Endeavor’s open door without touching Tess. They weren’t that far from it, but Solan was a good shot. With the climb up…
Why the hell didn’t she ever put down the stairs?
Tess came out every morning, gave him coffee, and talked about stuff most people didn’t dare open their mouths about, making him crave their next conversation until he could barely sleep, but she didn’t use the stairs. Unless Shiori came out, everyone pretended the damn ship didn’t even have them.
His palms started to sweat.
“Time to move out of the way, Ganavan,” Solan said with a flick of his gun. It was a Redline, Legal Weapon 10. Shade had two, and he knew the recoil was so strong that it was hard to get multiple shots off fast.
“No.” Shade shook his head. For Solan and Raquel, this was just another job, part of a long string of them. Not for him. “Not this one. Move on,” he said.
But even as he said it, he knew this wasn’t just another job for any of them. Thanks to Bridgebane’s ridiculous bounty, Tess was the monetary mothership, and there was no way these two were backing down.
“You’re outnumbered,” Solan informed him, as if Shade couldn’t fucking count. “Either we brawl again like last time—and we all know how that turned out for you—or we go in on this one together, like we talked about.”
“You talked. I shut you down.” But he obviously hadn’t thrown them off the scent like he’d hoped. Or he had, but only for a few days.
Raquel narrowed her eyes, and Shade could read her like a book. She was thinking about which one of her hidden gadgets she could throw at him without getting herself into too much trouble. There wasn’t always an easy distinction between incapacitating and lethal. So far, though, Raquel had figured it out.
Shade cracked his knuckles and loosened up. He hated hitting a woman, but he could make an exception for Raquel. She seemed more like a machine to him than anything else.
“I got here first,” he reminded them, because that was supposed to mean something in this profession. It was his final effort to avoid a fight.
“Don’t be a bastard,” Raquel spat. “You’ll still be the top hunter, and two hundred million is more than enough to share around.”
Behind him, Tess gasped. The sound sliced right through him. He could imagine what was going on in her head right now, and it made his insides curl up in disgust.
“You’re…Dark Watch?” Tess sounded as though she’d never heard something so horrendous in her life.
“No!” He would never be that.
Solan snorted. “Then what do you call it when you’re on Bridgebane’s payroll, just like the rest of us?”
At that, Tess’s breathing turned so hard and erratic that Shade could feel it punching into the back of his neck.
Don’t lose it on me now, baby. He still had to figure this out.
“I can’t…” Tess didn’t finish, and an audible shudder leaked from her mouth.
His stomach sank. This was not going to end well.
Over his shoulder, talking fast, Shade said, “Listen to me, Tess—”
“No!” He caught a flash of her eyes—two bright-blue bombs ready to blow.
“Tess, listen—”
“You listen to me, Shade Ganavan.” She uttered his name like a curse. “I will hate you until the day I die.” She rammed her hands hard into his shoulder blades, shoving him forward a step.
She ran just as Solan sent off his first shot. Shade lunged after her, trying to stay in between them enough to mess with Solan’s aim and shield Tess.
Fiona suddenly curled her upper body around the doorway and started spraying Grayhawk bullets all over the place. Solan and Raquel ran and dove behind the supply crate that Shade had left on the dock, and Tess sprang toward her ship. As if by magic, Jax appeared. She raised her arms, and he hauled her up, throwing her away from the opening and out of the hunters’ line of sight.
From the cover of the crate, Solan started firing back at Fiona. His angle was nearly impossible for aiming inside the ship, but dents started showing up on the outer hull near the door. With only her arm and one eye visible, Fiona kept hammering off shots that pinged off the big metal box. Out in the open, Shade figured it was only a matter of seconds before he caught a ricochet and got hit.
Something seared his skin. Shrapnel? He reached up.
No, Raquel and her fucking darts. Unlike Solan, she never