“Raquel might have added a little something to your cruiser the last time we met up.”
Shit. That called for an immediate sweep for tracking bugs. “Met up? You mean when you followed me and stole my target and my reward.”
Solan scoffed. “Lighten up, Shade. You get all the good ones.”
Shade clenched his fists, wanting to punch something. These two had sunk to a new level. “That’s because I work. Not because I swoop in at the end with illegal weapons and screw colleagues out of what’s theirs.”
The call went to video, and because they were on his contact list, it happened without him having to accept. He glared into Raquel’s resort-tanned face. Solan hovered behind her, the black man a little far back to clearly see in the grainy video feed.
“I have books about how to play nicely with others,” Raquel told him. “They’re for a five-year-old, so probably right at your level.”
Shade snorted. It was hard to believe that Solan and Raquel had a child. They were the ones who needed to learn about fairness. And fucking safety. The kid probably played with knives and drank poison.
Solan’s teeth flashed at his wife’s jibe. They were in their cruiser—so anywhere in the galaxy. Great.
Their daughter was doubtless at home in Sector 6 with a caretaker, probably setting the house on fire.
“You want to lecture me about playing nice?” Shade asked, incredulous. “You threw a fucking firebomb at my head!”
Raquel’s don’t-give-a-shit shrug came with a little smile. “Your hair will grow back.”
It hadn’t been long to begin with, but it hadn’t been this short.
“What do you want?” Shade asked, his molars grinding in the back. “I’m busy.”
“Too busy to go on the biggest hunt of our lives?” Solan asked.
Shade knew he needed to come up with a good excuse right now for not having moved yet, or they’d swoop down on Albion 5 and Tess. “I’m working on something already. It’s about my docks.”
“Your docks?” Solan asked.
“Fuck you,” Shade said.
Raquel glanced over her shoulder at her husband, tutting. “You know how sensitive he is about those towers.”
Solan barely had eyebrows, but they still went up. “All the more reason to go on this hunt. He could buy them all back tomorrow.”
Shade darted a look at Tess. They had no idea.
And Solan clearly wasn’t buying his story. He needed to add a layer.
“Since you’ve obviously put a tracking bug on my ship, you know I’m at the Star Palace Casino. I’ve got a meeting with Scarabin White.”
“Why? You don’t have the money,” Raquel said.
“I’ve got enough to make a decent offer,” Shade lied. “If he accepts, I’ll buy what I can on Albion 5, forget about the rock next door, and get out of the hunt. Never liked it anyway,” he muttered.
Solan leaned closer to the camera. “Or you go on one last hunt and buy it all. We can work the case together. We each take a third. With this prize, you can have everything you want and more.”
Not true. A third would only be enough if they doubled the bounty by turning over whatever it was that Tess had stolen.
And then there was the bonus for a live capture…
Shade shook his head. It didn’t matter. There’d be no splitting of anything. If he chose to, he’d take it all.
“If you’re calling me with that offer,” he said, “it means you have no idea where this woman is located.”
Raquel’s face pinched. She had two expressions: bland and bitch. He didn’t like either. “You’re the best tracker,” she grudgingly admitted.
“You need me,” Shade said. “I don’t need you. This conversation is over.”
They muted their voices but didn’t disconnect. Shade thought about hanging up on them, but they’d just call back.
“Half,” Raquel said when they unmuted the conversation again. “You get half, and we bring her in together.”
“That’s a pretty hypothetical half, since no one has a clue about the target,” Shade said. His eyes wanted to find Tess again. He forced them not to.
“Really?” Solan asked dubiously. “Nothing? No research? You haven’t been looking at all?”
“No. I told you, I’m working on a deal with White.”
Someone striding out of the elevator doors caught Shade’s eye. Speak of the devil. The scumbag himself had just walked onto their platform and was making a beeline for Tess.
Shade couldn’t even be surprised that White had shown up immediately, although he’d hoped to avoid him for once, despite resort security keeping track of any ship that docked here. Scarabin White took every opportunity to grind Shade’s face into what he’d lost. Tonight would be no different.
“I gotta go,” Shade said. “He’s here.” No lies in any of that. He even angled the camera to catch the property mogul in his flashy white suit. That fucker had never done him a single favor—until now.
“I would say good luck, but I don’t really care,” Raquel said. “And when we find her, you won’t get a cut.”
“If this deal goes south, I’ll find her, and you can stay the hell away from what’s mine this time,” Shade growled before cutting them off. He disconnected the entire com unit for good measure, watching as White took Tess’s hand and planted his foul mouth on the back of it.
Tess didn’t shrink away, but she did look like she wanted to snatch her hand back. She obviously knew a snake when she saw one. Too bad he hadn’t been as smart in the days following his parents’ death, when he’d discovered problems he’d never expected, and been forced to deal with things that went well beyond the devastation of losing his family. But instead of giving himself time to sort it all out and find solutions, he’d piled all his dumb into one night and was still paying for it.
Shade locked up his cruiser and strode over to them, trying to keep his temper under control. A fist in Scarabin White’s fleshy face might feel really good right now, but it wouldn’t serve his long-term goals.
White looked his way, his slimy smile in place. As a name, White fit him. White suit, white skin, bald, white head. Even his light-blue eyes seemed colorless. Inside, though, he was every shade of conniving ass.
“My security cameras picked up your cruiser. I thought I’d take the opportunity to say hello.” White turned to Tess again. “I see you’ve brought a lovely guest. I’d be happy to provide more appropriate attire if you’d like to enjoy the casino.”
She flushed bright pink. The asshole had just unwittingly embarrassed her. Shade stole her hand from White’s and kept it in his.
“We only came for the beach, which doesn’t require dressing up.” He looked at Tess. “Ready?”
She nodded, moving closer to his side and clearly away from Scarabin White, almost as though she were using him as a buffer.
Damn if that didn’t make Shade feel strange. And powerful. It made his heart thump.
He squeezed her hand, and she stopped just behind him. He was pretty sure Tess could take care of herself in a lot of ways, but she obviously saw no benefit in forced bravado. If he was right about Jax having been her partner on Hourglass Mile, Shade thought she must have learned this behavior there. Fight when you had to. When you could, hide behind the bigger animal.
“Before you go, I wanted to give you this.” White held out a silver money clip engraved with a long-extinct songbird’s head. “The hotel staff found it under a piece of furniture. I believe it was your father’s.”
Shade felt a muscle in his jaw twitch. Not only his father’s. That went back generations. Centuries. It went back to Earth.
He took it, knowing everything White had just implied.
Your father had a gambling problem.
Your family was rich and powerful—before two generations ruined it all.
He also knew that White hadn’t found the silver clip under any piece of furniture. Ten years or more forgotten in a corner would have tarnished it, and the clip was perfectly polished. The bastard had kept it—along with everything else.