“I’m going back to my room.” I stand up, and then he suddenly grabs my wrist.
Darr might be drunk and past his prime, but he’s still faster than me. My stomach churns. My mind jumps to the stash of money I have hidden beneath the floorboards in my room.
What if Darr found it? What if he took it all? It doesn’t matter even if he doesn’t – he’s never going to let me out of his sight, so I’ll never have to opportunity to escape and get that flight off this desert rock.
He smiles, and it’s about as reassuring as the grin of a crocodile.
“I’ll get you another job soon, don’t you worry. You won’t be bored for long.”
“Thank you, Darr,” I reply coldly, and thankfully that’s enough for him to let go of my wrist. I stagger back down the staircases to my tiny room, locking the door behind me.
I need to get off this planet – now. I’ve got the last of what was owed to me. Now it’s time to make a move. I cross the room, drop to my knees and pull the floorboards up, taking stock of my riches.
It’s all there – right down to the last penny. Darr didn’t find it, and Darr didn’t take it. Maybe the Gods are finally giving me a break.
I take a long-sleeved shirt from my small pile of ragged clothes, one with hidden pockets that I’d sewed into it to conceal pickpocketed riches.
I stuff the pockets full of credit bills.
Here is everything I’ve worked for. Everything I’ve risked my neck for, over and over again. It’s all in my shirt within a few minutes.
I pull the flannel over my shoulders.
On the outside, I probably look like a down-on my luck Sector 3 worker, at best. In reality, I’ve got a small fortune tucked away inside my hidden nooks and crevices.
With my money tucked safely away, the hole in the floor is empty – except for something that was covered in all those credit notes.
It’s a knife. Thin, small, and deadly sharp.
I never normally bring knives on my jobs. I’d rather be caught than kill someone. Now, however, I have no choice. I need to get out of this city, off Deemak, or I’ll never break free of Darr.
I take the knife, palming it away, and then I wait.
Darr sits in the bar for most of the day, coordinating his network of thieves. I might be his favorite, but I’m not the only one working for him.
People will come in and out, giving him shares of the jobs he’d orchestrated, or giving him tips of other promising marks. There’s an erratic, but dependable stream of people going in and out of The Stag all day looking for him.
It’s only in the early afternoon that he goes out to survey sites himself. He never gets his hands dirty, but he still likes to see everything that’s going on.
I have to wait until then.
The adrenaline is suddenly coursing through my body. Forget the Aurelian mansion. This is the biggest job I’ve ever done. It’s a job for the biggest prize yet – my very life. I don’t want to know what Darr would do to me if he caught me trying to escape with everything I’ve saved up. He’s made it very clear that I owe him everything I have, everything I’ve built up…
…and, right now, that everything is hidden right inside this shirt I wear.
I take deep breaths to calm myself.
Then, they come into my mind.
I’ve tried not to think of them, but it’s been impossible this last week. Every time I close my eyes to go to sleep, they appear. When my mind is weak and fuzzy in the morning, there they are.
Cyrus. Gallus. Varian.
The three huge, powerful Aurelian Warriors. Their images are burned into my memory. I remember every detail of them – from the intensity of Varian’s accusing stare, to the warm protectiveness of Gallus’s touch, and the mischievous flirtation of Cyrus’s smirk.
I wonder what they’re doing right now.
I wonder if they hate me.
They didn’t put out an alert for me. What does it mean?
I had my theory – that they put a private investigator on my trail. That’s what I’d told Darr, to divert his questioning. Now, I’m not sure I believe it. Why wouldn’t the Aurelians alert me to the Police or the Royal Guards, in addition to putting their own agents on it? They’re not short on money or influence, so if they really wanted to punish me, they could.
It does mean they must have noticed the theft. It was nothing compared to their overall worth – an amount listed in the trillions – but I know from the business meeting with the Seer brothers that Gallus and his battle-brothers use video footage and surveillance in at least part of their house.
Maybe not around Gallus’s bedroom, but still…
They would have noticed. Those three notice everything. It would be too great a stretch to think I’d disappear without causing any sort of disturbance.
Pride could be the answer, I suppose. No one likes to be taken advantage of. It could hurt the reputation of the three Aurelian businessmen if it was known that a pretty woman had infiltrated their home and stolen their valuables.
The rumors claim that Aurelians have a fierce sense of pride, and I believe it from living with those three for even the short time I did.
The very short time.
As if that makes it less powerful, though. As if the fact that my time with them was measured in hours, not days, can wash away the significance they’d had on me.
I’ve felt that constant, gnawing
