rather who, the hunters were after.
Tess grabbed her sweater. “They’re not giving up. I’ll let you take that while I wait by the railing.” She nodded toward the edge of the platform before shutting her door again.
Tess was clearly a woman who valued privacy and didn’t begrudge him his. Could she be any more perfect?
WANTED flashed through his mind. Yeah, he supposed she could.
Then again, she probably wouldn’t have been half as interesting if she’d been your typical law-abiding citizen.
They were docked one-hundred-and-seventy-two levels up and over a cliff, but she still went straight to the edge and leaned against the barrier, looking out. An ocean breeze tossed her loose hair around, and Shade thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life as Tess framed by a dusky, dark-blue sky and the first stars of the night.
Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzz.
Scowling, he crushed his finger down on the com like he wanted to pulverize it. “What?” he barked.
“Why the hell aren’t you out on this hunt, man?” Solan asked in response.
“How the fuck do you know where I am?” Shade asked.
“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.