Chapter 3 The Deal
The Deal
“No,” Cha answered, tempted to kick the door shut in Otto’s face.
Naturally, he swanned into the room anyway, far too shiny in his sharp suit for the surroundings. Her perfectly nice, private changing room suddenly looked all kinds of shabby in comparison and Cha didn’t care for it. “What part of ‘no’ don’t you get?” she asked irritably.
Garaile beamed, actually blushing. “Oh, thanks, Mr. Otto, I—”
“Can you give me a bit of privacy with the Bandit here?” Otto winked broadly. “We got old times to talk about, doncha know.”
Cha set her teeth against Otto’s faux-folksy slang. Just one of the people, not a wannabe royal, fae-ass-kisser at all.
“Sure thing, Mr. Otto.” Garaile stood, quaffed his remaining ale, and tossed the empty in the glass recycle. Putting on his hat again, he tipped it to Cha. “Later, Bandit.”
“Thanks for the gossip,” she replied.
Otto watched him go, then shut and locked the door behind him. “Little young for you, isn’t he?”
“Did you or did you not see us fully dressed having a beer?” Cha snapped back. “We were just talking.”
“Is that what you kids are calling it these days?” He grinned, went to her cooler and snagged a bottle of her ale for himself without offering her one. Just as well. Whatever he wanted, she was best staying sober for it. “You looked good in the race today, Bandit.”
“I always look good.”
He raised his bottle in a salute. “That you do.” Leering, he raked her with his gaze. “Offer’s open if you ever want to try a real man instead of your pretty boys.”
“Why,” she drawled, “do you know a real man I might be interested in?”
“Cute.” He chuckled, unbothered. “The fans love you.”
“Always have.”
“Today’s purse was… five-hundred silvers?”
He knew it was. “Something like that,” she allowed with a shrug, as if she didn’t much care.
He pointed the bottle at her. “What if I told you I could offer you a gig for one-hundred times that, for just twenty-four hours of your time.”
Cha had to fight to keep her ears from visibly pricking up at that princely sum.
Good thing they weren’t pointed like a fae’s.
Folding her arms, leaning back against the massage table, she crossed her ankles and shook her head.
“You can offer me a thousand times that and the answer is still no. I’ve gone legit.
” Though, a thousand times that would be, um, a lot.
Math wasn’t Cha’s strong suit, but a lot of zeroes was always good when it came to money.
“No, you haven’t. The day the Bandit goes legit is the day I give all my coin away and become a monk.”
If only. “You’re splitting hairs. Dy has definitely gone straight and I’m dead in the water without her. Same difference.”
“Dy only went legit because that wife of hers keeps having babies.”
Cha raised a brow. “So?”
“So, twenty-five thousand silvers will feed a lot of babies, for a very long time.”
“It’s not only a matter of feeding the babies.
” Cha had argued herself blue in the face with Dy over exactly this.
When Dy was still speaking to her, that was.
“Phinny wants a steady family life, her wife home every night, and a partnership she can count on. Not Dy running contraband while half the human principalities want to toss her in jail or hand her over to the fae for even worse punishment.”
“Ironic,” Otto snorted, draining the bottle, “since Phinny was Goldilocks’s biggest fangirl, back in the day.”
“Yeah, well, chasing the rainbow and sitting happily on the crock of gold are two different things.”
“Phinny’s not getting to play with her crock much with Dy out on the commercial lines six days a week on cargo runs.”
Cha blinked at him, then gave in and grabbed another ale for herself. Since she clearly wasn’t getting rid of Otto anytime soon, she graciously tossed him another. Company was company. “I’m losing track of the metaphors, here. What’s your point?”
“We both know that you can talk Dy into it. The pair of you go way back, long before Phinny shook her bodacious ta-ta’s at our blushing sorceress.”
That much was true—at least the going way back part.
Cha and Dy had met in school, two black sheep who quickly discovered a shared love of shenanigans.
Like all humans capable of wielding or manipulating magic, they both had a bit of fae blood in their families.
With Dy’s sorcerous ability to alter or even create entirely new ley lines combined with Cha’s extraordinary ley-riding skills, they’d begun a tidy business of smuggling minor contraband to the other students.
They eventually escalated to acquiring more expensive magical supplies their instructors needed or coveted.
What started as mischief turned into a lucrative career, one that provided excitement, made them decent coin, and garnered them enough enthusiastic groupies to get them both laid consistently.
That was all either of them had wanted for a good run of years.
Until Dy fell in love and got married. Something Cha still couldn’t quite wrap her head around.
“I can’t talk Dy into anything anymore,” Cha said.
“And that’s if Phinny even lets me onto the property.
” Which she wouldn’t. Not after the chicken incident, and that was nearly two years before, not long after their fifth kid was born.
Granted, Phinny had been dealing with some postpartum crankiness, but that had been the straw to shoot her clean over the edge into banning Cha from the property.
You’d think Cha getting Dy arrested in Obsidian that time would have been the deal-breaker, but no: it had come down to the death of a single chicken.
Though how was she supposed to have known Phinny had put out her prize hen to hunt the newly hatched bugs on a day Cha happened to stop by and Katu was feeling peckish?
“Ah.” Otto nodded sagely. “You got old and soft. I should’ve realized.”
“Screw you.”
“Lazy, with the cushy tourney circuit.”
“Hey, I work hard, asshole.” She resisted the urge to suck in her stomach, which did feel a bit softer these days. Too much ale. Too little incentive to keep in shape.
“You work too hard for five hundred silvers when you could have a hundred thousand.”
Cha looked at the bottle in her hand, wondering if she’d misheard the number via the wishful haze of strong ale. “Say again?” She might not be great at math, but she had a good memory for payouts and this one had just gone up substantially.
“You heard me. Fifty thousand for each of you, twenty four hours of your time. Boom. Done. Dangle that in front of Dy and she’ll listen.”
Maybe. Maybe not. And Cha would still have to get past Phinny. Still, that was a lot of coin. Knowing she’d likely regret it, she set aside her pride and good sense and succumbed to temptation. Wouldn’t be the first time. “What’s the job?”
Otto settled himself on the couch, not looking anywhere as good doing it as Garaile had. “You make a fast run across the border, pick up a package, bring it back here. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.”
Not even remotely surprised, Cha stared Otto down.
At least now she knew what had tempted Monat to take the risk.
That amount of coin would last a very long time.
For the rest of their lives in decent comfort, if budgeted well, even with inflation.
“Over the border to Obsidian?” she asked, though she already knew that answer.
Looking at his nails, Otto sighed. “You know the rules, Bandit—deets are need to know and you need to know only after you sign the contract. Can’t have my competitors getting the drop on me.”
Cha blew out a snort of pure disgust. “You think I don’t know that Monat got her ass arrested trying to bring a shipment of pixie dust over from Moonstone?”
Otto narrowed his eyes in surprised irritation. Bless Garaile and his gossip. “Monat got careless. And she didn’t have you running distraction for the big rig. You and Dy are an unbeatable team.”
“We were.”
“And are. The Bandit and Goldilocks together again! An inspiration to the masses. Think of how excited the people will be. Plus you’ll be providing a needed public service. Pixie dust prices just jumped again. Soon there won’t be any ley lines to some of the outlying farm country.”
“As if anyone in the countryside is using Moonstone dust.”
“I don’t expect you to understand the economics. The wealthy need white dust to run their businesses. They run out, the coin dries up, and the poor are the ones to take it in the teeth.”
“Oh, right.” No one believed in that trickle-down shit. “Like you care about anything but lining your pockets. What’s your profit margin on this?”
“Enough that I can pay you a hundred thousand silvers.” He lifted his brows significantly. “It’s a prime deal, Bandit. You know it.”
“If we get caught, we’ll be rotting in some Moonstone nightmare prison with Monat, growing wings out of our asses or some such, and you won’t be coming to bail us out. I know that.”
“The risk is why you get paid the big coin, dearie. At least you gals can have a nice chat behind bars, maybe a pillow fight in scanty lingerie. Wings are sexy.”
“Wings are a myth. Sometimes I seriously worry about the depths of your depravity.”
“So, you’ll do it?”
Who was she kidding? The temptation was too much to resist. Even split, this would make them rich. And would give her a reason to try to sweet-talk Phinny into letting her come around again. A tasty bribe would help considerably. Cha put out a hand. “Half up front.”
“Ten thousand up front—in gold coin for you to carry—another ten thousand when I see Dy’s pretty face behind the controls of Big Betty, the rest when you deliver the package.”
“I thought you were confident I could talk Dy into this.”
Otto stood, dug a heavy coin purse out of his shoulder bag, and tossed it to her. “There’s ten thousand in there. You run off with it, Bandit, I’ll see the authorities get some interesting evidence on your more notorious escapades.”
“Bastard.” She shook her head in reluctant admiration as she opened the bag and took in the beautiful sight of the ten gold coins inside. He’d already had it counted out.
“Tell Dy to give Phinny a kiss for me,” Otto added with a salute and a smirk.