Page 32 of Vex
"You'd try and sell me to her?" Bile rose in her throat.
Brant looked almost sorrowful. "But I don't want to do that. Fifty thousand, and this all goes away."
Until the next ask. That's how blackmail worked. Always.
Luisa had to salvage this. "My skills are rusty. Daxkar wouldn't get her money's worth."
Brant stood up and gave her a pitying look. "Oh, Louisa. She will." He walked away.
Panic hit her hard, stealing her breath.
Fifty thousand credits might as well have been fifty million. Her legitimate work paid well, but not enough to cover extortion demands. And Vex … she couldn't even begin to imagine that conversation.
How could she explain why she needed the credits without revealing everything?
Running was an option, but a terrible one. The Mountain sat on an isolated peak, accessible only by air transport. Even if she could get past casino security, where would she go? Back to the undercity where Tallyer's old contacts would find her in no time? Off-planet without any connections? She was trapped.
The worst part was knowing this was just the beginning. Fifty thousand now, but blackmailers never stopped with one payment. He'd bleed her dry. And then he'd sell her to Maera anyway, just because he could.
Her hands started shaking as reality sank in. Every choice she'd made to build a legitimate life could be undone with a few well-placed words.
Maera already suspected something was off; Tallyer's information would confirm those suspicions and give the woman exactly what she needed to destroy both Luisa and the mission. The thought of being collared, of being used as a tool by someone like Maera until her skills were exhausted and her mind broken, made her sick.
She pressed her fingers against her temples, trying to think through the panic. There had to be an angle. Tallyer was confident, cocky even, but overconfidence had always been his weakness. He thought he held all the cards, but maybe he'd overlooked something.
But what? She had no leverage, no resources he didn't know about. And time was running out. The careful balance she'd been maintaining between past and present was crumbling. The professional competence she'd worked so hard to build felt like a costume slipping away.
She was so caught up in her own head that she didn't hear Vex approach. He slid into the seat that Brant had abandoned.
"Care to tell me what that was about?"
16
Luisa had no reason to be meeting with some low life.
The rage that flooded through Vex was irrational and completely beyond his control. Heat built beneath his skin, smoke threatening to curl from his fingertips as he watched her sit across from that piece of scum like they were old friends.
Every instinct screamed at him to intervene, to tear the man apart for daring to even look at her. The possessive thought should have shocked him, but all he could focus on was the way Luisa's shoulders had tensed, the careful way she held herself like she was afraid.
She was supposed to be his partner. She was supposed to trust him enough to come to him if there was trouble. Instead, she'd snuck away like a thief in the night to meet with someone clearly dangerous.
The betrayal cut deeper than it had any right to, considering the length of their partnership.
He'd followed her path through the casino, his dragon senses locked onto her like a tracking beacon. The Frost Lounge had been easy enough to find, and positioning himself where he could hear some of their conversation even easier.
"I was?—"
"We're going back to our room." He managed to keep his voice level, controlled, but barely.
The effort of not touching her was monumental. If he put his hands on her right now, he might drag her out of the lounge like some kind of caveman, consequences be damned. She wasn't his to claim, wasn't his to protect, no matter what his dragon insisted.
They were partners. Temporary partners. Nothing more.
But the careful distance he maintained as they walked was torture. She moved with that careful grace he'd come to recognize, but there was something fragile about her posture now, something that made the protective instincts rage even harder against his attempts at rational thought.
The elevator ride was silent except for the soft mechanical hum. Vex stared at the floor indicator, watching the numbers climb, and fought the urge to demand answers right there. But everywhere was under fucking surveillance. This conversation needed to happen in the only space they could be certain was private.
Their attendant was nowhere to be seen when they entered the suite, but Vex didn't trust the absence. He guided Luisa straight through to the bedroom, his hand hovering just behind her back without quite touching.
