But I can’t push him and don’t know if I want a truthful answer if it isn’t the right one. My ego can withstand a few blows but it’s not strong enough to weather much more.
“Do you want to go back to the movie?” I ask instead. “I’m pretty sure we must be down to the final girl by now.”
Micah keeps his hand linked with mine as we walk back to the living room. And when I try to head back to my separate bean bag, he pulls me down to cuddle next to him instead.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
MICAH
There’s an urgent work call less than an hour after I go to bed, and I thank the heavens because sleep has never felt further away. I creep out of the apartment, taking care not to make too much noise in case it wakes Crimson. It’s a relief to get into the car and drive across town to the warehouse near the airport. The goods door is open a sliver and I wait for Alec, my driver and sometimes guard, to check it out first before walking through.
Inside, two of my men are sitting, battered. Their head, a man named Kyree, is staring at them with a mix of concern and annoyance.
I get the annoyance first.
“It’s the blood caste gang,” he says instead of a greeting. “Maybe teaming up with the henchmen or hunters but they’re at the root of the problem. Those bloody 501s are nothing but trouble. They don’t have any respect.”
The 501s are deportees from Australia, sent back home because their criminal convictions cross some arbitrary line. In this context, home is a euphemism. Most of them don’t have true ties to this country, having moved before they were old enough to be steeped in the culture.
They’re Aussies, through and through. Dragged up with different preferences, different allegiances, different compasses. They might throw their weight in with the first gang to turn their heads, but they don’t bother to learn their ways. They just want a place to fit after the country they thought they were part of turned its back on them.
Already on the outs with society, now rejected again. Cast out because they don’t have the right paperwork.
I nod at the men. “How many more?”
“Three are being taken care up north.” A code word for a makeshift hospital that the syndicate operates outside the health system. Way, way outside. “Another four are knocked up bad enough they won’t make this week’s quota. We need to do something.”
We need translates to I need.
“We got jumped in three different places,” one of the battered men says from a face with a lot in common with tenderised steak. “This shit’s organised. They hit us for the eastern line, and we lost maybe half the stock. Even working round the clock, we’re not gonna make that up. We’ll lose customers.”
At his height in the chain, we’re talking about three removes from the actual users. Each ‘customer’ brings in fifty to a hundred k a week. Multiply that a few times over and it’s hitting our bottom line hard.
“Can we import enough to cover?”
“Yeah, but the union vote is only three weeks away.”
“I know when the vote is.”
Our main contact for the Ports of Auckland was set to retire. Although we had advance warning and enough machinations to make the vote almost a sure thing, the key word there is almost. We lose a few more rounds to these upstarts and our entire grip on the city could be wrenched from our hands.
“Fuck.”
Kyree tips his head to one side. “That’s one way of looking at it.”
“You,” I say, clicking my fingers at the man who hasn’t yet spoken. “You’re embedded with the blood caste?”
“Not any longer.”
I restrain myself from adding a punch of my own to his battered face and clench my jaw. “I get that. What’s your intel?”
“We need an alliance.”
“No shit.” For the past few years, I’ve been working contacts in the various gangs. At best, we have a couple of uneasy truces. At worst, open slather like tonight.
“I broached the subject with Musk,” the man continues. “He might be willing to talk.”
My poker face remains intact but inside I’m groaning. Musk is the leader of the Southern arm of the blood caste. We’ve chatted. I rate him lower because every time we meet, I get the feeling he’s a mouthpiece and I can’t get a read on who’s feeding him his lines.
