Nessa

It took Lex a month to get her hands on the damn printer Dallas O’Kane wanted—a week to find one, another week of surveillance and planning, and two weeks of waiting for the right moment to pull the job.

No way would he pay her enough for it to be worth the effort. If she were smart, she’d hawk the printer to someone else, take the loss, and move on. Waltzing back into the O’Kane warehouse again was risky, even if she had been invited this time.

Lex had never been able to resist a good gamble.

For once, she knocked, and a giant hulk of a man she’d never seen before opened the door. He looked her up and down, a frown furrowing his brow. “Yeah?”

“I have something your boss wants.” She handed over the heavy black bag and watched as he unzipped it to look through it.

“Hey, what’s that?”

The voice was young and high, and a moment later the owner appeared from behind the huge man—a kid, maybe a teenager, dressed in baggy jeans and a shirt four sizes too big for her. Her hair had been drawn up into a sloppy ponytail, but most of it was too short and had slipped out. What remained in the plain rubber band had a pencil tucked into it.

She didn’t look like Dallas, but that meant jack shit. “Are you O’Kane’s kid?”

The big man snorted. The girl dragged her attention away from the bag long enough to give Lex the same assessment she’d just given her—and obviously didn’t like the conclusion. She pushed self-consciously at the rolled up sleeves on her flannel, shoving them up thin arms. They slid right back down.

Color flooded her cheeks. “No,” she said, her tone an inch shy of outright surly. “I’m his distiller. Who are you, his new girlfriend?”

It was Lex’s turn to snort. “Hardly. I’m his thief.” She held out her hand. “Lex.”

After a moment, the girl reached out to grip Lex’s hand. Hard. “I’m Nessa. What’s in the bag?”

“Chemical printer. For you?”

“Nah.” She reached for the bag. “Flash, can you go find Ace? Tell him his printer’s here. We’ll be in my office.”

“Got it.” He locked the door and headed off between two rows of stacked crates.

The girl hefted the bag, even though it was almost as big as she was, and spun to the right. “Come on. I assume Dallas said he’d pay you for this or something, but he’s out on a job.”

“I’ve got nothing but time.” Lex trailed her fingers over a logo burned into the side of a crate as she walked past. “I can wait.”

“Must be nice,” the girl muttered.

“It is.” Nessa led her into a room just across from Dallas’s office, one cluttered with crates and shelves laden with jars and bottles. There was a patched recliner in one corner, and a couch along the wall.

Nessa hoisted the bag onto the desk with a grunt and then turned to study Lex again. “You’re the one who broke in, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” She still couldn’t decide if it counted as her worst failure ever because she got caught, or her greatest success because she made off with her score, anyway. “Call it a job interview, I guess.”

The girl’s lips twitched, almost like a smile was struggling to break through. “I like your bracelet. Where’d you get it?”

Lex toyed with a charm on the bracelet. She’d bought it during one of her recon trips, when she was casing the O’Kane warehouse. “Just down the street. There’s a lady in your marketplace here who sells them.”

“Oh yeah? Maybe—”

“Hey, munchkin. What’s this about—?”

The newcomer was hot, with the kind of appeal measurable on an empirical scale. He had dark hair pulled back from his face, features just a smidge too rough to be considered pretty, and gorgeous eyes. He looked at her, and he didn’t just see her. He knew her, everything that was going on in her head.

It was uncomfortably like gazing into a mirror.

He acknowledged it with a wry smile. “Let me guess. You’re the one who almost robbed us blind.”

“Did O’Kane tell everyone?”

“He trusts us, sister. It’s a thing.” He quirked an eyebrow. “Probably not where you come from, though. Sector Two, I’m guessing?”

Lex matched his expression—and held her tongue.

That made him grin again. He tapped his nose. “Hey, that can be our secret, beautiful. Professional courtesy.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Nessa demanded from behind her.

“Nothing, kiddo.” The man extended his hand. “Alexander Santana. My friends call me Ace.”

Of course they did. “Lex.”

“Nice to meet you, Lex.” He shook her hand for longer than necessary, and the flirtatious appreciation in his gaze was so damn cheerful that she wondered if he was trying to annoy her. “So let me see my loot.”

She stepped aside, and he went to the desk and lifted the chemical printer out of the bag with a low whistle. “Oh, shit. This is the latest gen. Who the hell did you rob to get this? The fucking Council?”

“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies, Santana.”

He snorted. “Well, Dallas won’t be back until dinner, so I hope you don’t mind cooling your heels for a bit to get your money.”

Lex had a better idea. “Actually, I was thinking of taking Nessa out to the market.” She turned to the girl, who stared back at her with big, wistful eyes. “What do you say? I can show you the stall where I bought my jewelry.”

Ace’s friendly smile stayed fixed on his face, but his eyes turned wary. “I don’t know if that’s a good—”

“Yes!” Nessa hopped away from the desk so fast she almost slammed into Ace. “I wanna go. I have a bunch of credits and I never get to go out and spend them.”

“Because it’s dangerous out there,” Ace said. “We should ask your granddad—”

“Go ahead,” Nessa told him, already headed for the door. “It’s only a few blocks to the market. And she’s some super thief. We’ll be fine.”

They made it less than one block, barely down the street at all, before Lex noticed the hulking man who had been guarding the door trailing behind them. “I see your friend decided to join us. Flash, was it?”

Nessa glanced over her shoulder and groaned. “Yeah, that’s Flash. They all freak out every time I put a toe outside the warehouse.”

“Because you’re young, because you’re a girl, or because you make the money?”

“Yes, yes, and definitely yes.” She blew out a gusty sigh, which stirred the hair hanging in her face. “It’s not fair, you know? I mean I’m a grown-up when they want me to work, but I’m a kid whenever anything serious is going on.”

So much for O’Kane’s much-lauded trust. “Why do you put up with it?”

She shrugged and kicked at a dented can on the road, sending it careening over the cracked pavement. “Have you ever been outside the sectors?”

A couple of times, and never far. It was a wasteland—and that was saying a lot, since the sectors were pretty shitty to begin with. “Is that where you’re from?”

“Texas. It’s down south. Dallas’s mama had a family ranch, and that’s where I was born.” They caught up to the can, and Nessa kicked it again. “Pop and I just came up to join Dallas not that long ago. If you think the sectors are a shithole, you never wanna see what it’s like out there. So I get it. They worry. They just don’t know how to express it without being overprotective jerks.”

The other guys in Dallas’s organization probably thought they were protecting her from all sorts of things, but that didn’t help anyone, really. Not around here. “I was born in Sector Two. Grew up in the brothel district.”

Nessa jerked to a stop and whirled to face her. “What? Like those houses they sell the kids to?”

“Uh-huh. I ran away when I was...a little bit older than you, I guess.”

“Shit.” Nessa resumed walking and shoved her hands deep into her pockets. “You’ve been on your own?”

Lex was glad the girl wasn’t looking at her anymore, because it still hurt to think about. If going back to Two wasn’t so damn dangerous—especially for her younger sister—then she’d do it in a heartbeat, just to find out what had become of Avery. As it was, she couldn’t bring herself to stray too far from Sector Two.

But that wasn’t what Nessa had asked. “Yep. On my own, every day. No one to tell me what to do—but no one to care if something happens to me, either.”

“That sucks.” Nessa stole a glance at her. “But you work for Dallas now, right? Kinda. I mean, you stole shit for him. So he cares now. He cares about everyone who works for him.”

It was a nice sentiment, but one that didn’t work so well, practically speaking. Oh, Lex was sure that he took care of the people closest to him—that was just good business, never mind sentimentality. But she was equally sure he didn’t give a rat’s ass about her. “Okay.”

“You don’t believe me.” Nessa gave a little laugh. “It’s okay. No one ever does. But no one knows Dallas better’n I do. Except my grandpa.”

They’d reached the edge of the market. The lunch rush was just about over, but with the overcast skies clearing, there was more traffic than usual. Lex took Nessa by the arm and dodged a food cart, then gave in to curiosity. “What’s O’Kane’s deal, anyway?”

“What do you mean?”

Hell, she wasn’t sure herself. “You know, what’s he after? What’s his endgame? Booze, I get that, but there’s plenty of it already out there. What’s he gonna do different?”

Nessa grinned. “Everything.”

»»» § «««

Pop was the closest thing Dallas O’Kane had ever had to a father.

Tam O’Malley had been a fixture on the family ranch by the time Dallas came into the world. The son of an Irish rancher and a Vietnamese bootlegger, Tam had embraced both legacies—which made him a very useful man when the Flares ended life as the world knew it. He could tame a horse, milk a cow, pluck a chicken, and grow damn near anything, even in the shittiest soil.

But his true passion—his art—was his liquor.

Everything Dallas knew, he’d learned from Pop. But Dallas had never had the flair for it that Nessa did, which was why he was downright nervous as he watched the old man pour a finger’s width of whiskey into a glass and swirl it around.

By the time Tam raised the glass nearly to his nose and inhaled, he was already scowling. After his first sip, he grumbled. Then he downed the rest of it in a single swallow and grimaced.

Damn it. “I know this isn’t ideal—”

“Too much oak. And the finish is shit.”

“We’re not gonna get it perfect using the sticks instead of aging it in barrels. I know that. But it’s not bad. It’s a damn sight better than what we were selling before.”

“Anything’s better than raw.” Tam picked up one of the charred white oak sticks and waved it in the air. “The problem with sticking one of these things in there and calling it a day is speed. Aging isn’t supposed to be fast. It’s not as bad as just adding color and fake flavors—nothing’s as bad as that—but it’s still a shortcut. And shortcuts won’t get you where you wanna be.”

“Yeah, well, starving in the next five years while we wait for this whiskey to age right isn’t gonna get us anywhere we want to be, either.” Dallas picked up another stick and turned it over in his hands. “Mad’s working on getting us more oak, but we have to make a call. Barrels or sticks. And we need product, Tam. We need it yesterday.”

“It’s your show. Your call.” Tam drove his fingers through his silver hair. “It’s better than what anyone else has—for now. But that’s about it. If you want everyone to know that O’Kane Liquor is the best, know it like they know their own goddamn name, then it has to be the best.”

“Tam—”

“Take care of today, Declan, but don’t forget about the future.”

Damn the man for being right.

Dallas turned the charred stick over again, rubbing his thumb along the rough edge. One of these dropped into a jar of moonshine could give them passable liquor in a week. They could sell it for five times what they moved the raw alcohol for.

But if they did it right, they could sell it for twenty-five times that. Because the people cluttering the streets of Four might not know the difference, but the people with real money did. And if they didn’t start casking shit now, they wouldn’t have anything to bottle in three years or five or ten.

Keep the lights on. Build their legend. He couldn’t do both—and he had to do both. “How about small barrels?” he asked finally. “We could put a quarter of the wood to those. The increased surface area’ll make it age in...what? Six months? A year?”

Tam shrugged. “It’s a decent stopgap. It still won’t be quite right, but I can work with it.”

“Okay. So the next big batch of grain we get...” He did the math in his head, skimming off enough to give his men a bonus—enough cash to make the sacrifices of the last few months worth it—and nodded. “I’d say we can start with at least twenty-five percent into casks. And we’ll put aside enough for you and Nessa to start a few special limited editions—the shit we’ll milk those rich motherfuckers for in a decade.”

“You will, anyway.” The old man rose, his bones creaking as he carefully levered himself out of his chair. “I’m heading upstairs. A quarter of that oak for casks—I’m holding you to it.”

“You got it.”

As he watched Tam move painstakingly toward the steps and up the first one, he made a mental note to shift a little of their resources toward retrofitting one of the empty downstairs offices into a bedroom. Hell, he’d take it out of his own money if he had to—though he’d bet the guys would kick in, too.

Everyone loved Pop.

“Hey.” Ace slid into the seat Tam had abandoned, clutching a folder full of paper. “I’ve been playing with that printer your cat burglar brought, and it is beautiful.”

Jasper grabbed the chair on the opposite side of Dallas. “Ace already has about fifty label designs for you to look over. At this rate, he’s gonna wear the damn thing out, and you’ll have to steal another one.”

Ace waved his middle finger vaguely in Jasper’s direction. “By the way, your thief took Nessa on a shopping trip. And hasn’t shown back up with her yet.”

“So I heard.” He’d been uncomfortable about it, too, for more reasons than Nessa’s safety. That wasn’t in much danger, not with Flash trailing along behind them. But Nessa knew way too much about him and rarely shut her mouth. Thinking about the kinds of personal details she was dropping in Lex’s clever ears made him nervous.

That woman didn’t need any more advantages over him.

Ace flipped open his folder. “You can’t trust her, you know.”

“I figured that out when I caught her robbing me, but thanks.”

“Yeah. You caught her, and she still got away with all our damn money. Because she made your dick stupid.”

Dallas opened his mouth, then snapped it shut, too irritated to speak.

Or too embarrassed.

“Don’t feel bad.” Ace patted his arm. “You didn’t have a chance. After your new friend introduced herself to me, I had a hunch. So I ran down the street and checked with Gia. I’m not in the loop anymore, but she is.”

Gia ran an up-and-coming brothel on the other side of the marketplace, but she’d started life as a highly-paid courtesan, trained by the same man who’d trained Ace. Which made Dallas’s gut sink. “Don’t tell me—”

“Oh, yes. Lex isn’t just from Sector Two. She was Cerys’s star protégée before she cut and ran. She’s trained to steer a man around by his dick like it’s the rudder on a damn boat. Gia’s begging me for an introduction. She thinks Lex could kick her up to the next level.”

Jesus. The girls in Sector Two were trained from childhood in all sorts of manipulation—a fucking unsavory practice, as far as Dallas was concerned. At least Ace had been old enough to make his own damn decisions when his mentor had swept him up. Lex had likely been sold to Cerys when she was younger than Nessa.

The thought turned his damn stomach.

He didn’t want to feel sympathy for her. Shit, considering what Ace had just told him, he needed to be more guarded than ever. But the sectors were a hell of a place to make your way alone, much less as a woman. Much less as a girl.

It made her bringing back his money even more inexplicable.

Jas was watching Dallas with unblinking interest—and surprising sympathy. “Fuck that, man. Tell Gia she already has a job. She’s working for us.”

“Jas—”

It was all he got out. The warehouse door swung open, and Lex herself strolled in, all smiles. And behind her...

It took Dallas a second to recognize Nessa. Her messy, shoulder-length hair had been cut in a short style, with bangs falling across her forehead at an angle. Her hand-me-down clothes had vanished, too. The jeans she was wearing actually fit her, and the bright, colorful patches spoke of pre-Flare vintage. Her T-shirt was the same, a black V-neck with faded pink and purple cartoon characters emblazoned on the front.

She looked...cute. More than that, she looked happy.

Fuck, she looked happier than Dallas had seen her in years.

The pain of failure hit him square in the chest. Luckily, Ace covered for him, rising out of his chair with his arms spread wide. “Look at you. Nessa, don’t get a big head, but you’re adorable.”

Nessa laughed and spun around, showing off her new outfit. “I know, right? I am. And look!”

She freed one hand from the bags she was carrying and held it up, wiggling her fingers so the light caught her nails—pink, with glitter sparkling from each one. “Lex knows all the vendors, and they give her deals.”

Jasper took her hand and peered down at her polished nails. “Nice. Did you bring some back for me?”

“I don’t think pink is your color.” Nessa bumped him with her hip. “Maybe purple?”

“With my skin tone? No fucking way.”

Lex leaned against the wall, with that familiar not-quite-smile almost curving her lips. “Red, definitely.”

“Listen to her. She’s smart.” Nessa hoisted her bag. “I got Pop some dinner. Is he in his office?”

“He already went up.” Dallas made himself smile through the ache in his chest. “Go show him your new haircut. I’m sure he’ll love it.”

Nessa beamed at him and swept down to kiss his cheek. In seconds, she was clattering up the stairs like a tiny tornado, leaving devastation in her wake.

Shit, he’d been fucking up with her.

Dallas cleared his throat and rose from the table. “Come on,” he told Lex, tilting his head toward the back. “Let’s do our business.”

“Sure.” As she brushed past him, she whispered something too low for Ace or Jas to hear. “Tease.”

Oh yeah, he was the tease. She was the one swinging her hips back and forth as she strolled to his office, and Ace’s words drifted back to him.

Like a rudder on a boat.

Fuck that.

He made it into his office and leaned back against his desk, crossing his arms over his chest. “Thanks for taking her out. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I didn’t do it for you.”

That hit him right in his pride. It didn’t matter that her tone was mild. The words were damning enough. She’d done it for Nessa, because someone had to.

Because Dallas wasn’t getting it done.

And if he didn’t lock his shit down, he’d be begging her to stick around and tell him what else Nessa needed—which was probably the fucking point. There were a million ways to manipulate a man. Dallas knew his share of them, but the star pupil of a woman clever enough to run her own sector probably knew every goddamn one.

She sighed. “He told you.”

“Who, Ace? Yeah, he told me.”

“Figures.” She ran over finger over the top of a filing cabinet, then wiped her hand off on her jeans. “You’re not nearly as much fun when you’re looking at me like that, you know.”

“I’m not trying to be fun.” He flexed his fingers on his arms and blew out a breath. “Tell me she’s not part of some fucking game, that’s all I want. Because maybe I don’t know how to do right by her, but I will sure as fuck murder the shit out of anyone who hurts her.”

In their limited acquaintance, he’d seen a lot of different things flash through her dark eyes—wariness, amusement, flirtation, even a hint of the kind of lust that could twist a man into knots. Right now, he saw ice. “Excuse me?”

Oh, shit. If looks could kill, Dallas O’Kane would be burning to ash on his office floor. “Hey, I’m the only one she has looking out for her. I have to ask.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, mirroring his stance. “Your price for the printer just doubled.”

“Fine. Name it.”

“Tripled.”

“Jesus Christ, woman, what the fuck do you want from me?” He threw up his hands. “You want me to not give a shit about her? You want me to assume everyone who wanders in off the street and wants to be her best fucking friend has good intentions? That girl’s brain is worth more credits than either of us have ever seen and I happen to not like people knowing that.”

“She’s not just your ticket to riches, O’Kane, she’s a kid. You say you care, so act like it.” One step brought her close enough to poke him in the chest. “And make all the assumptions you fucking want, but don’t make them about me.”

“Why not? You’re making them.” He caught her wrist, shocked at how delicate it felt beneath his fingers when her presence seemed to fill his office. “I don’t want people knowing it because then she’ll never be safe outside these four walls.”

“Of course. It’s the only part of your bullshit posturing that makes any sense.” She leaned closer. “Ask yourself why she’s so desperate to get outside these four walls that she’d leave with a complete stranger, and you’ll figure it out.”

He hadn’t realized she was. Nessa had been subdued when they’d finally made it all the way to the sectors. The trip had been hard on her and Tam—Dallas knew that. At first, she’d seemed terrified of the idea of leaving the confines of the warehouse, eager to throw her time into the business and setting up shop under her grandfather’s experienced eye.

That had changed at some point, and he hadn’t noticed.

“Fine,” he growled, releasing Lex’s wrist just to get her out of his personal space. Anger wasn’t tamping down his lust. If anything, they were blurring together. “I’ll think about it. Happy?”

“Thrilled,” she muttered, sounding anything but. Then she smiled, a terrifying expression with her eyes still iced over. “A favor—that’s my asking price for the printer. You’re going to owe me one, Dallas O’Kane.”

He’d rather give her cash, especially with that look in her eye. But right now she’d probably ask for more than he had—and what was the worst that could come of it? “Fine. A favor. I owe you one.”

“The big guy out there—not Santana, but the other one. He’s your second?”

“Jasper? Yep.”

“You want anything else nicked, I deal with him. Not you.”

It should have been a relief, the best of all possible worlds. He got to use her skills, Nessa got to keep her new friend, and Dallas’s dick was safely out of reach. But as he held out his hand to seal the deal, he couldn’t completely squash his disappointment.

A man with a ten-year plan as ambitious as his couldn’t afford anyone else trying to steer. But he’d bet Lex made you feel real good when she curled those nimble fingers around your rudder.