Chapter 57 Beautiful Rebel, Rafe
BEAUTIFUL REBEL, RAFE
Three weeks. Three weeks into this charade, and instead of becoming easier, each day feels like swallowing broken glass.
I stand in my office watching Eve kneel beside Lorian, and the casual way he reaches down to stroke her hair makes my jaw clench—not from jealousy, but from the wrongness of it all.
My hands shake slightly as I pour myself another drink. This is the third one this morning, if I'm counting. Which I'm not.
"You're drinking before noon. Again."
"I'm fine."
"You're not." Lorian says.
Eve looks between us but says nothing. She's learned when silence is required. Another thing that makes me want to break something.
"I need to review the quarterly reports," I say instead of addressing his concern.
"You need to stop torturing yourself," Lorian says, moving to the bar. "She's alive, Rafe. Safe. The alternative was—"
"I know what the alternative was." The words come out sharper than intended. "That doesn't mean I have to like this."
Lorian pours three glasses, handing one to me and, after a moment's hesitation, offering the third to Eve.
She takes it carefully, waiting for permission before sipping. Another trained behavior that makes it difficult for me to breathe.
"How many times this week?" I ask him quietly.
He knows what I mean. "Four."
Four times he's gone to the shrine to whip himself bloody, seeking absolution for what we've made her become. At least he has that release. I have nothing but the knowledge I am complicit.
"The appeal documents are ready," I say, changing the subject. "The legal team thinks if we can—"
"Rafe." Eve's voice is soft. "Stop."
I turn to her. "Stop what?"
"Trying to fix this with lawyers and appeals. The evidence was real. I did what they said I did. I betrayed everyone.” She sets down her glass, meeting my eyes.
"Business and law aren’t based on morality or what’s right or wrong. It’s about finding a way to get what works for everyone. Do you have any idea what this has cost—"
"Three hundred million credits in settlements to trainers. Another fifty million in legal fees. Stock devaluation of approximately twelve percent. Temporary suspension of the Ascendant Alliance’s expansion permits in two sectors.
" She rattles off the numbers like she's been keeping track, which of course she has.
She sits here with me every day. "I know what I cost you, Rafe.
I also know what I bought. Twelve human lives and an unborn baby. "
"Yes,” I say. “Which is why we are appealing.” Then, a silence falls between us. After a few minutes I say abruptly, “I have to go. The Kei Station acquisition won't finalize itself."
"When?" Lorian asks.
"Tomorrow. I'll be gone for at least two weeks, maybe three."
"Take Eve with you."
"No." The refusal is immediate. "I won't parade her through business meetings like a—"
"Like a slave?" Eve finishes. "That's what I am, Rafe. For the next six years and forty-nine weeks."
I flinch at the precise count.
"Who'll hold my leash while you're gone?" she asks quietly. "Technically, I can't move through the Spire without one of you holding it. IGC regulations for terrorist sentences."
The practical question makes me nauseous. "Lorian will—"
"No,” Lorian says, not being able to trust himself. “Father could watch her," he suggests. Then, immediately follows with, "No. Terrible idea."
"Absolutely not." The thought of Father's hands on Eve, of her kneeling where Autumn kneels...
"I'll be fine here," Eve says. "Lorian can—"
"I don't want to leave you." The admission escapes before I can stop it. "Three weeks without..." Without seeing her. Without touching her. Without the brutal rhythm we’ve settled into—public humiliation followed by private reprieve. It will be both relief and agony to be away from her.
"I'll miss you too," she says simply.
The honesty breaks something in me. I cross over to her, pulling her up, and into my arms. I close my eyes and hold her, steadying myself on the reality of her.
“I hate this," I whisper against her temple.
"I know." Her arms come around me.
"Six years and forty-nine weeks," I echo.
"Six years and forty-nine weeks," she confirms.
"Tonight," I say finally to Lorian. "Give me tonight alone with Eve."
Lorian nods. "Fine. I'll handle the evening meetings and cancel High Table.”
After he leaves, Eve and I stand in silence.
"Show me the appeal documents," she says. The IGC doctor wasn’t very thorough, and when he took her translator, he didn’t take her intelligence enhancer.
I pull up the holographic displays, spreading legal briefs across the air and turning on the visual translator for her. It’s not as good as an embedded one, but it still gets the job done.
Eve reviews the appeal documents with the same intensity she once brought to diplomatic protocols.
"This won't work," she says after an hour.
"But this might." She pulls up a subsection, highlighting dense legal text.
"Your lawyers missed something. The IGC statute 4471.
3 states that sentences can be commuted for individuals who provide 'exceptional service to galactic security.
' If we could prove that my actions ultimately prevented a larger terrorist action. .."
"How?" I lean forward.
“I can’t think of a way. But it's the first legitimate loophole I've seen." She manipulates the display, cross-referencing other cases. "There's precedent. An Imperial who exposed corruption while committing minor crimes had their sentence reduced by sixty percent."
I grip her shoulders. "This is why I need you."
"Rafe, I committed major crimes, not minor ones. And I’m human, not the most upstanding species in the galaxy."
"We could claim coercion. Mental manipulation. The Venus Lock's effects—"
"Stop." She turns to face me. "Rafe, stop. I knew what I was doing. The IGC knows I knew. No amount of legal maneuvering will change that."
"Then what? Do I just accept this? Watch you kneel at my feet for seven years? Hold your leash while the woman who should be my equal crawls behind me? Your spirit won’t survive this. And I know mine definitely won’t."
"You’ll survive it if I have to," she says. "We’ll all survive it. Together. Rafe, you have to be strong."
"No, there has to be another way. Good behavior protocols, work release programs, something—"
"There is one option you haven't mentioned. Lorian told me the IGC has quietly offered memory erasure and repatriation to Earth."
"No." The word comes out hard enough to echo in my office and to make her step back. "Absolutely not."
"It would solve—"
"It would solve nothing!” I begin to lose my composure.
“You think I'd let the Imperials who guard Earth hollow out your mind?
Send you back to waste away in poverty? Or worse, seeing you working at Terra Sanctum and you not know me?
No, I will not. You belong here with us, living to your full potential with your memory intact, and your personality unchanged. I will not discuss this again."
Something softens in her expression. "Alright."
"Alright?"
"I didn't want it either," she admits. "I just needed to hear you say it."
I pull her close, this woman who is going to be the death of me and my brother. "You're never going back to Earth. When this sentence ends, you'll sign whatever contracts I put in front of you. Employment, partnership, or whatever I need to get you to sign to stay. But you're not leaving ever.”
"That's not your choice to make."
"Watch me make it, anyway. You’re mine. But I don’t want you like a pet. I want you to choose to be mine."
She looks up at me and smiles. “You’re such a hypocrite. You want me to be yours no matter what, but at the same time you want me to choose to be with you. You can’t have it both ways, Rafe.”
“I think your human language is missing some important semantics, but it doesn’t matter; you know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean,” she says as her hands move to my shirt, unbuttoning it with careful precision. When she pushes it off my shoulders, she makes a small sound of distress. "You and Lorian have to stop with the sparring—”
"It’s the only thing that really takes the edge off. For both of us."
"You're destroying yourselves." Her fingers find the tension knots in my shoulders, pressing gently. "Sit. Let me..."
I sink onto the chair, and she stands behind me, working on my rigid shoulder muscles. "My Eve, always trying to save everyone, even me, your captor."
"Someone has to.”
After a few minutes, I realize I don’t want to spend my last day with Eve in my office. "Come on," I say, taking her leash. "Not here."
I lead her through the Spire's executive passages to the Thermal Nebula Chamber, a restricted amenity reserved for the highest tier of management. The door recognizes my biometric signature and slides open to reveal a space that looks like a piece of captured cosmos.
The chamber mimics the conditions inside stellar nurseries, but the toxic gases have been replaced by aphrodisiacs.
Clouds of heated vapor swirl in multiple colors, infused with minerals from a dozen worlds that make guests’ skin tingle and heightening sensations.
And gravity is reduced to one-third standard, making every movement feel like floating.
"What is this place?" Eve asks.
"It’s a replica of where stars are born," I say, disconnecting her leash. "And where I want to spend our last night."
I slowly take off what little clothing she has on. Her body hair catches the light, making her look wild and primitive. And perfect. The piercings through her nipples gleam like captured stars and serve as proof of ownership.
I hate that a primal part of me loves seeing her body this way.
"You're staring."
"I'm memorizing." I trace the dip of her waist. "Three weeks is a long time."
"For you or for me?"
"Both. All of us. I don’t trust you and Lorian together. But I have to. Because there’s no one else I trust in the galaxy.”