“If I had wanted it, I’d have it. I mean, how did that number one spot turn out for him?” It was clearly a rhetorical question. Both Gray and Rafe seemed to vanish from her world as she stared at Maya, humor and tension in her eyes. “So.”
“So,” Maya echoed. That same tension burned in her gut, and she knew Charlie was doing the same thing she was—reassessing a relationship built on fragile strands of slowly growing trust wrapped around ropes of mutually assured destruction. The punishment facing the founder of the GhostNet balanced against the reward coming to whoever turned in Maya. Knowing Persephone was Charlotte Young balanced against the knowledge that the Silver Devils hadn’t died in a warehouse a few months ago.
So many secrets and lies. So much potential destruction. Maya had just accidentally exposed the Silver Devils … but the Silver Devils had, in turn, exposed Charlotte Young.
Those fragile strands of trust stretched. The potential for violence throbbed more loudly than the music.
Dani giggled.
Maya couldn’t tear her gaze from Charlie’s. “You okay, Dani?”
“I’m sorry, but you were right. That was too many shots.” She laughed even harder. “Because this is hilarious.”
Charlie’s full lips twitched. In that moment, her brown eyes softened, and Maya knew they wouldn’t be killing each other today. Charlie slid from the booth and rose to face them, her hands braced on her hips. “I trust Maya. So I’ll trust the two of you. As long as we all agree there’s no reason to go spilling secrets that’ll only do more harm than good.”
That was meant for Maya as much as the two men—a warning that Charlie didn’t want her identity as the founder of the GhostNet betrayed. Maya answered her the same way. “I trust her, guys. She has as much to lose as any of us. Maybe even more.”
After a beat, Rafe held out a hand. “If Maya trusts you…”
“Just like that?” Charlie asked, clasping his hand. “Conall will be devastated.”
“Conall will understand,” Gray retorted. “He has faith in Maya’s judgment. Besides, what’s going on is more important than a little workplace rivalry.”
“All right.” Charlie waved a hand to the booth before resuming her seat. “So tell me.”
Rafe and Dani slid into one side. Maya ended up next to Charlie, with Gray’s body a solid, protective wall between her and the dance floor. A quirk of the building’s acoustics made the music vibrating up through her shoes feel farther away, and they sat in a relative circle of quiet while Maya outlined the bare bones of the story.
She knew before she finished that she was looking at a dead end, even before Charlie shook her head regretfully. “The underground market in Atlanta doesn’t trade in people,” she said flatly. “At least no part of it I control.”
“We assumed that much, based on what Maya told us,” Gray assured her. “But if you’ve seen or heard anything suspicious, it might give us a solid starting point.”
“I didn’t make myself clear.” Charlie leaned forward, elbows braced against the table, and the intensity in her eyes burned. “The last thing anyone with a truck full of kids would do is get within a hundred miles of me. I have a temper and a reputation.”
Gray subsided with a nod and a resigned sigh. “Fair enough.”
“However…” Charlie leaned back, her fingertips tapping the table thoughtfully. “You said this started with independent labs selling genetic data?”
“And other labs buying it,” Rafe confirmed. “Or at least some sort of mobile lab unit. They cleared out of that place too fast and too clean for it to have been the first time.”
Charlie nodded. “Then y’all need to go upstairs.”
Maya’s stomach sank. “Upstairs, like to the VIP section?”
“Not just that.” Charlie flashed a grin. “Upstairs like straight to Savitri herself. If you want to know who’s trading genetic IP, that’s who you have to ask.”
“Okay, then.” Dani pushed up from her seat with both palms on the table. “Let’s do it.”
“Wait,” Maya protested. “It’s not that easy. Unless Charlie can get us up there…”
“I could get you into the VIP section,” Charlie acknowledged. “But I can’t promise you face time. The only way to get that with Savitri is to intrigue her so much she wants to see your face. Or more than your face.”
“Mm-hmm.” Dani held out her hand. “Rafe? Care to show these nonbelievers how it’s done?”
“It would be my pleasure.” He clasped Dani’s hand and rolled to his feet. Then, after a moment’s thought, he peeled his shirt over his head with an effortless grace any stripper would have envied.
The shirt hit Gray in the chest before falling to the table in a heap. Rafe’s full arsenal of weaponized muscles flexed under the neon lights, and he winked at Dani. “Ready, cupcake?”
She rolled her eyes and pulled him toward the dance floor.
“Well.” Charlie propped her chin on her hand. “This should be interesting.”
She sounded amused—and more than a little doubtful. That would change. Rafe’s resting state was smoldering, and he threw sparks whenever Dani entered the same room. The question wasn’t whether Savitri would notice them.
It was whether Savitri would notice them before they burned the whole place down.
DANI
Dani didn’t do self-denial.
The reasons were few and vital. For starters, it wasn’t fun. Beyond that, it wasn’t even effective. Oh, people pretended it was, that their sacrifice and discipline would allow them to reap multitudes of rewards at some nebulous point in the future.
What bullshit. Fortune favored the bold.
And she was feeling very, very bold.
The music filling the cavernous space throbbed through her, repetitive and heavy with bass. It sounded a little like that procedurally generated FlowMac shit that Maya loved so much, only deeper. More primal.
It had an edge to it, one she felt keenly as Rafe spun her in a tight circle before catching her against his body, her back pressed tight to the blazing heat of his bare chest. His hand slid down her side before settling over her navel, fingers splayed wide. He rolled his hips, taking her with him in a slow, deliberate circle, and warm breath tickled her ear.
“You sure you’re up to this?”
“Says the walking hard-on.” She slipped around to face him again and slid up his thigh. “Check your four.”
Rafe’s fingers found the bare skin at the small of her back, flexing as he urged her higher. He moved with the pulse of the music, making it look natural as he turned them. “The blonde by the bar?”
“Mmm, she’s armed. Heavily. And the guy under the sign for the bathrooms?”
“Corporate mercenary.” Rafe made an amused noise as he dipped her back over his arm, giving her an upside-down view of the hulking soldier lurking beneath the sign. It lasted for only the space of a heartbeat before he pulled her back up. Her hair flew around them as their upper bodies collided, the space between their faces millimeters at most. “Knox couldn’t scrub the soldier off, either,” he rasped, his voice too intimate for such pragmatic shop talk, “but at least he ditched that damn haircut.”