18. Chapter Eighteen #2
Her lips soften beneath mine. The tension leaves her one careful breath at a time until she’s resting against me instead of merely standing in my arms. Her palm slips from my jacket to my chest, spreading over my hearts as though she’s reassuring herself I’m really here.
I hold her there, memorizing everything.
The warmth of her breath. The softness of her mouth.
The way she fits against me as though she’d always belonged there.
Her eyes remain half-lidded, her breathing unsteady, and I stroke my thumb gently across her cheek, wishing this moment belonged somewhere other than a place stained by the end of my father’s life.
I wish with everything I have that this place wasn’t stained with death, that my father’s body wasn’t lying only meters away.
“It doesn’t end here,” I murmur. “That kiss continues after my brother is accounted for.”
The corner of her mouth lifts, not quite a smile but close enough to make something warm settle inside me.
“Then stop wasting time,” she says softly. “Let’s go find your brother.”
I smile despite everything. Gods, this female.
Her touch is cold when I take her hand, but her fingers curl around mine without hesitation, small and battered and steady. The feel of them against my palm anchors the rage that has threatened to consume me since I tore my father’s throat out.
Resh falls into step beside us as we leave Father’s office, four of my enforcers closing around us as we head to my quarters.
The door slides open as we approach. The rooms are exactly as I left them. The chair is still overturned. Books across the floor, pages bent, spines cracked against the stone. One shelf hanging crooked.
Miro walks across the space and reaches behind the monitor. Her whole body softens as she draws Percy into her hands. His display flickers awake the instant she makes contact.
“You clever little thing,” she murmurs.
I stand beside her. “What is it?”
“I programmed him to keep recording after...” She glances toward the wreckage. Her jaw tightens. “...just in case.”
Of course she did. She turns the monitor towards me. Security footage rolls across the screen. The corridor outside my quarters sits empty for only a handful of seconds before Kazren walks into view.
Kazren. Head down. Hands in his pockets. His expression is blank. The bastard walks like nothing is wrong. Like he hadn’t plotted against me and used Miro to serve his ends. As though he’d decided the outcome before Father’s blade ever touched Miro’s throat.
Miro tracks his path. We watch as he pauses at the junction beyond my quarters before disappearing down a darkened passage.
Her fingers move across the interface as she links one camera feed to the next. Each one picks him up where he walks through the maze into the depths that make up the Warrens. Then he walks out of view of any camera.
“We’ve lost him.” Anyone and anything can disappear down there.
“Not necessarily,” she says.
She quickly taps in a command, fingers flying over the keyboard. The display fills with the layered schematic of the lower levels, a maze of old tunnels and forgotten passages that predate the House. A line appears through the lower levels moving toward the docks.
The old ones, the ones that don’t appear on any official registry. The ones my father used to move cargo he didn’t want taxed, counted, or remembered.
“He’s heading for the old cargo berths,” she says.
“How did you—?”
She arches her brow.
I laugh quietly. “Never mind.” I don’t need to know. We just need to get to Kazren before he leaves the ground. I don’t want to launch an interplanetary bounty on his head. “Let’s go and get our traitor.”
I call Resh as we leave our quarters, following Kazren’s path.
“There’s a faster way,” Miro says. “If we go now, we can head him off.”
I frown down at her. Resh makes a quiet choking sound behind me. I ignore him.
“After you.”
The service lift rattles us down into the lower levels. The temperature drops until my breath fogs in the amber glow. When the doors grind open, damp air rolls in. Stone sweating moisture. Conduits humming through the soles of my boots. The glow panels down here are ancient, half of them dead.
She walks with Percy balanced in one hand, his display painting her face green. The route scrolls across the screen.
“He has to pass through the east dock maintenance bay to reach the old cargo berths. There’s no other way in,” she says.
I study the schematics and the path my brother is taking. “There’s a bottleneck. We can head him off.”
I turn to Resh and glance to the four males behind him, indicating what I want them to do on the map. “All of you go. Seal the south tunnel. I want the north approach blocked. Miro and I take the east entrance and drive him straight into you. No one moves until he’s boxed.”
Resh nods. He peels off without a word, the enforcers falling in behind him. Their footsteps fade fast. Miro closes Percy’s display. The green light dies. She slips her hand into mine. Cold fingers. Steady grip.
Together we move toward the maintenance bay. Somewhere ahead, metal groans. A hatch opens, then falls silent again. My brother believes he’s slipping beyond our reach.
He doesn’t know he’s already trapped.