, and my eyes darted toward the innocuous looking door, then back to him. Marks tried to play games with me all the time, but Daniel was way too calm. Way too in control of himself. Of the situation. This wasn’t like him; he’d never been the type who could bluff his way out of something like this without tipping his hand and revealing his underlying panic.
Maybe he’d changed over the years.
Or maybe he was the one in control.
“Daniel . . .”
“If you don’t believe me, you’re welcome to try the code Dad gave you.” He smirked. “Make sure the door actually opens before you take out the only person besides my father who can get the fucking thing open.”
“Is that so? Fine.” I told myself I was only humoring him so I could regain the advantage, and turned toward the door. Showing him my back didn’t concern me; my reflexes would counter any move he tried to make, and even if he was armed, I already had my gun in hand.
I punched in the code.
Unrecognized.
My heart dropped. I entered the code again. And again. And again.
Unrecognized. Unrecognized. Unrecognized.
Panic rippled through me, the likes of which I hadn’t felt in years. I was a caged animal. Flight wouldn’t get me anywhere, and neither would fight.
I faced Daniel and leaned against the door. “What the fuck is going on?”
Daniel laughed. “Well, it would seem you just got royally fucked, wouldn’t it?”
Indeed, and now my mark without a doubt had the upper hand. He knew more than I did. He had control. Much as I would have liked to shoot him right then and there just for spite, he was the only one who knew why my code didn’t work, which meant he was also the only one who stood a chance of getting me out. He likely had no interest in doing so, but killing him wouldn’t open the door.
Injecting every ounce of calm I possessed into my voice, I asked, “What aren’t you telling me?”
“You mean besides the part where you can go fuck yourself?”
“Besides that.”
“Well, basically, you’re screwed, I’m screwed, and I’m going to have a drink.” He turned his back to me like he wasn’t the least bit afraid, crossed the expansive suite, and went around behind the bar near one of the glass exterior walls.
I swallowed. After a moment, I holstered my gun and followed Daniel. I stood opposite him at the bar and watched him mix his drink—vodka martini with barely a drop of vermouth, just the way he’d always liked it—with hands that were far too steady for a man in his position. Especially when that man was Daniel. He handled the bottle and glass like he was about to have a drink with an old friend. Was this really the same Daniel who could break out in hives panicking over a university exam?
Evidently a lot about him had changed. He’d abandoned the smooth, perfect hairstyle of the Sky in favor of something spiked and unruly, the dark roots contrasting sharply with the bleached ends. Such a Gutter style must have pissed Daniel’s father off something awful. Considering he’d been scared shitless of his father half a decade ago, long before the man had taken out a hit on him, this was not the same Daniel I knew back then.
Drawing a breath, I willed myself to stay cool. “I don’t suppose you can humor me and tell me what the hell is going on.”
“Well.” He paused to sip his drink. As he set it down, he met my eyes. “You are here to kill me.” He raised an eyebrow. “
Right?”
I exhaled. “Yeah.”
Not even a flicker of surprise.
“Which means Dad’s killing two birds with one stone. You take me out, the sun takes you out, and two thorns in his side are gone.” He raised his glass in a mock toast and laughed bitterly. “Dad always was about efficiency.”
The sun. I looked slowly around the room. At all the built-in furniture that couldn’t be used as bunkers. No removable cushions, no afghan thrown over the back of the sofa, no tabletop that wasn’t completely transparent. Even if there were blankets in the bedroom to hide beneath, I’d starve sooner or later. My gaze drifted toward the seamless glass walls that would let the daylight come pouring in, unobstructed and inescapable. Beyond that glass, the sky was still dark. It would be for a few hours yet, and the capstones of every building glowed like faintly burning embers on the tips of torches waiting to be ignited.
Oh fuck.
“I don’t . . . I don’t get it.” I was sure he could hear my pounding heart and smell my fear, just as sure as I was that I couldn’t hear or smell his. “Why? Why does he want me dead?”
Daniel glared at me. “You know, I suppose it shouldn’t shock me that you aren’t asking why the man would want his own son dead, but—”
“I know your father,” I said flatly.
“His reputation precedes him, doesn’t it?” With another bitter laugh, he lifted his drink to his lips. “And here I’d hoped someone would sic you on him before he sent you after me.” He took another drink. “You always did say I was fatally optimistic.”
“How did you know your father hired me?”
“I have my ways. Besides, who else would? I don’t have that many enemies who’d be willing to risk their high and mighty positions by killing me. Not yet, anyway.” Daniel gave me a pointed look. “And more than anyone else, Dad knows your two biggest weaknesses: the sun, and his son.”
I laughed. “You really do overestimate yourself.”
“Do I? You’re here, aren’t you?”
“For a very substantial fee, yes.”
He shook his head and blew out a breath. “You’re completely fucking mercenary now, aren’t you? God, what the fuck happened to you, Liam? You really aren’t human anymore, are you?”
“I haven’t been human as long as you’ve known me.”
He set his jaw. “You know what I mean.”
“I do,” I snapped, “and you’re on a pretty goddamned high horse for someone who destroyed my life.”
“I didn’t take your life,” he threw back.
“No,” I growled. “No, you just took everything else.”
He swung his glass in a frustrated arc, damn near unloading the martini in my face. “I was trying to help you.”
“Help me?” I laughed. “Right. How exactly did you think it would help me to publicize the fact that I was fucking a goddamned human?”
“I was trying to stop you from getting modified again,” he said, voice wavering slightly. His eyes darted above mine, and when his lip curled in disgust, I had no doubt he’d fixed his gaze on the implant on my temple. “Obviously that didn’t work.”
“Uh, no. It didn’t. Quite the contrary, I’m afraid, but thanks.”
Daniel flinched and stared into his drink, swirling it like a glass of wine. “You know I wasn’t there to out you that day.”
“Road to hell, good intentions.” I waved a hand as flippantly as I could. “What did you really think would happen when you showed up like that? I mean, you may as well have tattooed ‘I’m fucking Liam’ on your forehead at that point, because why else would you be so determined to keep me from getting something done?”
He didn’t meet my eyes as he said, almost whispering, “I just didn’t . . .” He shook his head, but didn’t finish, instead bringing the martini to his lips. He grimaced as he swallowed it, like the vodka tasted as bitter as my words had.
Not that it mattered what he intended, or what he’d thought would happen, or whether his heart was in the right place, and I found no small amount of satisfaction in the way he was wearing his guilty conscience on his sleeve. Resisting the urge to tap my fingers, or fidget, or do anything other than look right at him while he avoided my eyes, I let the silence linger.
And while his conscience hopefully gnawed at him from the inside out, my grudge simmered just beneath the surface. What did you think would happen to me, Daniel? Really? What the fuck did you think would happen? Once my family knew I had a human lover—especially a male one who vehemently opposed all mods—of course they disowned and disinherited me. Never mind that I was still in the middle of my university studies, with no credentials or way to get any kind of job that would fill my empty bank account fast enough to keep me living in the Sky. Or that no one was willing to hire the disgraced son of Victor Lansing.
So into the Gutter I went.
Ironically, the realities of the Gutter had driven the mod-lust out of me, but unmodified assassins don’t live long. Regardless of how my views of the cybernetics corporations had evolved, I didn’t hesitate to do whatever it took to survive the profession that allowed me to survive the Gutter. That meant being ten steps ahead of anyone I might be asked to kill, and at least one step ahead of anyone who might want to kill me.
It also meant getting the most cutting-edge, sometimes experimental mods on the black market, which had nearly killed me a few times. Nothing interrupts a clean getaway like an unscheduled grand mal seizure.
But mods sharpened my senses, hastened my healing, reinforced my joints and ligaments. Between training, technology, and my natural advantages as a vampire, I was as good as unstoppable now. Only one of my contracted marks still drew breath, and I meant to change that soon.
“Tell me.” Daniel picked up the bottle and poured another splash of top shelf vodka into his mostly empty glass. “After you’re finished with me, are you going to take out your parents, too? They’re the ones who threw you into the Gutter, not me.”
“Oh, I assure you,” I said. “I haven’t forgotten what they did. But you, you knew as well as I did what would happen. You just couldn’t let go of your damned obsession long enough to consider what you were—”
Daniel slammed the bottle down on the bar. “For the last time, I was trying to help you. I’m sorry for what happened to you, but I won’t apologize for trying to help you. I didn’t have a choice.”
I forced myself to look at him. Forced myself not to lunge across the bar and choke him, never mind shoot him. “You could have let me get the damned mod.”
He threw up his hands. “They’re dangerous, Liam.”
“Dangerous, hell!” I smacked the bar with my palm. “They don’t kill people, for God’s sake.”
“Don’t they?”
Not sure what he was getting at, I said, “They’ve kept me alive.”
“Have they, now?” He smirked. “Bang-up job they’ve done getting you out of here. Oh, and pity you still have that problem with the sun.” He gave a sarcastically wistful sigh and clicked his tongue. “If only Cybernetix would release that mod they’ve been keeping in their back pocket the last couple of years.”
I stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
“The UV mod. First one to release it will have vampires eating out of their hands.” He laughed humorlessly into his glass. “What? You didn’t honestly believe they were still working on that, did you?”
“And yet no one’s been able to put one on the market?”
“It’s not a matter of being able to,” he said. “Dad’s company has one now. So do InnerArmor and SkinTech. They’re tested, proven, tested again.” He shrugged. “They just won’t be released any time soon.”
“What the hell are you talking about? The first company to release something like that would be rolling in profits.”
“In the short term, yes.” He nodded. “They’ll rake in the cash until all or most vampires have been modified, and then the demand will decrease. Right now, though, vampi
res are pouring millions upon millions into research and development, and they’ll keep pouring money in until they get that mod. The minute the product hits the market, the R&D money stops. Plus, every company in UV tech will take a massive hit. Window manufacturers, shit like that.”
I watched him silently, struggling to process what he’d said and completely unable to convince myself he was lying. Daniel had never had the time or the inclination to dream up complex, convoluted bullshit like that. Sure, he’d changed over the years, but none of this sounded like something he’d pull out of his ass. Not without stumbling over his own lies, anyway.
“All of those companies are right there with the vampires,” he said, “bleeding money into cybernetics. It would blow your goddamned mind if you knew the amount of cash flowing under the table into my dad’s wallet from companies who would suffer.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “And bribing your father and the other CEOs isn’t financially crippling for them?”
“It is, but it’s less than they’d lose if they became obsolete.” Daniel gestured with his glass again. “No one’s fucking around with this mod or any mod like it. When the wealthiest segment of the population is opening up a financial jugular vein into your bank account, you do everything you can to keep that vein open. And anyone who tries to cut off that cash flow . . .” He paused, and his eyes shifted toward me. “I’m sure you heard about BotTech’s CEO.”
My throat constricted. Daniel couldn’t possibly know about that job. Forcing my face and tone to stay neutral, I said, “Gibson? Yes, I heard about him.”
Vague amusement crinkled the corners of his eyes as a knowing grin played at his lips. “Oh, I’m sure you have.” He brought his drink to his mouth, but lowered it instead of taking a sip. ”Question is, did you know he was days away from announcing the release of the next-generation nanobots? The ones that can reverse sun damage?”
I blinked. The nanobots in my system could rebuild an entire limb if the blood loss didn’t kill me first, but sun damage was much too fast for them.
