Brother, you know we need to leave. This Majesty shit is
wrong on too many levels.
Tell that to Trotter. I tried to get out when he started
pushing it and he threatened to kill you faster than I could blink. We can’t
leave now, not yet, Daket.
Shit. Bastard’s onto us, eh?
I’m not sure how much he knows, but we have to time this
just right. Patience.
The larger bruiser on Romy’s left glared at him.
Fine. So
we keep our eyes and ears open until we find a way out of here. But we need to
watch this guy. There’s something about him that’s off. He feels like a
tight-fisted drum, Min. I can’t make out his
psychei
, though I can feel
his power. Weird for a pyro, you know?
Keep on your guard and let’s bring him to the boss.
Romy did his best to remain expressionless, but fuck.
Majesty? Arms? Trotter and a stranglehold on his employees? What the hell?
They kept him tightly between them as they walked up several
flights of stairs. At the very top, the level branched out to encompass the
entire floor, unlike the open space below. They reached a steel door and pushed
through without knocking. Apparently Trotter expected them.
Romy studied the tall Otra with regal bearing who stood
behind an expensive desk. Jonah Trotter, the son of Itan and Gera ’Or Fal, old
friends of Romy’s father. Romy gave him a deferential nod as he studied the
darkened aura blanketing Trotter. Not normal, and not healthy at all. He
inwardly cringed while keeping his internal shields taut. Jonah Trotter was
much worse than the spoiled son of his father’s close friends. Murder had
bloodied his hands. Now Romy had to prove it.
Chapter Three
“So, you’re Fromer’s pyro, hmm?” Trotter asked, his stare
commanding.
“Yep.” From what Romy had gathered from several of Trotter’s
employees, Fromer was a thug and major supplier of Majesty, as well as a man
who owed Trotter several favors.
“What’s your name?”
He easily picked information out of the Yal brothers’ minds.
Trotter’s was a bit harder to see, but Romy searched just the same. “Luke
Drowe.”
Trotter studied him with intensity and a flare of energy
that bespoke power. To counter his scrutiny, Romy focused on thinking about
nothing but his supposed boss, Fromer. From the men around him, details
emerged.
“Describe Fromer to me,” Trotter ordered.
“Short, fat and angry.” He grinned when Min and Daket Yal
snickered. Apparently they weren’t fond of the obnoxious bastard. From the
memories both had of Fromer, Romy could only hope he’d never have to meet the
lowlife. A pimp, a drug dealer and an arsonist. What a guy.
“Funny, but you don’t strike me as the type to associate
with Fromer. And you’re not ’San Fal.”
Romy shrugged and let flame light his fingertips, proving
his ability to create fire out of nothing, something normally only Otra from
the ’San Fal clan could do. “I’m special I guess.” The fire didn’t lie. “I owed
Fromer a favor. He owes you a favor. One big, happy family.”
“Hmm. So you know what I need from you?”
“Some security around here to keep the Threaders off your
stuff, your
Majesty
,” he joked, to which the Yals chuckled. He continued
to wonder at his initial impression of the pair. They didn’t feel evil or bad,
but they’d made some poor decisions. Maybe he could use them to his advantage
if Trotter put his back against the wall.
An odd burst of sexual heat filled him, a feeling of
feminine need that didn’t belong in this place at this time. Memories of the
woman in the tub returned, and he had to shake his head to rid himself of the
desire filling him. Talk about poor timing.
“Majesty, yes.” A grin curled Trotter’s thin lips. A haze of
familiar
psychei
flared around the powerful Otra, and Romy blinked. No
wonder his father had been fooled by this creep. Trotter wielded persuasion
with true skill.
Conscious he needed to stick to his script, Romy smiled and
projected himself warming up to the man. “I appreciate the opportunity to
return Fromer’s favor. Work on the other side of the harbor has grown dull.
Everyone’s afraid of Fromer and his network. But the Threaders always prove
entertaining.” Romy wondered if he should, then pushed the question. “Not to
mention your centerfold next door. Woman’s got a temper to match her looks,
hotter than flame.”
“You got that right,” Daket murmured. He glanced at his
brother, and they both looked away from Trotter as the sudden silence grew
oppressive.
“Min, Daket, leave me with our new hire.”
“Sure thing, boss,” they said as one and vacated the office.
“Have a seat, Luke.”
Romy sat, curious to see Trotter’s reaction to mention of
his neighbor. Just thinking about her made Romy hard again, and he was
irritated to find Trotter’s aura glowing a bright red with angry passion.
“Tara Drake is off limits to you and everyone else here.
She’s trouble, but trouble I’m handling. I don’t want you spooking her or
pissing her off. God knows the woman takes affront to everything to do with
Talson Shipping as it is.”
“Why? You’re a charming guy, and Talson Shipping brings
revenue to this shitty little port. What’s her problem?” Romy pushed feelings
of empathy for his new boss.
Trotter sighed. “I wish I knew.”
You’re selling illegal Majesty, asshole, and she knows
it. Worse, she’s blaming Talson Shipping for your crimes. And if you haven’t
handled her by now, it’s because she’s as immune to your persuasion as she was
to my mind-reading
. He’d done his best to probe her and her brother about
Talson Shipping and what she knew about the area, but she and her brother had
remained closed to him. A rarity in itself.
Tara grew more and more intriguing.
Trotter explained,
“Her brother is Killer Drake, a
champion boxer with a poor temper. Killer’s a good person to have on your side.
He’s popular with the press, the mayor and this town. And his fists are lethal.
The last man to screw with his sister wound up in the hospital with a broken
jaw.”
“So you’re afraid of him?”
Not a smart thing to say, but Romy needed to see just what
Trotter was made of.
“No.”
You idiot
hung on the tip of Trotter’s tongue,
though he didn’t say it. Romy felt his razor-sharp disapproval almost like a
physical blow. Again, that impressive persuasion. “I’m not afraid, I’m smart.
In time, Tara will come to me on her own.” He smiled and Romy saw the onset of
violence pooling in Trotter’s aura. “I’ll straighten her out. You do what
you’re told, and we’ll all get along.”
“Right-O.” Romy stood, recalling one vital piece of
information he needed to share on the off chance Fromer’s real pyro showed up.
“Mr. Trotter? One more thing. Fromer didn’t want me to mention it, but there
were rumors of the police trying to infiltrate the organization by using a man
undercover. I wouldn’t be surprised if trouble heads this way. Majesty has a
way of making the cops look twice. You know?”
Trotter nodded sharply and looked to the exit. Romy left,
sliding the door closed behind him. He found the Yals waiting for him.
“Lucky for you, you passed inspection.” Daket’s vision of
Romy’s throat slashed, his body dragged under the harbor’s water by a concrete
ball felt all too real. Apparently, the Yals had seen a lot of bad in the time
they’d been on the yard. But to Romy’s surprise, it didn’t seem as if the
brothers had participated in anything worse than security services and the
occasional beat-down of Otra who deserved it. He wondered at their psychic
talents. Best to know everyone’s scorecard at the beginning.
“I’m a pyro. What are you two?” he asked even as he began to
make sense of their different energies. Yet something made it hard to see
exactly what should have been obvious about the pair. Did Trotter’s influence
exist this far, that he could shield his personnel from invasion?
“I’m a telekinetic,” Daket said.
“And I’m a telepath.” Min gave him a curious once-over.
“Can’t read you, though. Like a closed book.”
“Hey, I work around Fromer and his friends. You want to stay
alive, you keep thoughts tight, your secrets even tighter.”
They nodded at his reasoning and showed him around the yard.
As they walked, they made conversation, asking where he was staying, what he
thought of Port Chase as a whole, and settled on his new favorite topic of
conversation.
“Hell, yeah, I’ve been wanting to hit that piece of ass next
door ever since we got here,” Min admitted quietly as they sat in one of the
security stations. Several monitors viewed the southern end of the yard,
showing nothing and nobody currently working at this end. “But you even look at
Tara the wrong way and her brother’s breathing down your throat.”
“Not to mention Trotter going off the deep end,” Daket
added. “Man has it bad.”
“Why doesn’t he just work his mojo on her?” Romy wanted to
hear them confirm what he thought he knew.
A moment of silence passed, and he had the uneasy suspicion
he was missing something. But if the brothers had communicated telepathically,
he should have sensed it. He could have pried for answers, but he had to keep a
lid on his energy. As it was, the damn stuff continually seethed inside him,
seeking an outlet.
Daket answered, “Doesn’t work on her. Hell, nothing seems
to. I can’t move a thing near her place, and Min can’t read her. It’s like her
place is a neutral zone. Trotter thinks it has something to do with that OQ
statue in her place. His whore was supposed to grab it from her last night.”
“But?”
“But after she blew Trotter and left, she disappeared. Min
and I weren’t working last night, but rumor has it Tara Drake killed her.”
Romy blinked and accepted the bottle of Otra Fine Ale that
suggested the Yals weren’t as common as they appeared. Daket grabbed one for
himself using his telekinesis.
Romy shrugged. “I don’t know. I met her, looking for this
place. I didn’t mention it to Trotter because he almost lost it ordering me to
leave her alone. But she seemed pleasant until she heard the name Talson.”
“Pleasant.” Min snorted. “Made you hard, right? It’s like
she’s in Selection, but you can sense she’s not. It’s weird.”
Selection,
of course
. Romy now understood what had
been so appealing about the female, aside from her looks. Selection worked like
a female’s heat. When a female Otra entered that special time, she sought
either a mate or readied to produce offspring. Her pheromones went crazy,
attracting any and every Otra male in sight if she wasn’t mated. Yet he hadn’t
sensed that when he’d seen her this morning. He’d been attracted as hell, but
there’d been nothing hormonal about it but his own overeager glands.
“Oh look, wait. There she is.” Daket pointed at the screen
in the upper corner.
Romy leaned closer to the monitors and stared, absorbing her
every detail and committing it to memory. Long, wavy hair hung in a ponytail
down her back. Her skin seemed almost incandescent, glowing with a sweaty sheen
under the harsh summer sun…where it wasn’t blue from her knees to her ankles.
Hmm. Another piece of the puzzle. The woman was either a house painter or an
artist.
“Fuck me, she’s hot.” Daket spread his legs on his chair,
sporting an erection impossible to miss, to which his brother rolled his eyes.
“Hell, Daket. Have a little dignity. She’s walking across
her yard, not naked and panting. I swear, you need to get laid.”
“Yeah, well so do you. Or is that a nightstick in your
pants?”
Min chuckled and the two bantered back and forth. Unlike
humans, Otra had very few hang-ups when it came to sexuality, though many Otra
didn’t look favorably on human-Otra interaction when it came to mating. Fucking
a human was fine, but nothing more permanent than that. Romy didn’t care. He
had a human second-mother, a human sister-in-law and a half human
sister-in-law. Love trumped genetics any day.
“I think it’s time I found a woman or two myself,” Romy
added and eased into their camaraderie. Before he knew it, he’d made plans for
a night on the town with the Yals and readied himself to go deeper undercover.
* * * * *
Tara mumbled to herself between swear words, “It’s not as if
he’s anything special. So what? Another Otra who just happened to be nicer and
classier than the other knobs Trotter has working for him. But if he’s working
for Trotter, the man can’t be a saint. Far from it.”
She grunted and hosed down her legs covered in cerulean
blue. The sun had begun to set, and she’d finally finished washing the paint
off her body.
“Last time I let Susie’s kids play in the house while I’m
painting,” she muttered. But she knew she lied. The next time Susie had to work
overtime to feed her kids, Tara would agree to watch the little hellions.
Romec appeared out of nowhere and followed her inside with a
soft
meow
, and she realized dinnertime had come and gone.
“Oh wow. I’m starving, and I’m sure you are too.” The cat
meowed again. “I have nothing left. Time for the grocery store.”
Half an hour later, she arrived at a fairly decent grocery
on the other side of the harbor. Port Chase had its share of beauty and the
high life on the north side of the city. Uptown. Where Mannie lived in luxury,
she reminded herself as she grabbed a cart and entered the store.
Uptown,
where I should be living.
The minute she thought about leaving, her mind
focused on the spiral of pain peeling through the south side of the harbor and
fixed her with a hell of a headache.
She still had much to mend. The Majesty addicts lying across
the street and in the abandoned buildings so close. The medically hopeless
begging the have-nots in the neighborhood for food and money for medicine. She
grimaced, feeling overwhelmed.