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That was seven years ago. He threw my mother and me off the ranch immediately. She drank herself to death two years ago. Then it was just me. A nineteen year old with nothing to trade but the innocence that was stripped from me a long time before that. It’s a miracle I’ve managed to remain a virgin. Well, a miracle, and the fact that I’ve killed men for trying to take my maidenhead. I would have killed Atticus too, but it turned out he wasn’t interested in what was between my legs. I’m not sure he has any interest in women at all.
With all the glass swept up, I throw the broom down. Thinking about what my life has been like these past years makes me furiously sad and devastatingly angry. I can’t be in the room with Orion anymore. He thinks he understands, but he doesn’t. He’s just another man trying to get something for himself.
“I’m done. I’m going.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Orion drawls. I could run out right now, but we both know his longer legs could cross to the door before I got anywhere near it and that would leave me in the very near vicinity of the man who just whipped me like a brat, and whose belt is safely back around his waist, waiting for the next call for its use.
“You can’t keep me with you. You’re on the run from the Imperium. You don’t have time to wrangle me.”
“I don’t think I need to wrangle you,” he says, pushing away from the window with an easy motion. “I think you need to learn to do as you’re told.”
“Well, that’s never gonna happen, mister. I’ve been beaten, I’ve been cheated, hell, you just whipped me your own self, and it didn’t make a difference, did it?”
“I reckon I can make you an offer you’ll accept.”
“You do?”
“I want Atticus. You want to get off this planet. I can get you identification to leave. That means you can go elsewhere without being taken as an Imperium slave, and you get the satisfaction of knowing the man who tried to kill you is dead. How’s that for a deal?”
I’m speechless for a second. What he’s suggesting is joining forces.
“But why?”
“Why what?”
“I see what I get out of this. What do you get out of it?”
“I get the ranch.”
Oh. There it is. The catch. He’s a bastard, but at least he’s being straight with me. For a very brief second, I thought that Orion Steelbane might be interested in me as a woman, but now I see how ridiculous that thought was. He doesn’t look at me and see anything worth desiring. He looks at me and sees hundreds of acres of free land.
“You don’t strike me as the ranching type.”
“Maybe I am. Maybe I ain’t. I am the selling type though,” he says. “That much land has to be worth at least a million dinari.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you.”
He doesn’t even hear me mumble the response. He’s too busy doing math in his head, totaling a profit he’s never going to make.
Orion
Taking Josie up to this room was a good idea. I knew she needed a damn good thrashing, but I had no idea how informative it would actually be. I reckon we’ve finally gotten to the bottom of things — and what a bottom.
I am rock hard after having watched her writhe under my belt. Those britches might not be the most feminine of attire, but when they pull snug over the curves of her hips and those tight cheeks, goddamn that’s more sinful a sight than any saloon girl flashing her downmethere. I have to keep my mind off my crotch and the adorable girl who is half-pouting, half-scheming in front of me. There are bigger things at play. Like revenge on Atticus Bunch, and the biggest pay off I never had to work for.
“So here’s the deal,” I tell her. “You do as you’re told. Me and my boys will give you protection until we’re up at the valley. When I have the deeds to the ranch, you get a set of travel documents and enough money to get you a first class ticket off Patch.”
“Wow, first class,” she says. “So I wouldn’t have to travel with the stock.”
“And I’ll throw in a new dress, Imperium style, so you fit in when you’re sitting with all the richest people from Patch.”
“Uh huh. Yeah. Great,” she says with a roll of her eyes she apparently doesn’t think I can see.
I’ve known this girl for six hours, which is not long enough, but I’m reckoning she’s not completely in agreement with this plan.
“This doesn’t sound good to you?”
“Sure. It sounds good. Different bad guy gets my pa’s ranch and I get off this hell hole of a planet.”
