The gangster grits his fangs. But finally he growls and nods. The Chellerian goons step into the room and grab me and Cat. The GIA agents march briskly out through the office door, hauling Auri between them. With a hard shove to help us, Cat and I follow, boots crunching on broken glass, leaving Bianchi to stare mournfully out at the remains of his pet.
We’re marched side by side, Auri and the GIA out in front. Cat refuses to meet my eyes. Blood drips down my chin from the split she reopened in my lip. I can hear Auri’s breath catching in her chest, the soft metallic hiss of the G-men breathing. I can’t hear the party music anymore.
The G-men bundle into a turbolift, press the button for the docks. One of the goons swipes a passkey and hits another button—presumably the level for Bianchi’s infamous holding cells. People who go in there never come out.
I stand facing the doors, six Chellerians at my back, two GIA behind them. I ache all over. One of the goons talks to me, lips curling in a sneer.
“I don’t speak Chellerian,” I reply, licking my bloody lip.
“He’s asking if you’re stupid,” one of the operatives replies helpfully. “How you possibly expected to get in and out of that office without getting caught.”
I smile at the goon, then glance over my shoulder at that faceless mirrormask.
“Tell him I didn’t.”
The operative draws its disruptor, unloads a stun blast into the back of the Chellerian’s head. The second agent draws, too, firing into one goon’s face as he turns, then dropping another with a second point-blank blast to his chest. There’s a brief scuffle, stun blasts flash again, and in a handful of seconds, every goon in the lift is laid out on the floor, twitching and drooling.
“Well.” Scarlett drags off her GIA mask, checking her reflection and adjusting her flaming-red hair. “That went less than smoothly.”
“Everyone’s a critic,” I say. “Is Finian okay?”
“His exosuit is damaged, but he is alive,” Zila replies from beneath the other G-man uniform. “Kal took him back to the Longbow.”
“Could’ve gone bad,” Cat mutters. “Bastards told me they were going to wait till after we had the passkey before they stormed the flat.”
“I think it’s safe to say we were right not to entirely trust the agents of the Global Intelligence Agency.” I smile.
“If they were so bloody intelligent,” Cat smiles back, “they wouldn’t have asked an Ace to sell out her Alpha. They would’ve expected me to run right back to you and tell you everything they said.”
I reach out and squeeze her hand, and she grins at me, feral, triumphant, fierce as the heat of a thousand stars.
“Good work, Legionnaire Brannock.”
“Always back your Alpha,” she says. “Always.”
The turbolift door opens, and we’re met by Dariel on the other side. He blinks in surprise, his jaw hanging open.
“Holy crap, it worked?” he asked, looking at the unconscious bodies in the lift.
“Never underestimate the element of surprise,” I say, marching past him.
We roll out into the corridor and through an airlock, heading into the docks. The place is a shambles after the gravity outage, but the cleanup crews are already at work. We move quick, Dariel shuffling alongside me, scowling and scratching his head. I’m sorry to say it, but I’m guessing Finian gets his brains from one of the other three sides of his family.
“Okay, explain it to me again,” Dariel says.
“This,” Zila notes, pulling off her helmet, “will be the third time.”
“I’m a lover not a thinker.” The Betraskan winks. “By the way, you got a number, I—”
“It was like Fin said,” I say. “There was no way to pull this off without getting caught. So once the GIA tried to flip Cat, I counted on it. The original plan was to snatch Bianchi’s code and get into his office. The GIA would hit the den at a time they arranged with Cat, arrest Fin, cut off our comms. They’d then alert Bianchi to our scam, and everyone could roll down to the office and catch us. If the GIA worded up Bianchi beforehand, we’d just get killed by his security teams and they’d get nothing. But catching us red-handed, the GIA would look like heroes.”
“And a grateful Bianchi would hand over Auri while the rest of us got shot,” Cat adds.
“But the GIA hit the den early … ,” Dariel objects. “Beat the crap out of Fin.”
“So we had to go through the ultrasaur enclosure instead.”