His hands stayed fixed where they were, one splayed wide between her shoulder blades, the other gently gripping her hip. His gaze roamed her face, his focus so total that his brow furrowed when an uncontrollable shiver shook through her. His fingers flexed, gentling their movements, putting careful space between their bodies before she had to ask.
Gray would never take advantage of an unspoken invitation. He’d never push. He’d always give her exactly what she asked for.
Anything she asked for.
Just tell me what you need.
Maya had no fucking idea what she needed right now, short of finding an improbable Atlanta snowbank and flinging herself into it.
Her whole body was buzzing. No, her wrist was buzzing. It was buzzing the impatient staccato of someone trying to get her attention. Tearing her gaze from Gray’s felt like trying to defy gravity, but she managed to lift her wrist and squint at the gentle glow from her watch.
The flex of her wrist displayed the message. Just one word.
Boo.
Maya raised her voice to be heard over the music, fighting the urge to jump back as if she’d gotten caught doing something wrong. “She’s here. Let’s find Rafe and Dani.”
Dani was at the bar, a line of smoking, rainbow-colored shots lined up in front of her. The crowds had stepped back, clearing a space around her as the bartender counted off each drink as she downed them. One right after another, until she finished the last shot with a flourish amidst cheers—and a loud groan.
A young man in a sleek, bespoke suit stood to one side, a dismayed expression on his baby face. Dani plucked a credit stick out of his hand, then leaned in with a wicked grin. “Remember this,” she purred, “the next time you think about challenging a lady.”
Maya choked back a groan and caught Dani by the only part of her dress that looked sturdy enough not to snap in two—the waistband. “You are so gonna feel those shots later.”
“Are you kidding me? They’re 150 proof, max. And I got the arrogant rich boy’s money.” She flipped the credit stick over her knuckles. “Is it go time?”
“As soon as we find Rafe.”
Rafe was leaning against the wall not far beyond Dani, engaged in easy conversation with a tall figure clad in jeans and a T-shirt. Dark-pink hair cascaded over one shoulder, with the other side of their head shaved. Big, brown eyes stared up at Rafe with surprising familiarity, considering this was one of the names on Maya’s mental dossier of former TechCorps revolutionaries.
Nat had been one of the leading experts in food synthesis, their breakthroughs of a magnitude that could have helped eliminate hunger throughout Atlanta—except the TechCorps did not particularly want hunger eliminated. It was too effective as a lever of control. Only Birgitte’s direct intervention had saved Nat from the kind of “promotion” that ended with your body turning to ash in an incinerator while all of your colleagues muttered jealously—and obliviously—about the posh, new private lab you’d supposedly taken over.
The kind of promotion Birgitte had gotten, in the end.
Rafe grinned as they approached. “Hey, this is—”
“Maya!” Nat reached out as if to hug her but checked themself at the last second and offered a hand for a high five instead. “You look good. I didn’t know you and Rafe were tight.”
“We recently became acquainted,” Maya replied dryly. “I’m more surprised you two know each other.”
“What can I say?” Rafe held up both hands. “I’m just that loveable.”
Maya rolled her eyes and jerked her thumb. “Sorry to bounce, but we have a meeting with someone you don’t keep waiting.”
“No worries.” Nat gave Rafe a swift hug and offered Maya a wave as they started off. “Thank Nina for those books she sent me, would you? And tell her I think I finally have a prototype for y’all to test…”
The music swallowed the rest, but Maya shot back two enthusiastic thumbs up. No need to fake the excitement—a potential prototype food synthesizer from Nat would definitely perk Nina up. Something like that could push back the threat of hunger in Southside this winter, and when people weren’t struggling to feed themselves, they could turn that extra energy toward building a little more security.
That was the hope Maya carried with her as she used Rafe’s size and Gray’s menace to carve a path across the dance floor, straight to a single booth set directly beneath the VIP section, a table that rested in a relative oasis of peace.
Nobody would fuck with the woman sitting there. No one would even get close without an invitation. She lounged on one of the leather-padded benches, her no-nonsense black tank top showing off tattooed brown skin a shade darker than Maya’s. Her dark braids were studded with silver rings, and she wore dark denim jeans, knee-high motorcycle boots, and high-end tinted smart glasses that obscured half of her face.
Persephone. Queen of the criminal underworld. She owned the GhostNet’s black market—and hackers rose to prominence or tumbled to oblivion at her whim.
What few except for Maya knew was that Persephone had created the GhostNet.
Persephone turned to study them as they approached. No doubt those glasses were already running facial recognition scans on the three she hadn’t met before. By the time they sat, she’d know that both the TechCorps database and the GhostNet had been scrubbed clean of any trace of them, thanks to Conall’s industrious work.
Maya had hoped the mystery would intrigue her. But Persephone’s brow furrowed, and when they were still a few paces from the table, she pushed her glasses up to the top of her head and quirked one eyebrow in silent challenge—and not at Maya.
Gray stopped short and sighed. “Well, shit.”
“Fuck me,” Rafe groaned.
Maya froze, looking from Persephone’s furrowed brow to Rafe’s dismayed expression. Hell, even Gray looked vaguely agitated. For an endless, torturous moment, no one moved. Even the music seemed far away, as if the tension between Persephone and the men had formed an impenetrable bubble.
It popped with Persephone’s sudden wry laugh. “You know I went a month without a decent night’s sleep because of you assholes? Every tight-ass on the Board wanted their security tripled until they managed to kill y’all.”
Gray turned to Maya. “Charlie is your contact? Conall’s nemesis?”
“I don’t—” Her brain buzzed, the sudden spike of adrenaline unleashing a hurricane of remembered conversations. Conall’s voice first, in an overlapping litany of grievances against Charlie, his chief competition for the top spot in the elite tech training program. Charlie … Charlie …
Charlotte Young. Birgitte’s cool voice drifted through her memory, bringing with it the full sensory memory of being seated next to Birgitte in their penthouse. A rare January snowstorm swirled outside the windows, and the fireplace crackled. A nonentity, for our purposes. She’s settled in to do security for the Board. Disappointing, really. She had so much potential.
Maya’s head still throbbed painfully with other people’s voices when Persephone—Charlie—laughed again. “Nemesis? He wishes.”
“He made a pretty compelling case,” Rafe drawled. “Wouldn’t shut up about how you two were always fighting for the number one spot.”