Chapter One
"Sir, we're going to be approaching the drop zone in just fifteen minutes."
Tucker Keene waved at the jump instructor, scowling slightly as the sobbing continued on the other end of the line.
"Julia... Julia, I can't talk right now, and as I made perfectly clear two nights ago, we don't have anything else to say to each other."
He could hear her sobbing go up in volume if not in sense, and he gritted his teeth. He had tried to be nice, but apparently, Julia Genovese wasn't a woman who responded to nice. He was never a man who had a great deal of patience or finesse, so that meant that it was likely time to cut right to the chase.
"Julia. That's enough." There was enough sharpness in his tone to cut her off, and that was a mercy at least.
"All right, Julia. Let me be perfectly blunt about this. You're not interesting enough to hold my attention, and sweetheart, if you can't hold it for at least three weeks, what makes you think that I might ever want to marry you?"
His curt words caused some angry squawking, but at least that was far better than the overly dramatic tears that she had been indulging in before.
"Call me again, and believe me, you'll see what kind of asshole I can be. Count on it."
He grinned when Julia got to cursing and hung up, blocking her number with a flick of his finger.
The jump instructor watched him with a raised eyebrow, and Tucker shrugged.
"Some women don't know when to quit," he said with a grin, and the man shrugged.
"I'm sure I wouldn't know, Mr. Keene."
He probably didn't. As one of Fortune 500's richest men in the United States, Tucker's issues with most women could fill a book. They were all overly impressed with his money, and at least all of the ones he had met were overly concerned with getting their hands on it. He wouldn't go so far as to say that all women were gold diggers, but he had met enough to make at least an educated guess that most were. Tucker shrugged inwardly. He liked women just fine when they stayed in the space he set aside for them. The rest of his life was his own, and he had every interest in keeping it that way.
"All right, sir, are you all right for your first solo jump?"
"Absolutely," Tucker said with confidence.
Things in the boardroom had been so stressful lately that it felt as if the only thing that kept him going at all was the idea of being in free fall. He had first gone skydiving a year ago, and between one thing and another, hadn't been able to get his first solo jump, at least until now.
He went through the pre-jump check with the instructor, and in what felt like moments, he was set to fly. Tucker knew what it was going to be like. There was the gut-wrenching adrenaline rush of launching himself into the air, and it would all be over sooner rather than could be believed. In a half hour, he would be back in a limousine, heading for the club that evening, but in between...
In between, he would fly.
Sometimes he thought that that was worth everything.
They had reached the drop zone, and with a deep breath, he launched himself from the plane on the instructor's mark. He exited the plane, hitting an easy 120 miles an hour as he plummeted towards the earth. His entire body lit up with adrenaline and sheer ferocious joy at experiencing what so few human beings ever had.
As he had been trained to do, he reached for the rip cord that would unfurl his parachute, giving it a solid yank. The pull would deploy the black chute, letting him coast down the final 5000 feet to the ground... or at least that was the way it should have happened.
Instead, the cord stopped short, he continued to plummet, and his brain nearly went red with surprise and panic.
Tucker Keene was one of the richest men in the world. He had more luxuries and more wealth than nearly all of the humans on the planet, he was handsome, had slept with stars and models, had had the satisfaction of being born into a family of comfort and then growing that comfort into something truly exceptional...
... and unless he did something very right in the next minute or so, Tucker Keene was going to die.
He fought against the panic in his head. If he gave in, it would freeze him, and then he would die, and they would write him off as one more spoiled billionaire who had died thinking that the rules didn't apply to him. Tucker had never thought that the rules applied to him, but the idea that others would get to be smug about it galled him into action.
In his head, there was a cold countdown going on. The closer he got to the ground, the less good a chute could do. He kept that countdown going as he took a hard grip on the ripcord. His body was in position for the chute to deploy, he sent a prayer up to a god that he wasn't sure that he believed in, and he yanked with all of his strength.
For a moment, there was nothing, but then there was an almighty whoosh of air, and he felt as if some great hand had grabbed him and yanked him back from what was meant to be certain death. Later on, he would find a line of bruising all the way around his broad chest where the harness had dug into him, but for now, all he could feel was his body floating over the earth, his parachute full and safely deployed above him as he started the glide down to the ground.
On his other jumps, this was the moment where Tucker felt exalted. He would look out over the curve of the world below him, the trees, the roads, the buildings, and he would feel as if it all belonged to him, as if he were an integral part of it.
This time, however, Tucker didn't feel any of that. Instead, he felt vulnerable in a way he never had before. He was part of the world, and just like he worked his will on it, it worked its will on him. No matter how wealthy or powerful he was, he was just as prone to the laws of physics and nature as everyone else. The parachute hadn't cared that he was one of the wealthiest men in the world. It did not care that he had deals poised to save small towns where manufacturing had dried up or that he was bringing all of his business dealings back from overseas to provide more jobs.
As he came towards the ground, Tucker saw the beauty and the scope of the world, and unexpectedly, he could feel his time running out. He was going to be thirty-eight this year. He likely had decades left, but then again, as today had proven... perhaps not.
There was an urge deep in his chest that he had never experienced before. He had always laughed at his colleagues who got googly-eyed over their babies, and as he had watched, those babies had grown up into fine men and women, ready to take over.
Tucker had never seriously thought about what that might mean for him before, but now he did.
He struck the landing purposefully, hitting it standing up and with his knees bent to absorb the force from above. As soon as he was able, he fought his way clear of the parachute and hailed the jump instructor who had followed him down.
"You were slow on your deployment," the man said, and Tucker grinned. The adrenaline was slowly leeching out of his system, and what it left behind, unexpectedly, was resolve.
"Check over your equipment," he said, and he wasn't as sharp as he could have been. "The chute didn't respond to the first tug. And get me my car, I have to get back to the city."
He left the man stammering in his wake, but his mind was already on other things.
He wanted a child, a son to carry on his name and his work. That might be difficult for a man who couldn't seem to stand women for more than a month at a time, but Tucker Keene had always been a problem solver.
He always got what he wanted.
***
Luna ran the polishing cloth once more over the golden ring and then held it out at a distance. The rich yellow gold glinted in the task lighting above her jewelry bench, and she sighed, a soft little puff of air.
Reverently, she took one last look at the ring, a perfect wedding ring hand-inscribed with a scrolling pattern of ivy around in the interior. Finally, though, she had to tuck it into the velvet box and put it away before standing up. Her back creaked when she straightened, and she noticed with a flinch that it was already almost six in the morning.
Well, at least that means that I'll be able to get some coffee by the time I get to the cafe.
The money that would come in when she finished the ring would be welcome, but she had already long-since spent the advance. There was a part of her that could not be quiet about how proud she was about the ring, but there was another part of her that was doing the bitter math and coming to some dark conclusions. Even as she set aside her most challenging project yet and pulled on her sneakers, her thoughts wouldn't leave her alone.
The ring was a good chunk of cash, one of the first times Luna had ever been brave enough to demand what she was worth. As a lump sum, it was impressive, and she was thrilled. However, it had been a demanding project that took more than two weeks. There were three weeks beforehand where she was taking on freelance work for the local jewelers, widening rings and repairing bracelet clasps. Now that the ring was done, she needed to go back on the hunt for commissions, and that was a very cold road indeed.
Chicago in spring was beautiful, with a clarity to the air that made her sigh, but there was still very much a chill. She tucked her thin black coat more tightly around herself and shivered as she walked down to her favorite coffee shop around the corner.
It's fine to get coffee, she told herself. You're getting paid tomorrow.
Sometimes it was hard to talk herself into the things that she thought of as luxuries and that others considered basics, but she was learning. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, it felt as if she was winning the battle of a starving artist, staying fed while still doing the art that felt like her lifeblood.
Joel, her favorite barista, was behind the counter that day, but there was something unusually gloomy about him.
"You usually like working the morning shift," she said as she dumped milk and honey into her small coffee. It was so early that there was actually some time to chat. "What's up?"
"I'm gonna be looking for a job before the end of next month," he said with a grimace. "Word came down that the sale went through, and this whole block is going down."
Her hands tightened on her coffee cup, nearly spilling the contents before she steadied herself.
"No, wait, really?"
"Yeah, the buyers finally made an offer that Sellinger's couldn't refuse, I guess. And now all of us here need to make tracks, I . Hey, don't you live just around the block?"
"Yeah, yeah, I do," Luna said in a small voice, and she found that she couldn't speak at all. Instead, she hustled back out of the shop and into the cool morning air.
The idea of having the area bought had been floating around ever since she moved in two years ago. At first Luna had been apprehensive about having her living space sold out from underneath her, but after a while, it had become one more background worry, something that might be an issue in the future but that surely wouldn't affect her anytime soon.
Anytime soon had apparently become now, and she tried to keep herself from panicking. However, Luna had been doing the math for a long time, and she knew that one of the bottom lines was her living space. She had an apartment with the space and energy needed for her jewelry work, and she had it at a ridiculously good price because her neighborhood was historically quite unpopular.
However, things had changed, and she knew that sooner rather than later, she and the other artists, anarchists, punks, and nomads were going to be on the hunt again.
Okay, time to figure out what to do next. You've done this before...
She had. She was only twenty-two, but the truth was that she had had plenty of experience in dealing with figuring out where to live and how to support herself when the going got tough.
Even when she was in her snug little studio apartment again, however, there was a part of her that simply didn't want to. This life was exhausting sometimes, piecemealing commission after commission and hoping that there would be enough to make rent and to buy supplies for the project.
If only there was a way to get the cash together for a shop, a place where I could work on my own designs and put them on sale...
Because God, did she have designs. Sometimes when she went to lie down in bed, they would dance in her head, demanding to be drawn or sketched out. There were elegant serpentine necklaces, sleekly modern rings and bracelets, so many designs in gold and silver, using her favorite gems, or new gems that she would love to see made more popular.
Luna shook her head because she couldn't get distracted with design now, not when she might be on the street in three months without any place to put her brazing torch or even her jewelry welding rig.
The Internet had been a godsend for people who wanted to job hunt or apartment hunt in their pajamas, but to her eye, pickings were pretty slim. Most of the apartments she could afford were incredibly unsuited to her needs, and the ones that met her needs were ridiculously expensive. She either needed to give up her art or get another job, and there was no way she was giving up her art.
With a determined scowl, Luna went looking for new work as well and found the pickings worse than slim. Even waitress jobs seemed difficult to come by. Then she came across an ad that made her blink.
Independent? In good health? Ready to make a lot of money in less than a year?
She frowned, wondering if it was a scam. It seemed too detailed to be a scam, and it lacked the salaciousness that ads for stripping and webcamming always seemed to have. The truth was that no matter which way she turned it, she couldn't figure out what the deal was. However, the lines at the bottom clinched it for her.
After initial screening, you will be expected to undergo a battery of tests to determine suitability. These tests will last for around three days, and regardless of whether you are accepted for the position, you will be paid no less than 1000 dollars.
She blinked at that and blinked again. Luna was clever enough to know that a thousand dollars wouldn't necessarily take her that far, but it could be the difference between getting an apartment and crashing on a long run of couches for months on end.
Well, what's the harm? If I don't get in, I don't get in, and if I do, there's a thousand dollars, win or lose. It'll all be all right, won't it?