by R. J. Blain
“Kenneth was ready and willing to get rid of you.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” I grumbled.
“Why are you so willing to go along with this idea about working with the police, then? He could ruin you just by telling them you work with criminals. He could set you up without risking himself.” Rob sighed and propped his feet up on the coffee table. “I don’t like it.”
“That’s true, but the risk is worth the potential gain, and the only way I’m going to get a positive identification on those victims is through the police. I might be able to ruin everyone involved in one fell swoop. It’s worth it.”
“You better be right,” Rob growled through clenched teeth.
One way or another, I would be. Kenneth wasn’t the only one willing to stab people in the back, and I wasn’t going to allow myself to remain a victim of the system. It was one thing for Kenneth to eliminate a fringe rat with some education, but if they accepted me into the police, I’d enjoy certain protections. Maybe my drug lord boss would still target me, but at least he’d think twice about it first.
It wasn’t much, but I would make it enough for the moment.
Before I met Rob, I hadn’t owned a purse. My new collection of four amused me, and I picked the largest one. The only fashionable thing about it was the material; leather appealed to everyone, and it was black and shiny, which the dae assured me wouldn’t offend the delicate sensibilities of most elite.
I liked it because Colby fit inside and the straps didn’t kill my shoulder when I carried my roommate around. To make my bag look as normal as possible, I had purchased Colby a velvet bag for it to hide in, and my roommate squeezed inside without complaint.
“Does this work?” I demanded, turning in a slow circle so Rob could judge the clothes I had selected for the meeting.
I had no idea how much the jeans and black blouse had cost, but I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know. If I had let Rob help me pick my outfit, I’d end up wearing the only dress I owned, which I’d gotten during the ill-fated trip to Walmart in search of a knife for him.
His reaction to the blue gown studded with a fortune of jewels had been positive enough, I hadn’t stripped off the stones and gotten rid of it after the evening out I had acquired it for. The dress had disappeared for a few days, and when Rob had brought it back, someone had altered it, adding silvery straps to the back. The reasons for the alterations were beyond my comprehension, but it didn’t matter much to me.
He appreciated the dress, and that was good enough for me.
“It’ll work. Do you have a necklace?”
I did, but it matched the dress, and I hesitated to wear it. Like my dress, it had fallen prey to the dae, who turned the cheap bauble into a work of art worth more than I was. “It goes with the dress,” I mumbled.
“Perfect. Grab it.”
I sighed, slipped into the bedroom, and grabbed the necklace. Like the dress, it was blue, white, and silver. The central stone nestled at the base of my throat while a fortune’s worth of small clear stones hugged my neck. “Isn’t this excessive?”
“It’s a statement. Smith needs to realize you are no longer some rat barely getting by in the fringe. You’re dressing the part. First, you work for me. Maybe that won’t elevate your rank officially, but given a year, it will. Your education shows you deserve it.”
“How the hell am I supposed to survive so many jobs?” I complained, while checking over my gun and slipping into my shoulder holster. With my leather coat, no one would be able to tell I was armed unless I purposefully showed them the weapon.
“We’ll figure something out. The dean and I have an amicable enough relationship, and he knows I am interested in you. A little bribe money here and there and a few arrangements that benefit him, and I’ll have more of a foothold than Smith. Dean Lewis has exotic tastes, and I have exotic connections.”
“If you say so.” Although Rob had let me do some work for him, I had only done invoicing and product management—easy but important tasks.
It still amazed me how much Rob did for someone who hadn’t been to Earth—or Baltimore—very much. His network exceeded Kenneth’s by a notable margin, who kept his operations limited to our home city.
Rob’s empire stretched across the entire world, and I had no idea how he managed it. I had seen invoices for shipments scheduled to go to China, Russia, and even small countries in Africa. If the dean wanted something exotic, Rob could likely provide it through legal channels.
Some of the paperwork I had dealt with included tariff documentation to legalize the transference of goods, goods I had only heard about in the hushed whispers of envious elite.
“One day you’ll explain just how you established such a massive operation, Rob,” I muttered.
“Magic,” Rob replied, winking at me.
I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not.
8
“You’re something else, Alexa.”
Instead of going to Kenneth’s townhouse near the Inner Harbor, Rob headed to the downtown core not far from the Ivory Tower. Traffic soured as it often did, and I spotted several dae sniffling and blowing their noses with the same reddish blotches on their skin that had inflicted Kelsie for weeks before clearing up.
I still worried about her, although she’d gotten over the worst of the illness. Despite repeated exposures, I hadn’t gotten it, nor had Rob; I couldn’t tell if Colby could even contract the sickness, and I didn’t want to find out.
“Do you think it’s a cold?” I asked, while waiting for the roads to clear enough we could reach our destination.
“No. It’s not a cold like you and the other unawakened can get. We have done some research into illnesses that humans get. The symptoms aren’t right. We don’t know if dae can get human colds, so that will be an issue we’ll address later. It’s probably similar to a cold, and it’s tearing through new dae. Portal dae have robust immune systems. For the most part, that is. We can still get sick, but it’s always triggered by something, usually injury.”
Right. Rob avoided Earth most of the time—or he had before the Dawn of Dae. “So you probably won’t get sick?”
“Probably not, but it’s not impossible. I’ve caught various things while portal hopping. I’m in better health now, so that’s something.”
Yes, he was, and I intended to keep him that way. “Kelsie’s the only dae I’ve really seen sick before now.”
“It’ll become more common, though you’ll find most dae won’t die from illness, not unless they’ve lost their primary source.”
I frowned. “So if I upped and died, does that mean you might get sick and die, too?”
“I don’t know.”
Well, fuck. “That’s not good.”
“I doubt I’d get sick and die. I’ve been around a long time, and it takes a lot to kill someone like me. But yes, it is a concern. That said, I am protective because I want you in my life, not because I want to secure dinner.”
I allowed myself a smirk at that. “You mean dessert.”
“I’m going to enjoy making you aware of the benefits of being secured for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert.”
Well, I knew what I was doing after the meeting I didn’t want to go to in the first place. “Do you think I can catch whatever they’ve got? I didn’t catch what Kelsie has, and I was in her flop a lot. And so were you.”
“I don’t think so, but it’s not an impossibility. And until we find out how it spreads, who knows? But I will say this much. Whatever it is, it’s a slow spreader, so it’s probably sexually transmitted.”
As women like Kelsie often survived in the fringe through sex and crimes, I could see her having had a fling with some human or dae. “I’ll wash my hands and refrain from any particularly naughty interactions with anyone other than you.”
“You’re something else, Alexa.”
Rob parked at a skyscraper not far from the Ivory Tower, a place with just as serious of a reputation, except p
ossibly worse. The Ivory Tower catered to any elite who could afford the place. I didn’t know what the building’s official name was, but only the best of the best stayed there—and the security matched.
“Think we could have gotten away with what we did at the Ivory Tower here?” I asked while Rob killed the engine and did a rather pleasing amount of stretching and posturing.
Tricky bastard.
“We wouldn’t have a chance in hell, and I’ll show you why soon enough. You’re with me, I’ve already registered you as my permanent company, so you’ll be allowed in and let into the condo at your whim. If I’m not with you, someone will call or text me that you’re around, although you may indulge in visiting whenever you want.”
Interesting. “Well, show me around then, Mr. Elite.”
Rob laughed, got out of his beloved car, and came around the vehicle to open my door because he enjoyed the little things. Since it made him happy, I indulged, although I liked he cared enough to want to do things like hold open a car door and offer his arm. Most men of his status simply didn’t care about the trophies they hung off their arms.
Caring for the trophies took too much work.
Rob led me to an elevator, which opened to a lobby. Instead of marble floors, the place had gone with hardwood polished to a high shine, elegant in its simplicity. The security guards at the desk nearby nodded to Rob, who guided me to an elevator.
“I’m not up for dealing with the security fuss tonight, but you’ll be set up for this system, too.” Rob pressed his thumb to a silver plate at the elevator. A panel slid open to reveal a keypad, and he punched in a ten-digit code. “The codes are matched to our fingerprints, and there are cameras that are doing other security work, including build recognition, retina scanning, and face recognition. If any one of the automated checks fail, the security guards at the desk verify me through other means. In this case, since the guards know me fairly well, if there was a problem with the security, they’d accompany me to my condo.”
The elevator door chimed and popped open.
“That’s impressive.”
“It really is. All deliveries are accompanied, and security does not permit anyone to stay at a condo or entertainment suite without verifying the tenant is present.” Rob ushered me inside and pressed a button for one of the upper floors, though not at the very top. “I’m taking you to my entertainment suite.”
Had I not seen his invoices and some of the paperwork, I would have been blindsided by the reality of how much money Rob had to burn on rooms meant only to entertain others. And understanding some of his tendencies, infrequently at most.
Rob led me down a long hall to a set of double doors at the end, and he pressed his palm to another silver plate, which revealed a keyboard and a traditional lock. After he plugged in another ten-digit code, he used one of his keys to open the door. With a faint smile, he gestured for me to go inside.
A crystal chandelier dangling overhead lit the large central room, and prisms of color gleamed on the polished dark marble floor, illuminating where tall tables and stools offered places to sit with a bar stretched along the wall to wall window overlooking the city. A large piano in the corner drew my attention and held it. Unlike the rest of the room, which favored dark colors, the piano was white with golden inlays.
Instead of sitting at one of the many stools, Rob closed the door behind us before he crossed the room and straddled the piano bench, grinning at me. “Like it?”
“This is yours?” I turned in a slow circle, wondering why anyone would keep such a space.
“It is. It makes a good place for social functions and private meetings. The walls are soundproofed. Unlike the Ivory Tower, no one gets in and out without direct owner approval. This is my place, and since you were with me, you weren’t questioned. The security here is far better than at most locations. As I was saying before, your ruse wouldn’t have worked here. Everywhere else? Yes. But not here.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” I crossed the room to join him, conscious of the way my boots clicked on the marble. “Somehow, you’ve managed to surprise me yet again.”
“Good. After Mr. Smith’s last stunt, I thought you’d appreciate the meeting being on my turf.”
With my intimate understanding of how Kenneth’s red drug worked, I never wanted to be under its influence again. The misery caused by its crash was too much, especially when its pleasures far exceeded any other substance I had ever tried. A shiver ran through me, and Rob answered my discomfort by slipping his hand around my waist and pulling me onto his lap.
“You don’t need him or his drugs,” he reminded me.
It helped a little, hearing the confidence in his tone.
“Mommy,” my roommate contributed from the confines of my purse.
I laughed, set my purse on the floor, and released the macaroni and cheese casserole from its leather and velvet carrier. “Sorry, Colby. I should have let you out earlier.”
“You can hide behind the bar or in the piano,” Rob suggested.
Colby chose the bar, vanishing near the rack of liquor bottles decorating the far wall. If Kenneth tried something, I hoped Rob and Colby joining forces would be enough to deal with my boss and his dae. My Beretta offered an option, too, but I had no idea if a bullet would be as effective on them as it had been on Lily.
I flexed my hand, fighting the urge to unholster the gun and check it over.
“Relax, Alexa. He’s not stupid enough to do anything here.” Rob pointed to the ceiling in one corner of the room where flashing red light was mounted beneath a small black globe. “Since I’ve made Baltimore my permanent residence, I’ve had security installed wherever I conduct business meetings. Someone I trust is monitoring the room right now. Audio is being recorded as well.”
“So I guess this isn’t a suitable location for some lively evening entertainment,” I murmured, checking the room for more of the surveillance devices. I found six of them, and I wondered how many more were tucked away in discreet locations.
“Unless you enjoy an audience, no.” Rob snickered, took hold of my chin, and turned my head so he could brush his lips against mine. “For some things, I don’t mind an audience, and it serves my purposes for my security people to know who you are so you can be properly protected.”
After a lifetime of living under government monitoring, I should have been offended by the surveillance. Instead, there was something comforting about knowing it was Rob keeping an eye on my back using people he had selected.
“It’s not fair. You can watch my back, but I can’t watch yours,” I complained.
Rob pulled his sleeve up to reveal the knife I had given him. “But you are. You have.”
“It’s just a knife.” A knife couldn’t do anything if someone caught him by surprise.
Rob pressed his thumb to my mouth and clucked his tongue at me. “It’s more than that to me. It’s a way for me to protect myself, which is far more precious of a thing, don’t you think? It’s no different from the gun you’re carrying. I arranged for you to have it so you might protect yourself—and you have. If you want to watch my back, then I suppose we’ll just have to get ourselves into troublesome situations where I need you as much as you need me. Fair?”
I liked the idea enough I grinned at him. “Fair.”
How much had I been limiting myself with my primary goal of rising through the castes? With Rob, I cared less about which caste I fit in and more about what we did together. My goals remained, but they came second to enjoying the current moment, and I liked the new world he showed me day by day.
If we had our way, the next new world he revealed wouldn’t have Kenneth Smith in it.
Rob’s phone rang five minutes before the meeting time, and I was tempted to keep kissing him instead of letting him answer it. Scowling at the interruption, Rob pulled his phone out of his pocket, put it to his ear, and answered, “Rob.”
I heard a murmur on the other end of the line, although I couldn’t unde
rstand what was being said. Unable to resist the temptation, I wiggled on the dae’s lap, earning an arched brow and a grin.
“Send him and his guest up. Should our meeting take longer than an hour, I will call the desk.” Rob hung up, sighed, and stowed his phone in his pocket before turning his attention back to me. “You’re something else, Miss Daegberht. If you’re trying to seduce me, you’re close to succeeding.”
“Consider it motivation to get this over with as soon as possible.”
“Consider your request heard and acknowledged. You may be interested to hear there is a bedroom, and I can even turn the cameras off for limited periods of time.” He blew in my ear, and I squealed and hopped to my feet. The way he grinned at me sent shivers running through me. “It may be a bit of a challenge to make sure we’re finished before the cameras turn back on, though.”
“That’s what blankets are for,” I pointed out.
“I hope Smith and his dae have sensitive noses and are strong enough empaths to know what they’re missing out on.”
Sometimes, I really liked Rob’s way of thinking. “Do you mind if I keep my gun out in the open?”
“You should have brought your katana. It’s too lovely of a weapon to leave in your apartment all the time.”
“If I knew how to use it, I’d carry it,” I grumbled. “I like this gun. Can you arrange so I don’t have to give it back?”
