But the bastard couldn’t see beyond himself.
Cade focused on the diamond ring glittering on Jeb’s finger. It was the size of a river stone. He and Karr and the crew had stolen that ring for Jeb, thinking he’d hock it off on the trade planet Xanthar. Jeb had kept it for himself. Glittering perfection, even though a man like him could have purchased ten of those rings on his own.
Cade thought everything was clear. He’d been given an earful, accepted a threat for his brother’s safety… and now?
“Another drink, Jeb?”
Cade raised a hand to signal the barkeep.
But Jeb suddenly lashed out to grab Cade’s arm. He pulled him forward with the force of gravity, until they were forehead to forehead. Sweat to smoky breath. The lights that made up the holo girl flashed beneath their chins, so bright Cade’s eyes burned. He could smell the alcohol on Jeb’s breath, almost taste the fury pulsing out of him.
Jeb Montforth was not a man to be crossed.
“You screw up again, Cade Kingston,” Jeb said, squeezing so hard that the corner of his diamond ring broke through Cade’s skin, “and it will be the last you ever see of your brother, your ship, and your entire crew. You can’t run from me. I own some of the deepest, darkest corners of this galaxy, everyone andeverythingin them. I will make you a ghost of yourself.”
“Nothing you do can hurt me,” Cade said through gritted teeth.
It was those words that had made Jeb smile his crooked demon’s smile.
“My dear, foolish boy.” Jeb leaned back and pressed a kerchief to his skin. He smiled at Cade, the very same way he once had, when he’d waltzed into the orphanage on a distant, forgotten moon and purchased the Kingston brothers for a mere hundred tokens. He took another sip of his drink and set the glass down. “I’m not going to lay a finger on you, Cade. I’m going to cut your little brother apart, piece by pathetic piece. And I’m going to make you sit there and watch me do it.”
His stare held.
And Cade was reminded, with a sudden finality, of the true darkness that brewed within Jeb’s heart.
“Pick up the tab, would you?” Jeb patted Cade on the cheek. And then he’d simply gone, whistling as he walked away.
Cade couldn’t stop shaking.
He hadn’t felt fear like this in ages, not since the day he’d walked into theStarfallto find Karr alive beside their dead parents.
And so Cade drank, and he kept on drinking those fears into a deep pit, hopeful that with each sip, they’d stay away longer in the days to come. At some point in the night, he’d been cast out by the bar’s owner.
He stumbled down the street, tripping over his own feet, where he ran into a group of looters, and soon after, fell into darkness, covered in his own blood.
When he woke, it wasn’t in his motel room in the West Sector that he shared with Karr, but instead, a pristine private hospital room. Crisp and clear and bright white, a chandelier over his head and a pretty, red-lipped nurse at his side. One of her eyes was replaced by a digital implant, a red light blinking in the center where a pupil should be.
“Where am I?” Cade asked with a groan. Certainly not anywhere near his apartment. He ran his hands across the silken sheets, blinking back the brightness from the small chandelier.
“Just a moment.” The nurse smiled and left the room, sweeping past a silver curtain to where Cade heard a door open and then close.
Footsteps.
The door opened again and the curtain was swept aside as a salt-and-pepper-haired man walked in, wearing a slick silver three-piece suit, a pressed red kerchief in his lapel pocket.
“You drink like a fish,” he said. “It’s a wonder you survived the night.”
“You…” Cade opened and closed his mouth in shock, unable to find the right words. “You’re…”
“Friedrich Geisinger,” the man said, smiling as best he could through a tight, wrinkle-free face. He held out a large hand. Cade didn’t move to shake it. “You have me to thank for saving your life.”
“My brother,” Cade said instead. He blinked a few times, as if he could force himself to fully wake. “I have to go.”
“Not so fast, Mr. Kingston.” Geisinger settled into a high-backed chair beside the glass window-wall that overlooked the entire city below. Overhead, the crystal-and-gold chandelier tinkled as the air powered on, cooling the room. “I’d like to have a word with you first. It won’t take long.”
Cade almost laughed, stricken with confusion and shock and… where in the hellwashe?
It wasn’t the West Sector, with its looters and call girls and slick criminals running the streets like Jeb. Cade looked out the glass wall. The view was golden, and glimmering, buildings towering into the sky around him, and in the distance, a shimmering river with boats rocking on its windy surface.
