Chapter 28 Lacy
Lacy
Moya gave me a barely there nod. Yeah, she’d figured out who I was. Blazer didn’t talk much about his daughters and those who knew kept their mouths shut. I had to trust she’d keep doing so.
But I didn’t have time to dwell on that now. Now, I had to deal with the fallout of my announcement.
Finn reacted the most predictably. He practically tripped over himself in his hurry to get away from the table and accuse me. “You work for Blazer? Did you know about this?” he demanded of Dax.
I cringed at his volume. The last thing we needed was to draw more attention.
Burn was quick to slide away from me. That she didn’t jump out to follow Finn was a win. Maybe.
But it was Dax’s reaction that I was most interested in. I held very still, waiting for it.
He shifted in his seat but didn’t rush to get away from me. He turned to study me.
“Are you working for Blazer?”
My stomach did a nervous little flip. He was asking, not accusing.
“No. I haven’t in years.” I shook my head vehemently.
“Are you working for anyone else?” His gaze never left mine.
“Just you.” The words slipped out.
No surprise, Finn erupted again. “No fucking way she’s working for us.”
Support came from a surprising source: Burn. “She’s been doing some repairs around the ship. Earning her keep.”
He sneered. “Jesus, you must be a lousy lay if you can’t even earn your keep in Sarge’s bed.”
“Stand down, Dancy.”
I’d never heard Dax sound so cold. Not even when he’d discovered I’d stolen his ship. This was the ice-cold marine he’d been. I’d been damn lucky that the kinder, gentler Dax discovered me on his ship.
“She’s the one fucking everything up!” Finn pointed at me.
Every eye in the bar was on our table. I wanted to sink into the shadows, but that would be a retreat and I refused to give Finn the satisfaction. He’d think I was afraid of him and his accusations.
Yeah. Like that would ever happen.
I didn’t know how Dax would react to Finn’s refusal to obey his orders. As much as I’d like to see Finn get his ass kicked, nothing else good ever came out of a bar fight.
Moya took that decision out of Dax’s hands. “Sit your ass down and shut up or get the fuck out of my bar.”
Finn, the idiot, glared at her and crossed his arms over his chest.
Fuck. This was not going to end well.
With a flick of her fingers over her shoulder, the owner summoned two burly security guys. “Take out this trash.”
They each wrapped a big fist around Finn’s upper arms and picked him up.
Finn struggled, but the bouncers held firm. He might have been part of the space corps, but at the moment, drunk and pissed off, he was no match for the two men. With coordinated moves that spoke of lots of practice, they pivoted and carried Finn to the door. His feet didn’t even touch the ground.
“Fuck!” Burn slid out of the booth to follow him. “I’ll stay with Finn.” She glared at me. “You two finish up whatever the fuck we’re doing.”
Moya was watching me, so I swallowed my response.
“You planning to carry stupid shooters on the same ship as that one?” Her tone indicated that we were the stupid ones.
“He’ll calm down,” Dax said. The “or else” was unspoken.
With the booth open now, I tried to put some distance between Dax and me, but he wasn’t having it. His hand clamped down on my thigh. Okay. Guess I wasn’t going anywhere.
What would my dad say in this situation? “We need fast, high-value cargo.”
Moya looked between us. “Who’s running this show? You or him?” She directed her question at me.
“He’s the captain.” I jerked my head toward Dax.
She glanced at him, then back at me. “Un-huh.”
“She’s the cargo master,” Dax gritted out.
“I am?” Dax squeezed my thigh. “I mean, I am.”
“Lord save me from amateurs,” Moya muttered.
I opened my mouth to argue, then snapped it shut. She wasn’t wrong. We were amateurs. I’d never done this on my own and Dax hadn’t done it at all.
“The only reason I’m giving you this information is because of your Blazer connection. I take no responsibility for anything that happens as a result of this information.”
“How do we know it’s not a trap?”
Moya ignored Dax’s interruption and kept her focus on me.
“It’s not a trap,” I reassured him when she paused to let me do so. “That would be bad for business.”
Dax mumbled something that sounded an awful lot like “fucking smugglers,” but Moya and I both chose to ignore him.
“If you get blown up, I’m not responsible. If you anger the men you’ll be working with, not my responsibility.”
She continued to list her non-responsibilities. None of them were a surprise, but listening to her rattle them all off was boring. Finally, she came to the most important piece of information. “Fifteen hundred credits. Upfront.”
“For what?” Dax asked.
I winced. I hadn’t expected negotiations to start quite like this, so I hadn’t warned him beforehand. Nothing was free on Rigel Naught, not even information.
“For the location I’m about to provide.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you lead with that? Then you wouldn’t have wasted all that time keeping your hands clean.”
Fuck, this could get messy, fast. I placed my hand on Dax’s thigh, not gripping it the way he had mine. Just a gentle, soothing touch. His quad tensed and flexed under my palm. “That’s how it works, Dax.”
“It’s bullshit.”
“Yep, it is.” I flashed Moya a placating smile. She rolled her eyes and shook her head, but let me continue. “Bullshit is everywhere. I bet you dealt with your share before this, right?”
“That’s why I got out.”
I shrugged. “Welcome to life.”
Well, shit. That sounded just like my father. Except he usually added “baby girl” to that pearl of wisdom. It was annoying as fuck.
I took a deep breath and completely overstepped my bounds as cargo master. “Information now, 3 percent later?”
Moya’s light laugh was out of place in a spacer bar.
“Talk about bullshit,” she said. “Twenty percent. Stupid shooters are dangerous business. You walk out of here without paying me, I may not see you again.” She pressed the fingertips on one hand together, then forced them open, mimicking an explosion.
I shuddered at the thought.
Releasing Dax’s leg, I leaned back against the booth, keeping my muscles loose and relaxed despite the tension riding me. “Pfft. That’s too high and you know it. Five percent and we’ll throw in Finn as collateral.”
“The one I just had escorted from the bar?” She shuddered delicately. “No thanks. I’m happy to take the captain off your hands, though, if you’re looking to abandon crew.”
My teeth ground together. The thought of bargaining Dax away bothered me a lot more than getting rid of Finn had. “No deal.”
She smirked at me.
“I think we’re done here.” Dax released my leg and stood.
What the hell was Dax doing? This was the best place on the station to get hooked up with cargo. But he was the captain, so I had to back his play. I slid to the other end of the bench and stood as well.
“Oh, sit down.” Moya waved her hand at us. Humor and exasperation threaded through her voice.
Dax looked down at her a moment then took his seat.
I followed suit but perched on the edge of the bench. Trying to look relaxed while remaining ready to move was a difficult balance.
“I recognize cash strapped when I see it,” Moya said.
Jaw clenched, the tendons in his neck tense, Dax said nothing.
What had given it away?
She probably had people all over the dock, but from the outside Fortuna, as new as she was, wouldn’t look like cash was a problem. Had Finn been running his mouth?
“Ten percent and a future favor,” she said finally.
I sucked in a breath. Owing favors wasn’t an unusual payment option on the more distant planets and space stations, but it was a dangerous one. Agreeing to this was above my paygrade.
Dax considered her offer for what felt like forever. “Eight. No violence. No drugs.”
Her lips curved up in a slight smile. “Done.”
“Give me your comms,” she said, holding her hand out.
I guess we were really doing this. It would be a waste of time to argue. Dax placed his communicator in her outstretched palm. She touched it to hers, transferring the information we needed for our meeting. A tiny chime confirmed the data transmission.
“Bolton will meet you in two hours on Sub3 to arrange for the cargo transfer. I highly recommend you do not bring your excitable friend to that meeting with you. He’s been making a name for himself in the betting halls on the station—and not in a good way.”
“Understood.”
Dax’s curt response gave no indication of what he thought about Moya’s tidbit of information. But she wasn’t wrong about Finn being a potential problem. I could only hope that Dax could either rein him in or recognize the need to cut him loose.
She handed Dax his comms, but kept her gaze on me. “Are you sure about this?” she asked quietly.
“I am,” I said with more confidence than I actually felt. It brought me one step closer to finding my sister.
“Good luck, then,” she said. She leaned closer, her voice dropping low, husky. “If you see Blazer, tell him to come see me. It’s been a while.”
My eyes widened when her meaning hit me. I knew my father hadn’t been a monk since my mom died, but ohmygod, I did not need to know that. “I’ll do that,” I managed to croak.
I scrambled out of the booth. “I need to pick up some clothes before we meet Bolton,” I told Dax. Clothes and brain bleach.