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“I bet…” he repeated, “…he’d love to drag a carefree, greedy little scavenger home to mommy and daddy. Fuck her brains out in the next cabin over from their fancy colony suite. Nowthat’llbe a rebellion. He can’t get out of his duty, but he can make their life fucking miserable.”
Kaia pushed away from him so hard that the heavy metal desk screeched against the floor, drawing his face into a scowl.
“No fucking way. Is that what you were pushing on that one out there?” She jutted her thumb toward the door, where no doubt the scantily dressed woman was still waiting.
“She’s too soft. Too perfect.”
Not like me.
“I don’t need sex with a rich guy, Loran. I need chips.”
“And I need a mole. Someone who can get me a foothold in the colony. Those things are goddamn fortresses, but once I’m in… well, we both know I can siphon all the chips either of us will ever need.”
“And then—”
“And then you can off yourself or whatever the fuck and send yourself to Heaven.”
“Why would a commander-in-waiting wantthis?” She gestured to herself. She didn’t hate herself, but she was practical. Poor, malnourished compared to Riker 109’s working girls or colony sluts, and not versed in the ways of propriety. She wasn’t a rich guy’s type.
“Oh, Scav.” Loran rose from his seat and bit his lip as he gave her that scan again, only this time, not so impartial or calculating. “I bet you’re exactly the kind of fireball he’d go for. Rough around the edges and just the right amount of rabid. Everything he doesn’t get to be, at least not anymore.”
Her cheeks burned, and she hated how small she felt under Loran’s wolfish grin. He was smart. If he had come up with this plan, that meant it had a chance of working. A real chance, if she didn’t fuck it up.
But this was a big scam to orchestrate. How wasshesupposed to seduce a would-be colony commander? How could Loran ever think she was capable of that? She wasn’t like the girl out there, endowed and polished with sex oozing from every pore.
But if she pulled it off… She could finally get to her brother. And soon, if she did it right.
“And you’ll make sure I get to Heaven?”
“You have my word, you crazy little bitch,” he smirked.
Kaia’s stomach turned at the flash in Loran’s eyes. “Tell me what to do.”
CHAPTER3
KAIA
Just be yourself.
Kaia repeated Loran’s words in her head like a mantra as she perched atop the bar stool. She rolled a gold ring between her knuckles. Loran had let her keep one, a token of goodwill in their “new joint venture.” Kaia slid the too-large ring onto her thumb and glanced at her reflection in the dusty mirror that ran along the wall behind the bar. Her left cheek still sported a splotch of stinging pink. Kaia grimaced as she pressed her fingertips against the tender skin. She probably should have at least tried to cover that up, but for some reason Loran had instructed her to leave it.
She was still coming to terms with the fact of having agreed to this. The way Loran described it, if she managed to hook up with the heir of a colony ship, it would take her no time at all to get the chips she needed for Heaven. And that was tempting. After years of skimming, she was still nowhere close. At this rate, she’d die of old age before she got to kill herself for Upload. And Ahton was waiting.
“One H2O,” the deep voice a few seats away demanded in that way no station resident ever would.
The bartender, scarred old Theo, who was presently polishing a glass, leveled a deadly glare in his direction, but quickly marked the patron as not being from around here.
“Hundred chips.” He smacked his chip reader on the bar in front of the man who had to be Orion Halen.
“One hundred!” The man’s smooth black brow furrowed in profile.
Theo shrugged. “Look where you are. We ain’t exactly got limitless water here.”
Full lips pursed. Cold eyes narrowed to displeased slits. Then Orion Halen’s wrist was pressed flat against the reader.
It wasn’t really one-hundred… About forty percent of that was tourist tax. Not that Kaia could afford it either way.
Enough stalling.
