Chapter Fifteen #2
Brice swallowed. His gaze dropped to the table. She saw the corner of his jaw flex.
“Luciana…” Rosalva began, her tone reasonable. Calming.
“No,” Luciana said flatly. “You got me here under false pretenses. I refuse to negotiate a damn thing. You can shove your arena somewhere painful. Screw all of you. You’re not humans. Not to me.”
She stalked to the door that was at this end of the room, waved at the panel and shoved through it as soon as it had opened enough.
Her shoulder rammed against the opening edge, and flared in pain and she hissed.
She straightened and strode down the corridor.
She could hear raised voices behind the wall as she walked.
When she reached the other end, the door at the back of the room that David had shoved her through opened.
Brice came through. He saw her and lifted a hand, as if to ward off anything she might say. “Luciana—”
“Go to hell, Brice.” She stepped around him and walked through the big open area at the front of the suite and out into the gleaming, glowing white corridor beyond.
“I said stop, Luciana!” Brice said, grabbing her arm.
She wrenched it out of his grip. “Leave me alone!”
“You can’t walk around the Bridge unescorted,” Brice shot back, his voice harsh. “Alarms will sound, and guards will come rushing in.” He looked up and around. “They’re probably on their way,” he added, his tone bleak. “If you keep moving, the corridor will fill with gas that will knock you out.”
Luciana put her hand against the wall. She was shaking badly. “I just…I have to get out of here.”
“The quickest way out is to wait for the guards to come and find you and take you to the gate.” His voice was quieter. Reasonable.
She couldn’t bear to look at him. She slid her hand down the wall, lowering herself, until she was sitting with her back against the wall. She pulled her knees up against her chest.
She watched with dull horror as he sat against the opposite wall. “No,” she said weakly. “Just go away.”
“I can’t. I’ll be arrested, too, if I try to go back.”
“Then sit down there, where I don’t have to look at you.”
“Then I won’t be able to see you.”
He stayed where he was. “You know they can just take your stalls, don’t you? Any negotiation they offer is merely a courtesy. They don’t even have to have your permission or get you to agree on a price. They can just issue a credit in your name, and take back the titles.”
She so did not care about the stalls. Except, in the back of her mind, a tired part of her did care, a great deal.
“So first you strip me of my business,” she began.
Her tears dripped without warning, and rolled down her cheeks.
“Then you will take the life of my son.” It hurt to even say the words. The pain tore through her.
He rested his arms on his knees. “I know this will be difficult for you to believe, but I’m on your side, Luciana.”
Her laugh was touched with hysteria. She clamped her hand over her mouth and waited for the reaction to pass.
“You’re right, I don’t believe you,” she said, when she could speak once more, instead of screaming.
“He did not do this, Brice. He didn’t. He couldn’t have.
I raised him. I know. He never cheated or lied when he was a child.
He couldn’t understand why doing either was worth it.
He wanted to win, to be first, to be the best because he was the best, not because he’d cheated his way to the top.
He’s never cared about money, either. Endangering other people… it’s just not his personality.”
She made herself stop, because the words that wanted to form, that she badly wanted to speak, were those of a beggar. She wanted to plead with Brice for Devar’s life. For leniency. He was doing this to Devar. And it just wasn’t fair. “This isn’t justice, Brice. This is a travesty.”
He flinched. “I’m doing everything I can to minimize it. Feel free to disbelieve that, too, but it is true.”
“You’re not doing enough,” she whispered.
“There are a lot of people who think he did it, Luciana. You have no delusions about Devar’s personality. You’ve said it yourself. He’s impatient with people who can’t keep up with his speed of thought and ideas. He belittles them.”
Luciana shook her head. “Not lately. He’s changed, Brice. Caelen has…they were talking about a child! They were going to take that Lakewood man’s course, and change their lives so the algorithms would favor them, the way Lakewood figured out!”
“He’s a con man.” Brice’s tone was flat. “He doesn’t know any more about the accouchement algorithms than you do.”
She flinched. “Devar has changed. And even if he was hard to take, before, that doesn’t make him a killer.”
“Yet it has made him enemies, over the years. And now those enemies are more than willing to believe he caused the tragedy. They’re happy to see the mutiny charges upheld.”
“Are you?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Brice said tiredly.
“You’re entitled to your opinion.” Her throat ached.
“You won’t believe me, anyway,” Brice replied.
She closed her eyes. She couldn’t bear to look at him. She ached to move closer, to stroke away the furrow between his brows. To kiss the downturned corner of his mouth.
She made herself remember in cold detail that Brice had filed the charges against Devar. She had seen the document on the Forum. She recognized his chop and seal. He had done this.
The quiet thud of boots announced the arrival of the guards. Two of them moved into the corridor and up to where they were sitting, ten paces away from the doors of the Captain’s suite.
Luciana got tiredly to her feet. “Goodbye, Brice,” she said.
He turned his head away.
Her heart breaking, she nodded at the guards and followed them back down the corridor.