That was the first time I ever saw Rylah. Now, she was a woman who knew how to dress herself. Her hourglass figure meant she wasn’t a full-on Ringer and her legs... they were long enough to take a vacation on.
“She’s... uh...” I blinked my eyes hard to stop myself from staring. “Adopted. It’s a charity thing. I bring her along, show her the ropes.”
“Groom little collectors for your owner?” Rylah stopped and ran her fingers through the ends of Aria’s hair. My daughter’s cheeks lost their reddish hue. My fists tightened. It wasn’t the first time Aria got crossed up in my line of work, but the people who involved her usually wound up dead.
“It’s okay, dear,” Rylah said to Aria. “I don’t have plans on killing him. I just want to talk.”
“Says the woman with a gun,” I said.
“Just a precaution.” Rylah turned around and flashed me a smile with her ruby-painted lips. I swear, I think my heart skipped a beat. I know men always say that when they meet a pretty woman, but there really was nobody like her. Not even modeling on any ad for makeup projected throughout the solar system. She looked like one of Lucas Mannekin’s creations—perfect from head to toe.
“Aria, why don’t you go downstairs to the bar, order me a drink,” I said, unable to look away from Rylah.
“Dad, I—”Aria began before I interrupted her.
“I’m not asking,” I said. “Go, and try not to let anybody else up.”
She bit her lip, then pushed off the bed and stormed by me. “Another one, Dad?” she growled, no doubt referring to the handful of times around Sol I’d had a few too many drinks, kicked Aria out of our room, and paid for a lady’s time.
“It’s not like that. I don’t even know—”
Aria slammed the door behind her. I’m not surprised she thought what she did. Nobody’s perfect, and my job didn’t afford chances for anything more than fleeting companionship. And considering that I still hadn’t been able to stop staring at Rylah, it added up.
“She’s cute,” Rylah said, smirking.
“Sometimes,” I grumbled.
“If it makes you feel any better, she didn’t let me in when I knocked. Made me hack the controls.”
I blew out through clenched teeth. “Great. I hate owing apologies.”
“Doesn’t every Earther?” she asked.
“Yeah, and whose side are you on?”
“My own.”
“We have that in common,” I said.
“I couldn’t tell by the logo stamped on your shirt.”
“They’ve always treated me like family,” I said, referring to Pervenio Corp.
“I’d be careful saying that around here. Who knows who’s listening.” She skirted her way around the bed and took a seat on the sofa in front of it. Her dress hiked up a bit as she crossed her legs, and I knew she wasn’t just being careless. She now had two guns, but they were the least effective weapons on her.
“What in Trass’ name is this made of?” she said, stroking the arm of the sofa with a single finger. “Everything is so plush up here.”
“Are you going to tell me why a lady such as yourself broke in here or are you going to make me start guessing?”
“The Stalactite Killer,” she said.
“What about him?” I asked.
“Why assume it’s a man?”
“I’ve seen enough in my life to know we’re the baser half.”
She chuckled. “Pervenio must think he’s serious to fly you all the way from Ceres, then. I figured a man with your experience could handle it, but now he’s targeting Ringers.”
Considering my gun lay beside her and hers was across her lap, aiming in my direction but with her finger off the trigger, I made a move toward the minibar. The small bottle of whiskey just inside was exactly what the doctor ordered. A taste of an Earther delicacy.
“I guess that explains whose side you’re on,” I said.
“Like I said, no sides. But the woman you found today worked for me; my eyes and ears on the east side of the Uppers. You may operate alone, but I protect my people.”
“And what is it you do?”
“I learn things about people and places.”
“Information broker. I should have known.” I raised the bottle to my lips and drained it in a single gulp. It burned in the best way going down and left my mouth and nose feeling like I’d just inhaled a bonfire out in the wilderness on Earth.
“The best on Titan,” she said. “You want to catch the killer; so do I. I know every corner of this frozen husk of a moon, from Darien to Ziona. I’ll help you do it, and you don’t need to give me a cut of your pay.”
“Yeah?” I asked as I turned to face her. “And what do you get at of it, because I sure as hell never met an intel peddler who gives a damn about justice.”
“I get a friend in high places, and I don’t tell a soul about his daughter.” She shot me her heart-arresting smile one more time, then tossed me my pistol. “The name’s Rylah.”
It took us a week to solve the case. Turned out the killer was a woman after all. An illegitimate like Aria, fueled by jealousy thanks to an abusive foster mom. Rylah didn’t let me hear the end of it, but I didn’t mind. We’d worked closely, leaning on her sources to catch the killer before he struck again, close enough that afterward, I decided to take my first extended vacation in a long time just to be around her.
Maybe, at first, I was a mark for corporate intel for her, but after a few months and a trip on a luxury cruiser sailing Saturn’s upper atmosphere, me, Aria and Rylah were inseparable. Then my hand terminal rang, and I was put on the next ship back to Mars to track a smuggler named Elios Sevari. I told Rylah I’d be back, maybe even take some time off the job and be her enforcer. It was the first time in decades I’d considered hanging up my collector pistol.
But New Beijing had other plans for me, as it often did. Aria got mixed up with Elios, same as she did with Kale. I got angry and drove her away for good, and fell back hard into my occupation. Rylah became another lonely, fond memory in a lifetime full of shitty ones.
Every man’s got that one woman who makes his head go screwy. I had her. Even though the last time I saw her, she tried to have me killed and Zhaff shot her to protect me, a part of me couldn’t help but feel she’d come down presently just to make things right.
“As you can see, work is progressing rapidly,” Basaam said, leading her toward the half-finished containment sphere. She froze as her gaze passed across my cell and our eyes met. I grinned a crooked grin and waved with only the tips of my fingers. Before I could say anything, she turned, asked Basaam a question, and they hurried toward his control console.
Maybe Rylah wasn’t about to make some grand apologetic gesture like what might happen in my wildest dreams, but Rylah’s presence left for an intriguing escape plan B if getting to Desmond didn’t work. Somewhere buried in her cold, half-Ringer heart, remained a soft spot for me. I knew it.
Things between us didn’t end on the best terms, but there were good times. And I’d never been one for knowing what’s going on in a girl’s head–Aria was proof enough of that–but what Rylah and I had was real. Sure as the sun is hot, it was. You don’t ignore and run away from old flames you don’t give a shit about.
I stood and approached the bars of my cell to try and get a better look at her, when Rin’s horrifying visage appeared out of nowhere. “Hello, Collector,” she said. She wore a wry smile, but the dim lights over the cells only illuminated the half of her face that looked like it’d battled an impulse engine. She and Rylah barely even looked like they were the same species.
“Are you ready to help us again?” she asked. The lock to my cell clicked open, and before I could think of an answer a shock baton struck me in my chest and a bag was pulled over my head.
Nine
Kale
I’d spent months pushing my mind and body to the edge just to feel something, watching and listening to the end of Cora’s life so I might sense the
beating of my heart. Scraping with death of my own.
Now, as I stood outside of Aria’s room in the Hayes Memorial Hospital, my chest was tight and my throat dry. Scans had already come back clean that she and our baby were healthy, but it wasn’t that. We hadn’t yet talked to her about what happened on Mars. We hadn’t talked at all.
“Lord Trass, she’s ready for you,” one of the new doctors she’d trained for the medical center said as he left her room. Considering Pervenio had a monopoly on all official hospitals in the Ring, Hayes was filled with former nurses, and black-market healers, like Aria used to be. It was the best we had.
I clutched the man’s arm. “Now you know about her,” I said. “Nobody else can.”
The man swallowed audibly. “Yes, Lord Trass.”
My glare bored through him as I tried to get a read on him. With Orson Fring busy stirring up ill feelings amongst the older crowd of Titanborn skilled workers, it was hard to know who could be trusted but for my fighters. I finally released the man’s arm so he could continue on his way. I turned and nodded toward one of my guards down the hall, the same young man who’d helped me back on the Cora. He returned the gesture, then followed the doctor at a distance.
He didn’t have instructions to hurt him, just to monitor his behavior and use of Solnet. At least until the baby was born or Aria’s pregnancy was impossible to hide. Another guard remained outside of Aria’s room.
I turned and rested my hand over the door controls. I could feel my heartbeat in my fingertips. I’m not sure exactly what it meant, if I truly loved Aria or was scared she’d betrayed us. I think, mostly, I wanted her to be telling the truth so I didn’t have to say goodbye. Those fleeting moments with her when our minds could turn off—they were the only times in recent memory where I didn’t feel the pain of loss or the stifling pressure of leading. Afterward, those worries always came rushing back in full force, but without those impossibly short breaks, I’m not sure what would have become of me.
I let the air flow in and out of my nose, over and over, until finally, I mustered the strength to enter. Aria lay on a medical bed, a copious number of scanners monitoring her and the baby. The blankets were down around her ankles so I could see how all that time in sleep pods now left the bump of her belly plainly visible in her medical gown. It would take a great deal of effort to hide her condition now regardless.
She rolled her head to face me, and her nose crinkled as she smiled in the same way Cora used to. My legs grew momentarily woozy, but I did my best not to let it show.
“Kale…” she said, her voice raspy. Hosting enough pharma and anti-rads for two had taken its toll on her. Her face had lost so much color she almost looked like one of us. She tried to sit up and winced.
“Don’t get up,” I said, moving to her bedside. Out of instinct, I reached out to stroke her forehead but froze before I touched. She took my hand and brought it against her cheek for me, then nestled into it. Her skin was abnormally warm.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Still exhausted,” she said. “But we’ll be fine.” Again, she smiled as she reached down and caressed her belly with both hands, as if that was all it would take to make up for what she’d done. To her credit, it very nearly was. I found myself staring at her stomach. Up until then, our child was a blip on a screen Aria showed me; now it was all too real.
“How was Gareth’s funeral?” she asked.
“Interrupted by Earthers claiming lies about us,” I replied.
“I wish you’d have let me come...”
“You know I couldn’t.” I finally forced my features to darken. Lying on her back with tears welling in the corner of her eyes and holding her pregnant stomach—Aria almost looked harmless. I suppose that was why I’d been so quick to trust her from the start. She was similar to Cora in that way. They weren’t Sol-class beauties like Rylah or an Earther ad model, more like workers you might find down at a Lowers factory, hair messy and face stained from a hard day of work... real.
Yet buried beneath Aria’s pretty, unassuming façade, I’d learned there was more mystery than anything.
“You brought Pervenio and Venta to our doorsteps,” I said categorically. “I don’t know what happened when I allowed you down to Old Dome, but that’s what you came back with. Now they’ve merged into something even Earth has never seen before, and Gareth is dead.”
She propped herself up, grimacing. “I hope you know I didn’t mean for any of that to happen. I didn’t even know my dad was alive.” She took my hand again and pulled until I sat at the edge of the bed. “You have to believe me.”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
She slid closer, wrapped her arm around my waist, and stroked my chin. I didn’t recoil. “Believe in me.” She turned my face back toward her stomach. “Believe in us.”
I removed her hand and stood. “How many more secrets do you have, Aria? I know who your father is now thanks to Desmond and Rylah. He’s the Pervenio collector who was in New London when you stole medicine for us. The collector who followed you all the way here and shot Rylah. Who seized the Piccolo and Desmond and Cora...” I swallowed hard. I never enjoyed bringing her up around Aria. It was bad enough how much they reminded me of each other. “He’s the same collector who found our hideout under the Q-zone. For not getting along, he seems to be on your heels quite often.”
“Malcolm follows the credits,” Aria said. “He always has. And nothing earns credits like conflict. It just so happens that I’ve been helping a group of suspected terrorists.”
She put on a wry grin. My glower didn’t soften.
“This isn’t a game,” I said.
“It’s how they view you, Kale. You know that. But he retired after he nearly died trying to stop me and got himself shot on Titan. It pained him enough to tell me. The only reason he came after me on Mars was that he thought he was saving me from this life.”
“From me.”
Her lips twisted, and she hung her head. “He’ll be the first to admit he’s never been an outstanding judge of character. You don’t have to worry about him, Kale. So long as he knows I’m safe, he’s harmless.”
“I’m not worried about him.”
Aria didn’t back down. It wasn’t in her nature. She ignored my orders and sat upright at my side. She stared right into my eyes until I had no choice but to stare back at hers. They were as bright a green as Luxarn’s garden outside my residence used to be, with specks of brown like soil.
“All I’ve ever tried to do is help people like me,” Aria whispered. “From the moment Rylah contacted me at Venta and told me how rough things were here. I grew up hiding, being dragged from one smuggling compartment to another by my father because I wasn’t born how Earth wanted me to be. I was ignored by Malcolm when it suited him, spat on by most everyone else. This is my home now whether you trust me or not, but I hope more than anything that you can again.”
“You promised to tell me everything,” I said.
“I told you what I thought mattered. How many of your people do you think are the bastard children of Pervenio men? We don’t choose who our family is like Earthers; you know that better than anybody.”
I sighed. Aria was right, as she so often was. Cora’s father was the Earther captain of the Piccolo, a ship leased out through Pervenio Corp, and she died not knowing it. Aria was just lucky enough to not have been abandoned at birth; to have a father who thought he was protecting her. Though I knew Aria well enough by now to know she didn’t need protection.
“Is he okay?” Aria asked.
“We have him locked up safe and sound until we can figure things out,” I said. “He’s being fed at least, which is all any collector deserves.”
“I can talk with him. See—”
I leveled a glare her way, and she nodded in understanding. Any offworlder with a brain knew collectors never delivered good news.
“So, I guess your father didn’t really give this back to you before
he died?” I asked, lifting the Ark Ship pendant hanging from her neck. “What is it then?”
“That was true... or, well, he thought he was going to die and so did I.” Her gaze turned to the floor. “He let me go, Kale. That day in the tunnels with your mom when he found us. He betrayed Pervenio Corp, told me to leave Titan behind, and killed his own partner to let me go. But I’m still here, with you.”
“Rin thinks we should get rid of you after our son is born,” I said. “She thinks you purposely led us into an ambush on Mars and that regardless of your father, you might still be loyal to Madame Venta.”
“Rin hates anyone who isn’t as miserable as her.”
“Maybe, but she seems to be right more often than not.”
Aria pulled herself closer to me and ran her fingers through my hair. “And what do you think?”
“I think…” My throat went dry, and I swallowed. “I think anybody who’d go this far just to tear us apart would be insane. You’ve had more than enough chances to kill me.”
I drew her even closer until only a few centimeters separated us. “I don’t want to kill you, Kale. I left my father’s life to help people like us and got caught up with Madame Venta, who only wanted to for selfish reasons. The things she convinced me to do… I don’t want anything to do with Earth. I just want to help this place.”
“Then you have to tell me everything. Because if my people think you became our ambassador for any reason other than that, then I can’t let you stay here.”
“Kale…”
“For your own sake, Aria. You wouldn’t be safe.”
“You’d kick me off Titan just to protect me?” She lay her hand against my heart, feeling as it raced. “I knew there was a good man in there. Nobody else sees you, but I—”
I couldn’t hold back any longer and pressed my lips against hers. I’d met Earthers who hated my kind, dealt with numerous smugglers and shady fences. I’d looked into all of their faces and known they were rotten. Aria didn’t seem like any of them. Maybe she was playing the longest, cruelest con in history—bearing my child and my trust—but as our arms wrapped around each other and we fell back on the bed, I decided I didn’t want to know.
Children of Titan Series: Books 1-4: (A Space Opera Thriller Box Set) Page 92
