He blinks, feigning innocence. “What, the thrill of due process?”
“You know what I mean.”
He walks toward me slowly, deliberate. “You’re angry. That’s good. I like you with fire.”
I want to punch him. I also want to grab him by that stupid perfect tie and—no. No.
“You tampered with witnesses.”
“I didn’t touch them,” he says, voice velvet. “Though I might’ve suggested they re-evaluate their priorities.”
“You threatened them.”
“I offered alternatives.”
“Spare me the euphemisms.”
He leans in. His voice drops. “You know what your problem is, Aria? You think justice is clean. It’s not. It’s compromise, coercion, leverage. You came here with facts. I came with results.”
I don’t back away. I should. But I don’t.
“One day,” I whisper, “you’ll slip.”
He smiles wider. “Then I hope it’s into your arms.”
And just like that, he’s gone. Swaggering down the hall like he owns the system—and maybe he does.
I stay in the stairwell long after the cameras disperse. The smell of ozone still clings to my coat. The taste of failure thickens at the back of my throat. But I don’t cry.
I just watch the place where he stood. And I plan.
He may have won today. But I’ll bury him. One day soon.
Even if it kills me.
CHAPTER 2
AEBON REXX
The scent of victory reeks like expensive cigars and sweat-soaked upholstery in the penthouse lounge of the Supernova Casino. I should be reveling—legs stretched across the leather ottoman, a glass of amber venomwine in hand, loyalists arrayed around me like satellites orbiting their sun—but I’m not.
I sip, swirl, pretend to listen.
Juno, my second, laughs too loud at a joke I don’t recall telling. Across the room, Lucivon’s dancers glide through zero-g streams of shimmering light, their skin dusted in pheromone glitter and ambition. Someone's piping Reaper jazz through the intercom, distorted chords meant to evoke nostalgia, rebellion, sex. Instead, it grates. Everything grates.
Aria Dawson’s face is still in my mind.
Not her scowl—though that’s carved into my memory like blade marks in old bone—but her eyes. Green. Not the soft green of new growth, but the furious, electric green of a Glimner stormfront right before it detonates. She looked at me today like she wanted to unmake me. Strip me bare and flay the soul from my body with every sharp, righteous word. Gods, I nearly kissed her in that stairwell.
She has no idea what she’s playing with.
A touch on my shoulder. I glance sideways. Mariq, one of my older soldiers, with that telltale twitch near his synthetic jaw. “Boss,” he says low. “They’re asking about Nar’Vosk.”
Of course they are.
I rise slowly, setting the venomwine down with a click. “Let’s move,” I say, already heading for the private chamber behind the false fireplace. The men follow. The room seals shut with a hiss. One of them—Kellin, all sharp angles and eager blood—starts first.
“Rovek made a move on the spice route, boss. We should answer hard. Quick. Make an example.”
