TWELVE
They fell into a rhythm. Oz got up around eleven, winced with the morning light, took a two-minute shower in the freezing water in his apartment (which was honestly great for settling his blood after a long night of watching Benedict run around Saveur in the skimpiest host outfit ever). Then he dressed and trundled over to the office block. He spent the afternoon sifting through papers, usually in silence, sipping coffee with Benedict, doing his damnedest to ignore the felid. Around four o’clock, they gave up for the day, wandered to the nearest tavern or pub, ate their dinner, and headed up to Saveur.
Oz had no idea why Benedict insisted on coming to Saveur. Honestly, the felid had no reason to—he wasn’t good help, he made all the hosts nervous, and he could have stayed home or gone back to the office and kept searching for clues. Stars knew they needed to make a breakthrough, and soon.
But every night, Benedict was at the club in his stupid bow tie and cuffs, asking patrons about their food and drink, practically playing the role of a host himself.
And every night, Oz was stuck behind the bar, watching as his stupid owner flitted around the dining room, lime green tail wavering behind him like some kind of come-hither beacon.
It was enough to drive a man mad, or so Oz figured anyway. He wouldn’t really know. He’d watched enough movies and insipid commercials while he worked at The Pub. Sassa never held back when she told him about the latest romance novel she was reading. And he saw half-a-dozen advertisements for porn or escort services on his walk to work. He knew how lust worked, even though he’d never really experienced it himself.
He knew some people were aesthetically pleasing, and Benedict certainly fell into that category—at least in Oz’s opinion and probably half the patrons’ too. But there was something more about Benedict, something … addictive. Intoxicating.
Oz didn’t even know what to call it. He simply knew he couldn’t get his owner off his mind, and not because the guy was giving him anxiety. It was almost like … excitement.
Oz hadn’t been excited in a long time. He didn’t really have much to be excited about—his life was the same day in, day out, and it was probably always going to be the same, until La Chef had decided he was too old and decrepit to work or someone killed him in a back alley or something. There was no real escaping it, although he could have. He could have run away, like Andrew or the cook.
He wasn’t sure why he’d stayed. Talking to Mig had made him think more about it. Mig, she had a sense of obligation, a reason to stay behind.
Oz didn’t think he felt responsible for anyone at Saveur, although maybe he did. Sassa would be insulted that he thought he needed to care for her, but there were Shakes and Nzx, both of whom he hated to leave.
But that didn’t seem like a good enough reason to stay.
It didn’t really matter, he supposed; he’d stayed, and if he hadn’t, he would never have met his infuriating boss.
He set down another glass, wincing when it thudded against the bar. Sassa whistled, lifting her brows. “Angry much?” she asked as she leaned on the bar top, then turned back to look at Benedict chatting with a table—one that was supposed to be hers.
“Why are you standing here?” Oz asked hotly. “Aren’t those your patrons?”
She looked back at him, then shrugged. “Boss-man seems content to do the hard work, doesn’t he? And he hasn’t figured out the tipping system yet, so I do none of the work and get a hundred percent of the tip.”
Oz gritted his teeth, then turned away. Sassa had always been like that—very willing to do whatever worked to her advantage—but he hated the thought of someone taking advantage of Benedict and his kindness, his naivete.
Really, he shouldn’t have been. Benedict’s aunt had treated them all terribly, and Benedict still technically owned them. His “kindness” apparently didn’t extend to granting them their freedom.
Was someone who owned slaves kind if they were nice to those slaves? Probably not, and Benedict probably didn’t deserve his defense, but he still wanted to smack Sassa.
“You should get over there and make sure they still decide to leave a tip,” he suggested, “before the boss cocks everything up.”
Sassa gave him a cool look. “He’s a natural,” she said. “Really concerned about other people. Bit of a goody two-shoes, if you ask me.”
“He’s a monk,” Oz bit out.
Which was really the crux of his problem. Benedict was a holy man, a brother of an order. Oz didn’t know which one, but he was pretty sure monks were celibate. They didn’t run around banging anyone, especially not Vetruvian slaves.
So even if Benedict was the first person Oz had ever wanted to sleep with, he was strictly off-limits. Which was maddening. Oz would have had better luck falling for a Netraxian princess or something. At least then he had a chance.
Sassa pulled a face. “Yeah, he’s really annoying when he gets into the whole ‘god-will-forgive-thee’ spiel,” she said. She sighed as she collected her tray. “You’re right, I better get back over there before he proselytizes his way out of a tip.”
With that, she departed, sashaying across the floor to join Benedict at the table. Oz sighed with relief, then stiffened as he watched her slide an arm around Benedict’s waist. He couldn’t hear what was being said from this distance—he could have amped up his hearing, but part of him didn’t want to know. But the whole table was laughing and leering, and Oz’s heart thumped in his throat, his stomach twisting unpleasantly.
How pathetic was he? His owner said he was useful, asked him to help, and now he wanted to kiss the man’s ass—literally? Stars above, he needed to get it together.
Was there a way he could tell Benedict he couldn’t help anymore? He couldn’t think of one. He was a slave, after all. If he said he was too busy at Saveur, Benedict could simply tell him that he didn’t need to work there any longer—helping Benedict was his new job.
Oz didn’t know why the thought made him shudder.
Or maybe it was the breeze this afternoon, blowing briskly as he headed to the office. It made him walk a little faster, ducking into the stairwell of the office building. It rarely was anything other than temperate on Kateria—Andrew, the human host who had run off with Tor the Rurarkian, had a theory that the weather on the planet was controlled. Oz didn’t know about that, but he guessed the few cool days they had would have been to help merchants who sold things like overpriced jackets to stranded tourists.
Maybe he could tell Benedict he was sick. That would get him out of helping, right? But what would make him sick enough that he couldn’t help his boss sift through paper, but somehow still be well enough to tend bar …
He was practicing his cough when he came to a dead stop at the top of the stairs. The office door was slightly ajar, a couple of papers trailing into the hallway. His gut twisted unpleasantly.
Cautiously, he made his way to the door, moving as silently as a Vetruvian could. He pressed a hand to the door, then pushed it open gently. It swung wide with a creak—he guessed La Chef and her landlord were too cheap to bother oiling the hinges—revealing that the place had been ransacked. It looked like a tornado had gone through, and Oz knew that there had never been a tornado in this part of Kateria, not in all the years he’d lived here. They were something that happened elsewhere on the planet—some outfit catering to tourists who called themselves “storm chasers” or something. Otherwise, he’d only ever seen them in movies.
Footsteps on the stairs made him turn, and he found Benedict standing there, a coffee in either hand. The felid blinked. “What happened?” he asked, clueless as ever.
Oz bit back a sarcastic reply—it seemed pretty obvious to him what had happened. Vito was impatient, and he’d sent his goons up here to see if they couldn’t find whatever it was the mobster was after.
He turned back to the disaster of the office. “I think we just got another clue,” he said.
“Huh?” He could practically feel Benedict’s confusion rolling off him in waves.
“Whatever La Chef owes Vito, it’s a thing. A physical object.”
Benedict brushed by him into the office, wearing a frown. “Really? How do you figure that?”
Oz gathered up the escapee papers and stepped into the office, closing the door behind him. “I’m doubtful they’re looking for paperwork. They would have taken ledgers and file folders and stuff, so they could look through them after.”
Instead, they’d simply knocked all the papers over, scattering them everywhere and making the giant mess even giant-er. “So,” he concluded, picking up a few more loose sheets, then trying to stack them neatly on the desk, “it’s more likely that they’re looking for a thing?—”
“You mean like something she’d keep in a vault?”
“I mean, I guess it might be in a vault or a safe or something?—”
“Like that one?”
He jerked his head up and followed the direction of Benedict’s claw-tipped finger, finding an entire shelf cleared of books, revealing a heavy-duty safe door. The door showed evidence of being tampered with—claw marks and teeth marks, as well as a few dents that suggested someone had fired a gun at it.
“Yeah,” he said, “exactly like that.”
There was a beat of silence, before Benedict said, “You, uh, wouldn’t happen to know the combination, would you?”