“I don’t think the Governor’s any good at taking hints.”
“Apparently not.”
“It’s time to up the ante.” Silver tosses the grenade aside. “Time to finish this, once and for all.”
Arcadian is sold.
“Very well.” He nods.
“Tomorrow, then?” Silver reaches out to shake his hand.
“Tomorrow.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Pillow Talk
Silver and Alex lie in bed together, awake and in each other’s arms, wrapped in a post-coital silence. Once a posh hotel room, the bedroom is bare bones and it smells kind of funky. It’s comfortable enough, though.
Alex strokes Silver’s shoulder in comforting repetition while she rests peacefully against his bare chest.
“Does anything about this seem oddly familiar?”
Silver follows his gaze around the room and sighs. “Doing the dirty in the Out District? In some sleazy, rat infested hole? Unfortunately, yeah. And I thought all those years of sneaking around behind Omega’s back were over. How naïve was I?”
He wriggles down in the bed to be face to face with her, and she looks up at him, wide eyed, her lips slightly parted.
Enticing.
Without hesitation, she accepts a tender kiss on the lips, hoping for more.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks, gently brushing hair from her face and moving his body against hers.
“You’re about twenty years too late to ask that question.” She smiles. “Besides, I thought we just did it already?”
He ignores that, sliding a hand down to her lower back while he plants kisses on her neck. “Not that. I meant tomorrow, with Phaeden.”
He holds his naked body against hers, pulls her in toward him, and kisses her again. Responding to his arousal, she bites gently on his lower lip.
“I can’t believe you’re coming on to me while you’re talking about Phaeden Rist.”
He repositions himself above her, pushing her legs apart and resting himself gently against her. “I just want to make sure you really know what you’re doing. If anything goes wrong …”
More kisses.
“Nothing could,” she assures him. “Arcadian should be able to take out the Governor without even firing a single shot.”
“If any Hunters are harmed—”
Silver hushes his lips with her finger. “They won’t be. You know me better than that.” She gasps as he suddenly pushes himself inside her. “Besides, what other choice do we have?”
He moves deep inside her, slow and gentle.
“We could cut our losses and stay here.” He kisses her. “At least we don’t have to answer to him on this side of the wall.”
She tries to suppress a moan, and fails. “But what kind of life is this? You want to live like feral cats in a dark alley, raiding trash cans for food?”
“I want whatever kind of life allows me to spend the rest of it with you.” He keeps moving, and kisses her again. “Jax and Oz have already made their choice.”
“What? They want to stay? Since when?”
“Since they discovered there’s no monetary system out here, and that weed is free.” Alex chuckles, still keeping rhythm.
She holds him against her, forcing a gasp from his lips as she digs her nails into his skin.
“Tomorrow, we’re going to help Arcadian eliminate Phaeden Rist. I’ll collect from Maydevine, after I give him a corpse to pin the Sentinel District murders on. For all he’ll know, this had nothing to do with any of us, we just showed up to the party late.
“Once I’m repatriated, we can live in a place without spider webs and Chimera and seedy little hotel rooms.” A shiver ripples through her body, from her head to her toes. “And the virus,” she adds.
They kiss again.
Silver breaks the kiss and throws her head back against the pillow, arching her back beneath Alex, crying out. She slides a hand across the back of his neck and pulls him down toward her, bringing him into another kiss. With her other hand on his lower back, she flips them both over so that she can take control.
He winces when she accidentally presses against his stitches.
“Sorry.” She slows down. “I forgot you’re a cripple.”
She bends to kiss him and he slides his hands around her hips, pulling her firmly down on top of him, burying himself up to the hilt inside her.
“Don’t fuck this up,” he whispers.
She stops moving, wondering if that was meant to come out sounding like a threat. “Didn’t we already have this conversation? And I told you to trust me.”
“He’ll be surrounded by Hunters,” Alex frets. “If we’re seen by anyone who knows us—”
“I get it,” Silver cuts him off. “We’d be screwed.”
Without warning, he flips them back over and puts himself back on top. In doing so, her thigh presses against his stitches. Though he tries hard not to wince, he can’t keep the sting of pain from etching itself across his face.
“All I want is for you to be safe, El.”
Silver gasps as he pushes her legs wide apart and forces himself deeper inside her.
“I belong by your side,” he whispers.
That’s true, and Silver’s always known it.
Kissing him, she wraps her legs around him and holds him tight, tipping him over the edge.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The Tug of War
It’s dusk when Phaeden Rist’s heavily armed motorcade pulls up at the rendezvous point in the Out District. A league of Arcadian’s men—a mixture of Fusion and human—awaits them, armed with concealed weapons.
A show of muscle.
Just in case.
Arcadian has chosen a warehouse on the outskirts of Old World Bronx. It’s an area of the Out District beyond the Third Reclamation Territory, and completely unknown to the Hunter Division.
Of the ten armored vehicles in the motorcade, four pull up at the front of the building and four park curbside at the rear. The two vehicles that were safely nestled inside the convoy, both bearing Omega plates, keep at a distance.
From her concealed vantage point on the top floor of the warehouse, Silver watches them park a few hundred feet away at the entrance to the warehouse parking lot. Third Avenue Bridge—which they used to get here from the Third Reclamation Territory—is within eyeshot. On it, two more Hunter Division trucks lie in wait.
Snipers, Silver guesses.
In case something goes wrong.
She thinks nothing of the unusual convoy formation. Vehicles at the front and rear of the building ensure that there can be no surprises—no Fusion ambushes. Keeping the Governor’s vehicle at a distance gives his bodyguards a chance to sweep the perimeter for concealed artifice, before they allow him to step outside his vehicle.
Doing precisely that, the Hunters who parked at the back of the warehouse exit their vehicles and split into two groups. One group walks the length of the building east, the other west. They converge at the front of the building, signaling to one another that the coast appears clear.
Watching them form protective circles around the two Omega cars, Silver assumes that one or two Hunters have been held back, to keep an eye on the building’s rear entrances and exits.
They’re surrounded.
Escape would be futile, should anyone try to back out now.
Behind her, Arcadian ushers last minute orders to his men. In addition to the gang waiting outside, he has men placed throughout the warehouse. Unbeknownst to the Governor’s convoy, Arcadian is now in possession of a full military arsenal, and the element of surprise should definitely work to their advantage.
“The Governor is your only target, don’t forget,” Silver reminds him. “This isn’t supposed to be a bloodbath.”
“I’ll do my best.” Arcadian smiles.
Knowing full well he’s not invested in the lives of the Hunters, Silver’s got nothing more than his word that he won’t try to go
after them.
A calculated risk.
Or a foolish one.
Just then, the back door of one of the Omega vehicles opens up, and Silver anticipates the emergence of Phaeden Rist …
Wrong.
Her heart sinks.
It’s the Hunter General.
Darius Jenkins.
“Uh-oh,” Silver whispers under her breath.
“I don’t like that word,” Arcadian whispers back.
“We can’t do this.”
“That’s too bad. We broke this bitch’s hymen the minute you showed up here—it’s already done.”
“The Hunter General isn’t supposed to be here. He never leaves the city.”
“I guess he didn’t want to miss this historic occasion.”
“You don’t understand,” Silver insists. “He’s Red’s father!”
Arcadian shrugs. “Oops.”
Silver grabs him by the arm and spins him around to face her, the force behind the gesture rather taking him by surprise.
“If I can count on you for nothing else, see to it that the Hunter General remains unharmed.”
“Did I invite you to touch me?” Arcadian shakes himself free. “We expected there’d be some collateral damage, and I’ll promise nothing.”
Ignoring her protest, he pushes past her and leaves. Moments later, she watches him appear in the street below.
Darius Jenkins, flanked by Hunters, approaches Arcadian and orders one of the Hunters to frisk him. Arcadian allows it, knowing that a hundred different weapons are already pinned on the General from within the warehouse.
The frisking Hunter reports that Arcadian is unarmed and Jenkins smirks, greatly underestimating Arcadian’s preparedness.
In many ways, he’s the very opposite of Arcadian. He’s shorter and wider, and his mousy hair is balding on top. He’s in his late fifties, and way past his physical prime.
Unlike his predecessor, Jenkins fights wars from behind his desk, not face to face. Since his promotion, he’s not been within a thousand yards of the front line. He hasn’t even left the Sentinel District.
Until today.
Arcadian looks beyond Jenkins toward the second Omega vehicle, guarded on all sides by Hunters. “Where’s Rist?”
“I have the truce agreement right here.” Jenkins pulls a thin wad of papers out of his inside pocket. “The Governor’s already endorsed them.”
Arcadian shakes his head. “I’ll deal only with Phaeden Rist.”
“You’ll deal with me, if you want her back alive.”
“Where is she?” Arcadian’s jaw tightens. “Where’s my sister?”
Silver frowns. Did she hear that right? Sister? Arcadian’s voice is hard to make out clearly from such a distance.
At the General’s command, another Hunter hauls a slender female figure out of the back of the General’s car.
Alice.
Handcuffed and drugged, she looks weak—weaker than her usual Fusion self at least. The Hunter restraining her looks familiar to Silver, but she has to squint to make out any of his features. Between the fading sunlight, the distance between them, and the dirty, cracked panes of glass, it’s hard to say if she really recognizes him or not.
“You can’t do this to me!” Alice squirms.
“We bought you,” the Hunter growls back at her. “We can do whatever we want with you.”
“Sasha!” Arcadian calls out.
This time, his voice echoes all around the street and Silver knows she heard that correctly. She heard it, but she doesn’t understand it.
Alice looks over at Arcadian and shakes her head, tears in her eyes. “My name is Alice.”
Devoid of emotion, Arcadian turns back to Jenkins. “She’s broken.”
Jenkins shrugs. “We promised you she was alive, that’s all. We made no guarantees about her mental state.”
“I need to see the Governor,” Arcadian insists.
“What for? We’ve delivered the merchandise. Now you fulfill your end of the bargain.”
“Damnit.” Silver clenches her jaw.
This isn’t going as smoothly as any of them had planned, and she can see Arcadian growing impatient.
Behind her, Alex appears in the hallway. “Silver? Is something wrong?”
Silver refuses to be drawn into that. “Where’s Red?”
“Trying to convince Jax and Oz not to get involved.”
Silver sighs, half expecting that this may happen. “I respect their decision to stay, but taking part in a potentially deadly assault against a small Hunter Division posse isn’t the way to prove their point.”
“They just want to take their anger out on somebody.”
“I’ll get them a punching bag.”
“If it doesn’t have a pulse, Jax won’t be interested.”
Alex tries to get near Silver at the window, but she prevents him from getting close enough to look out. She meets him halfway, moving him backwards and away from the view of the catastrophe she fears may be about to ensue beneath them.
Seeking a distraction, she lifts his shirt to look at his seeping wound, and his muscles tense at her gentle touch.
“You need a fresh bandage,” she diagnoses. “Why don’t you go sit down and I’ll bother Trieste for one?”
He cocks an eyebrow. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“Oh, please. You spend so much time watching out for me, I’m just trying to return the favor. Don’t make that a crime.” She coaxes him back inside the room he appeared from, and pushes him down into a chair. “Stay,” she orders.
Closing the door on him, she clicks the latch into a locked position and turns back to the window. In the parking lot, Arcadian tries again to draw the Governor out.
“I’ll sign, but a deal’s not a deal without a gentlemen’s handshake. You must allow me that at least.”
“Very well.” Jenkins nods, uncapping a pen. “But he’ll not exit the vehicle, and you will not be permitted to enter.”
Jenkins forces one of his Hunters to lean forward and he places the papers on the man’s back, holding the pen out to Arcadian.
Arcadian doesn’t take it.
“First, the girl.” He nods toward the warehouse. “Hand her off to my men.”
Jenkins points at the Hunter holding Alice, indicating that he should escort her into the building.
“The room at the end of the hall,” Arcadian calls out to him.
He takes the pen from Jenkins, but waits until he gets delivery confirmation from one of his own men before he signs.
As ink touches paper, Jenkins smiles. “You’ve done the right thing, you know. For your people.”
“You think?”
“You’ve prevented a war.”
Arcadian hands him back the pen. “We’ll see. I’m still owed a handshake.”
Jenkins pockets the pen and takes the papers up in his hand. “Right this way.”
He leads Arcadian over to the second Omega vehicle, and the back window winds down.
Phaeden Rist.
If Silver could see him clearly from her limited viewpoint, Phaeden would appear of an ambiguous age, somewhere between thirties and forties. He prides himself in wearing expensive, vintage Old World suits that have been tailored to fit him perfectly. His hairline is receding and his nose doesn’t fit properly on his face. Overall, he’s a distinctly average looking man with an oversized ego.
At the impression of him, Silver breathes a sigh of relief … but the feeling doesn’t last long.
From the ground floor of the warehouse, she can hear a scuffle.
A muffled scream.
Alice.
Silver hesitates.
Another scream—this one of pain, not fright—and Silver knows she must do something.
Feeling like she has no other choice, she jams her hunting knife into the lock on Alex’s door. Twisting and buggering the Old World metal until she breaks it, she seals the door tight shut.
Too late to do anyth
ing about it, Alex leaps up out of the chair and begins pounding on the other side of the door. “Hey! Silver!” He jiggles the handle, but it won’t budge. “What the fuck?!”
Trying to ignore the noise, Silver disappears down the hallway and hopes that, in his current state, he doesn’t have the strength to force his way through.
Downstairs, she tries to keep a low profile. She doesn’t recognize any of the faces outside, but doesn’t want to take the chance that they might be familiar with her nonetheless.
Following Alice’s desperate cries, Silver locates the room where she’s being held and pushes open the door.
She’s just in time.
There’s Alice, lying prone against a tabletop, and an unidentified Hunter is trying to forcibly remove her jeans. The would-be rapist looks up at Silver and hesitates, just long enough for Alice to get a good kick at his head, knocking him off balance.
And then …
Thwack.
Some other Hunter’s poor shot hits the doorframe beside Silver’s head, causing her to turn away from the assault in progress. As she steps back into the hallway, another bullet rips through her arm.
A flash of pain.
Her brachial nerve almost severed, the bullet tears through flesh and muscle, and the shock of it sends her to the floor. Rolling onto her back, she looks up to see a familiar face standing over her.
Lockie McKean.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Everything Goes ‘Boom-boom’
Silver clutches at her arm.
Lockie McKean, the Hunter who tipped off Darius Jenkins about her relationship with Alex, looms above her.
Silver recognizes him instantly. “You again?”
“You’re supposed to be dead,” McKean growls at her.
“Surprise.” Silver waves at him, getting back on her feet.
Behind her, Alice’s persistent attacker slams the door shut.
Silver’s sense of urgency heightens, though she can do little about it. Staring down the barrel of McKean’s gun, her options are limited.
“This is the best fucking day of my life.” He grins at her.
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