VIII. If
Julia lay awake, listening to the sounds of aircraft, boats and cars that drifted in through the window she'd cracked open. Manfred snored, deep and even, beside her; she lay as far away from him as the narrow bed would allow, glad she had slept on the trip from Mars. If she fell asleep now, she risked losing control of the situation – although she hoped the combination of the alcohol and the drug would not keep him down past the time they were supposed to leave in the morning.
The first dawn light pinked the sky when he stirred, no more than a hitch in his breathing. She grimaced and stretched, sliding over and lifting his arm to curl beneath it, trying to avoid any more contact than was necessary to give him the illusion he'd fallen asleep in that position. She held her breath for a good thirty seconds, but he did not move again, and by slow degrees she relaxed. She was drifting in hazy half-consciousness, daydreaming again of that first night in Tharsis City, when Vicious poked his head in the door.
He surveyed the scene with no attempt to hide his disgust and stage- whispered, "We have to leave in an hour."
Julia's gave him a look to acknowledge the order, waving him away. He withdrew after a moment's hesitation, closing the door softly.
"Manfred?" she asked in a low voice. He mumbled but did not move, so she turned to face him, putting a hand on his shoulder to shake it gently. "Hey, sleepyhead," she said a bit louder, "it's time for us to get up."
He opened his eye, bleary and disoriented, and blinked as he took in the scene. She kept her expression neutral as he stared at her, eyes roaming over her body, and held still despite the stench that wafted over when he yawned.
"I..." He blinked again, ran a rough hand over her breast, and seemed to be fighting confusion.
She smiled at him and kissed him on the cheek. "Who gets the first shower? Vicious is up already - I heard him earlier, but you looked like you needed to sleep."
He sat up, and she shivered as the blankets followed his body, leaving her completely exposed. He sat staring at her, rubbing his jaw.
"I'll go," he replied groggily. She knew he was trying to fill in the blank that began with manhandling her into the car and ended waking up next to her. He seemed about to say something else, but finally stumbled out of the bed and lurched to the bathroom door, slamming it behind him. She heard a clatter, a thump, and then the sound of violent vomiting.
Vicious knocked on the bedroom door and then opened it without pause. He looked from Julia to the closed bathroom door and whispered, "Do we have a problem?"
She grinned. "No."
He nodded and closed the door again; she got up to dress, waiting until she heard the sound of the shower to join him in the living room.
For a moment, she felt fear as he crossed the room to meet her, long strides closing the gap. She couldn't read his expression, but he simply wrapped his arms around her and pressed his face to her neck, and she relaxed, returning the embrace.
"I was wrong," he murmured, his tone more human than she'd ever heard it. "I was wrong, and I apologize."
She pulled back and took his face in her hands. "Wrong about what?" she prompted.
The admission was already more than she had hoped for, so she was surprised when he replied.
"Wrong about you. Wrong about your motivations. Wrong to think my solution was the only one that would make the situation right." He dropped his gaze and raised his hands to take hers. "I do not deserve forgiveness, but I hope this can be a new beginning for you, the way it is for me."
Her head swam, lack of sleep and confusion putting her off-balance. She wanted desperately to believe him, but doubt and fear would not allow it. Her heart pounded in her chest as she said, "I loved you. I loved you and you told me to go. I loved you and you asked me to betray you."
He raised his eyes to meet hers and she fought to hide her anguish. "And I was wrong," he repeated, "to think you could not handle yourself."
She sighed. "This has been too long and strange a day, Vicious. We can talk on the way home." She pulled free of his grasp and turned away as Manfred emerged from the bedroom, dressed but still foggy, swaying when he walked.
"I need a shower," she said as evenly as she could manage. "Do you want me to come along this morning?"
"Of courshe," Manfred said enthusiastically, at the same time Vicious replied, "It won't be necessary." The two men looked at each other, and Manfred deferred, telling Julia, "Make yourshelf right at home."
"You're very kind." She closed the bedroom door, glad to be alone and glad to leave Vicious to the task of assuring his business partner the night before had gone as planned.
She heard them talking and preparing to leave, but tried not to listen to what was being said. She climbed into the shower with steam rising all around her, and found herself too weary to stand, so she sat back in the tub and let the water pour down, washing away the stale smell of Manfred's bed, too much perfume, and the smoke from the club that clung to her hair.
Part of her had instantly crumbled when Vicious apologized, and she hated the feeling. She had survived for the last ten years by not trusting anyone and following her gut instincts. His apology seemed sincere, but it had come from the same mouth that ordered her execution if she tried to leave. She knew so little of his past, though she'd intuited their similarities and understood those similarities made them a good match. She never questioned whether he was trustworthy, but she realized she had confused loyalty with trustworthiness – or at least, she had misappropriated his loyalty to the Syndicate and thought it extended to her as well. He'd never told her he loved her; told her she was beautiful, yes, and talented, and charming, and irresistible – but with growing dismay, she realized he'd never expressed anything about his feelings for her because they were all wrapped up in what he saw her doing, rather than who she was.
She scrubbed off the last of the night before and dressed. Since the silent, empty apartment held nothing of interest, she finally settled on the couch, and sleep took her before she could think any more about how the last strange day had played out.
***
Late morning sun glinted off the buildings and the bay as Vicious' zipcraft ascended toward the gate. He'd had almost nothing to say since the meeting. Settled in the jump seat, Julia tuned out the radio's familiar chatter and watched the scenery until they had passed the last guide ring.
Vicious set the autopilot and turned halfway in his seat to look at her. She looked back, unsure why their usually companionable silence seemed so strained now.
"I gave Manfred a few things to think about," he finally said. "I'm certain he was suspicious, but you were right that he would not admit it."
Julia chuckled. "I figured as much when he woke up. If he wouldn't say anything to me, he'd never let you know he couldn't stay awake to deflower your wife." She leaned her head against the bubble of the cockpit.
"I meant what I said this morning," he went on. "You have a different approach. I admire that. It can be valuable to me as much as to you."
"What would you have done if I really had sex with him?" she asked, cautious but hoping his frame of mind would temper whatever bothered him about the sentimental nature of the question.
He sighed. "The Van -"
She stopped him. "I didn't ask about the Van. I want to know what you would have felt."
"I would have felt disgust," he replied.
"At me?"
"At both of you. At the thought of you with him. Probably at the thought of you with me."
"Well, then, I'm glad I handled it my way." She tried not to make it sound like an accusation.
"I have already said as much." He turned forward again and she watched him fiddle with controls that needed no adjustment.
"Vicious, I have to know something. The truth," she added.
He didn't face her, but nodded for her to continue.
"Did you send Spike to kill me if I tried to leave?"
She heard him inhale sharply. "He told you," he said, his voice flat.
She was glad he couldn't see her face; it made the lie easier. "No. You just did."
He squared his shoulders. "I gave him an order I knew he wouldn't carry out."
She considered this, and remembered thinking much the same thing that night. "You took the chance he would."
"I trusted he would be able to convince you to stay, if you wanted to go - though I also did not believe you would do it."
"Don't play games like that with me again, Vicious," she admonished. "I did nothing to lose your trust on an order with your behavior."
He whirled in his seat, irritation on his face, but it faded when he saw her furious expression. "I doubted myself more than I doubted you," he admitted.
She searched his eyes. "Promise me. You want honesty and reliability from me. You owe me the same in return."
"I promise," he said softly, looking down, and she didn't have the energy to disbelieve him any longer.
"All right, then. A fresh start for both of us?"
He nodded. "And one that will go well, I believe. What I learned this morning will please the Van."
She didn't answer; he always had both eyes on business, but for the first time it bothered her. She wanted this to be about them, two people, rather than about them as Syndicate members. He went back to the control panel and she shifted in her seat, looking for a more comfortable position. At least the silence didn't seem so ominous now; the hypnotic slipstream of hyperspace flashed by outside the cockpit and her mind wandered through the years before Tharsis City, searching for anything that made it seem better than where she was now.
***
The insistent buzzing of her comm. woke Julia from half-slumber and she rummaged around her seat for it. They were out of the slipstream, in the guide rings to Mars, and now that they were back in range she saw a half- dozen message notifications – all from Spike. His number appeared in the I.D. window this time as well, and she pressed the answer key as she rubbed the grit from her eyes. "Spike," she said, stifling a yawn.
"Yo." She held the comm. so he could see that she was inside Vicious' ship, and he hesitated.
"We're just coming in," she told him. "I haven't heard the messages."
"Oh. Well, never mind. I was just checking to see if you two were back yet." He made a "don't" motion with his hand and she nodded.
"I'll see you tomorrow," she replied. "Do you need to talk to Vicious?"
"Nope. Tell him hello." Spike looked downcast as he cut the connection.
"Messages?" Vicious asked.
"Two," she invented, thinking it seemed like a safe number. "Did you tell him where we were going?"
"Yes." He took the craft out of autopilot and began the diagonal traverse, crossing over the planet's surface toward the city lights. "I'll come to your apartment."
"Good. I need to change." Julia rubbed ruefully at the insides of her elbows, where the leather had dug deep creases while they flew.
***
"You are the most beautiful woman in the universe," Vicious declared when Julia emerged from her bedroom in simple – and far more comfortable – black pants and a tank top.
"Beautiful and ravenous," she replied. "How can you go so long without eating?"
He shrugged. "I grew up hungry. Got bored of feeling it."
"So did I. And I don't like feeling it now that I don't have to," she said over her shoulder as she rummaged in the fridge.
She stood up with a container of pasta from the night they went to Henshai's and bumped directly into Vicious. He took the container from her hand and set it on the counter before wrapping his arms around her waist. "You'd best eat well," he whispered in her ear as his hands slid lower. "I owe you tonight."
In spite of everything, her body responded to his as it had done from the beginning – with a flush of heat and an ache for more contact. She raised her head and kissed him, surprised at how comforting his familiar smell and taste could be, after the long night spent beside Manfred. He'd learned her body and reactions well over their two years, and wasted no time employing his most successful techniques – gently biting down on her tongue as he slid his hand beneath her shirt to graze her shoulder blades with his fingernails. She shivered, pressing against him, but he pulled back with a wicked smile.
"Eat your dinner," he urged. "Get your strength up." He sat down on the couch and crossed his legs, waving a hand at her. "Go on."
Between the hunger and the confusion, she was glad of a respite. Vicious' apology and his much-changed demeanor ever since morning on Ganymede weighed heavily in his favor, but it had been barely three days, counting all the hours in travel, since he'd ordered Spike to make her stay. She wanted to believe his explanation more than anything. Even so, in some corner of her mind, she found it disingenuous – Vicious trusted Spike in a battle more than any other person. When the three of them first met, Vicious had said of his partner: "He fears neither death nor remorse." And Julia had seen for herself how Spike's easygoing personality could invert like a sea anemone, turning to armor and venom in the blink of an eye. As good as he was with a firearm, she knew his real skill was in hand-to-hand combat, and that he enjoyed it. So when he'd sat on the couch – where Vicious sat now, she thought with a pang of something like remorse – and talked to her, she'd been shocked at how human and gentle he could be. Maybe Vicious knew this side of him, but she doubted it.
As she licked the last of the pesto from her fork, Vicious rose and extended his hand. "Please," he said, his voice a husky baritone, "I'm hungry too."
She knew the look he gave her well, but tonight it seemed tempered by need. His self-control had been his most impressive asset when they first became lovers, and she was surprised when he lifted her in his arms and carried her into the bedroom. Confusion gave way to abandon, though, when he slid a hand down the front of her pants and drove his fingers deep. He watched her writhe, propped on one elbow with a smile on his lips, leaning in every once in a while to kiss her throat; when he'd brought her to the brink, he released her and offered, "help me with my tie?"
She turned to him, flushed and glassy-eyed. "My pleasure," she breathed, and rose to her knees, loosening the knot with slow, deliberate twists. "This is my favorite part."
He chuckled deep in his chest. "I think you're lying."
"I'm not," she countered. "I love unwrapping presents." Some part of her felt like it was watching the proceedings; this was so familiar, their dance of words while they undressed, and yet she couldn't believe she was doing it.
She pulled the strip of cloth free and went to work on the hooks of his shirt while he shrugged out of his jacket. When she had his shirt off, she sat back on her heels to look. "I don't think I can wait until Christmas."
He lifted her tank top over her head with a single rough yank. "We can have anything we want, whenever we want," he replied, and pushed her back so he could remove her leggings. "Someday, it will all be ours."
It was a familiar duet – a tangle of words, challenges and their bodies. Words gave way to a passionate kiss, broken when he entered her and they both gasped in pleasure. He had little need of his disciplined stamina – her body began to shake almost immediately, and he growled with satisfaction as they came together. Propped on his elbows, with his hair hanging down around her face like a curtain, she saw again the man she had fallen for, and didn't care if the image was enhanced by euphoria. He leaned in to kiss her, much more gently than before, and stroked her side as he shifted to lie beside her.
"Am I forgiven?" he asked.
"Do you love me?" She drifted in a pleasant fog; the revelation had bothered her since the day before, though she managed to make it sound like a nonchalant question.
He did not look at her. "Love is a weakness that limits our choices."
"I am not weak."
He hesitated. "Sooner or later, you will be confronted with a choice between love and survival. There will be no third door, no trinket in your handbag or weapon in your arsenal that can make it anything other than a decision to live or perish. Survival is the strongest instinct, Julia, and that means we are all doomed to betray those we think we love."
She shook her head. "Your whole life in the Syndicate negates that idea, Vicious."
He chuckled and sat up, the moonlight frosting the tips of his long gray hair and etching the shape of his muscles in white. "Why have you never asked me about my life before I came here?"
"I've lived the kind of life I don't like to talk about. I can recognize the same in other people," she replied. "But you can't blame me for wanting to know what I mean to you, why you're still here, after everything that's happened in the past few days."
He leaned back, looking down at his feet, and did not answer for a while. She felt herself drifting, watching him breathe, the rise and fall of his chest like an old black and white movie in the bluish light. Finally, he spoke.
"Julia, I am not a sociopath. I've just learned firsthand what limits love has."
She looked up at him, frowning. "That's a little vague."
He nodded. "I have never told this story to anyone."
"Please tell it to me," she said gently.
He hung his head and spoke with his eyes closed. "My father used to launder money for the White Tigers through his Mono-garage. For years he skimmed a little extra every transaction. He grew careless and greedy."
Julia snapped alert at the mention of a White Tiger connection, though she tried not to show her surprise. Vicious' desire to eliminate the rival Syndicate altogether was no secret, but this certainly was.
"He was caught. I was thirteen when they came the first time. They broke his toes and forced me to watch." His voice was steady, rote, as though he'd told the story in his head a thousand times but never had to deliver it. "He agreed to work on all of their Mono-craft for free, to work off the debt. But he could not make time for his own customers with everything they brought him. It went on forever – two years, I think. My mother left. He sent me out to steal parts when he couldn't get anyone to give him credit anymore."
Julia moved closer, laying a hand against his hip. "I'm sorry. I never imagined."
He didn't seem to hear her. "I woke up one morning, and he was gone. I was sure they had come and killed him. I wanted to go out and hunt them down, kill them all, but before I'd even gotten dressed, one of the Tigers rolled up in a Mono-racer and asked where he was. And I realized he had left... left me there to whatever fate the Syndicate would assign me."
She sat up and wrapped her arms around his chest, tucking her head beneath his chin, where she could feel the rumble of his voice.
"They took me back to some shopfront and grilled me for hours. Who did he know; what friends did we correspond with? The more they hounded me, the more I began to think I knew where he had gone. He always talked about a place on Earth, a city in the shadow of a mountain where the meteors, he said, just passed on by. I never really believed him – but I wondered if he believed it himself.
"It did not even occur to me to tell them where I thought he was at first. I was so focused on not letting them wear me down that I just kept refusing to answer. They broke my fingers, my toes, electrocuted me."
She shivered, and for the first time he acknowledged her, putting an arm around her body.
"Eventually they cuffed me to a chair and left me alone. I must have been there a day, maybe two, in a storeroom. It ran together. When they returned, they told me they had put out word they would kill me if my father didn't show himself – and he did not."
He moved back to look into her eyes. "Julia, everyone says the love between parent and child is the strongest, most unconditional love in the universe, but it doesn't matter. I know because he never came back."
"They let you go?" she asked, trying to keep her voice from breaking.
He smiled then, but the expression was terrifying, joyless and haunted. "I told them I had realized where he was during the time they left me sitting by myself. And I told them I would give him up if they promised to let me go."
"Oh," she breathed, and he looked down again, though he cradled her face in his hand in a strange, tender gesture. "Was he there?"
"We all have an innate will to survive. He had it, and I forgave him for it. I had it, and I managed to succeed. They must have found him, because I still live."
Julia tightened her hold on him, her mind racing. All this time, he had known how similar their pasts were – because she had told him, almost at the beginning. But he had kept his own hidden, and now she was the only one to know his secret, his motivation, the weight he carried.
He returned the embrace at first, burying his face in her hair, but when a few seconds had passed he abruptly stood and began to dress.
"You don't have to go," she said. "I wish you wouldn't."
His grim expression matched his voice. "I have to make my report to the Van." He pulled on his boots.
"Let me tie your tie," she offered. "Please."
He came to sit on the edge of the bed, looking off into space. She tied the knot slowly, unsure what to say. It was Vicious who broke the silence.
"The Syndicate has taken care of me, because I fulfill my obligations to them, because I am useful to them. And one day, it will be mine, because everyone else is forever weighing their emotions and their desires against their obligations. You wanted to know what you are to me. You are the one pleasure I allow myself, the one person whose happiness can make me happy as well. I want you to be with me when I take over the Red Dragon. I know I will be stronger if you are."
He pulled her close, kissing her jaw, her cheek, her eyelid, her forehead. "You surprised me and impressed me on Ganymede. If I loved anyone, I would love you."
Before she could think of an answer, he rose and was gone.
Julia wasn't sure how long she sat, replaying Vicious' story in her mind. She didn't catch his meaning at first, but it came to her now that he had not only been betrayed by his father; his attitude stemmed from the fact that he had returned the betrayal in kind. She wondered if his mother still lived, or if she had been used as similar leverage, and realized Vicious either wondered the same thing, or knew the answer.
He was always adamant that business drove his desire to shut down the White Tiger syndicate. The one time they had spoken of the goal in detail, Spike's opposition to it was a source of much debate. For her part, Julia sided with Spike - though the existence of the two clans made for frequent bloodshed, it also divided the loyalties of the ISSP and prevented them from making any real attempt to shut down the syndicates altogether.
Thinking of Spike, she remembered the messages on her comm. and went to get it, shivering in the night air. She returned to bed with her bathrobe and the comm., pressing the playback key.
Spike's face appeared on the screen. His surroundings looked oddly familiar. "Hey. Please call me when you get back."
She skipped forward.
"I hope you're all right. Check in?"
"Annie was asking about you. Thought I would see if you were back -"
She chuckled and skipped again.
"Yo."
"Julia, I'm worried. Thought you'd be back by now."
"It's Friday. Friday afternoon. If I don't hear from you tonight, I'm coming looking."
She sighed. Apparently, he'd had the same fear she did before they'd left for Ganymede. She checked the time - barely ten - and dialed his code.
He picked up on the first ring, and she switched on the lamp, realizing he wouldn't see anything onscreen. "Hey!" he greeted her enthusiastically.
"I'm fine, Spike." She smiled at the camera. "But your concern is sweet."
He looked embarrassed. "I just - Vicious seemed better when he left, but you worried me when I called you."
"I'm sorry. I was worried myself, but it went off without a hitch."
"Who'd you go see - Manfred?"
She wrinkled her nose. "You know him?"
"Met him once, but I didn't remember until after you'd left. He didn't try anything on you, did he? The guy's a world-class weirdo."
She realized she never wanted to talk about those two days with anyone again. "I didn't have any trouble dealing with him," she said, looking for a way to change the subject. "Where are you?"
He grinned. "Look familiar?"
"Yes, but then again, so do you."
He turned the comm. around in a slow pan and it came to her. "What are you doing in my room?"
"Well, technically, you're in your room, and I'm in my room." His face reappeared. "I'm renting from Annie."
She raised her eyebrows. "Rina finally kicked you out? I figured you'd just live in the library."
He looked a little sheepish. "I ditched. But the problem with the library is that everybody wanders in and out. Except you. Why didn't you ever wander in?"
She laughed. "I always figured I'd wake you up if I went in there."
"I'm not that lazy," he came back, putting on his best wounded face. "I like it in there because I can read."
"You can?" she bantered, grinning. "I always thought you were a thug."
"You slay me," he moaned, clapping a hand to his chest, but he was smiling as well. "I'm a literate thug, I'll have you know."
She nodded. "And probably the nicest one I know."
"Don't let that get out," he said with mock seriousness. "Vicious would banish me to the ice mines."
There was no avoiding the subject. "I got him to admit what he sent you here to do," she said. "I thought you should know, in case he asks you about it."
He didn't answer at first. She watched his expression transform from amusement to worry. "You told him what I said?"
"No, of course not. I asked if he sent you to kill me, he asked if you told me, and I said he'd answered me by asking the question."
Spike chuckled. "You're good. Remind me not to get on your bad side."
She smiled. "I meant it, Spike, that I trust you. And that you're nice. But I won't let on."
He seemed far away, and stretched, cracking his neck. "Thank you," he finally said, "on both accounts. Where's our better third now?"
"Went to see the Van about a manufacturer."
"How'd he manage to get that bit of information?"
She looked down. "That was my job."
Comprehension dawned on his features. "Please tell me -"
She shook her head. "It's not important. The problem is fixed. I'm fine."
He frowned. "Vicious is a bastard."
"He wanted to be, but I'm smarter than he gives me credit for."
"And that's saying something," Spike replied, still looking concerned. "But if you say so, I believe you."
"I say so. And I should turn in. But I didn't want you worrying all night."
"I won't," he said, sheepish again. "Come see me tomorrow. You know the address."
She chuckled. "I will. Good night." She pressed the disconnect and lay back to stare at the ceiling, marveling that life could slide back to normal with as little effort as it had turned nightmarish.
Julia lay awake, listening to the sounds of aircraft, boats and cars that drifted in through the window she'd cracked open. Manfred snored, deep and even, beside her; she lay as far away from him as the narrow bed would allow, glad she had slept on the trip from Mars. If she fell asleep now, she risked losing control of the situation – although she hoped the combination of the alcohol and the drug would not keep him down past the time they were supposed to leave in the morning.
The first dawn light pinked the sky when he stirred, no more than a hitch in his breathing. She grimaced and stretched, sliding over and lifting his arm to curl beneath it, trying to avoid any more contact than was necessary to give him the illusion he'd fallen asleep in that position. She held her breath for a good thirty seconds, but he did not move again, and by slow degrees she relaxed. She was drifting in hazy half-consciousness, daydreaming again of that first night in Tharsis City, when Vicious poked his head in the door.
He surveyed the scene with no attempt to hide his disgust and stage- whispered, "We have to leave in an hour."
Julia's gave him a look to acknowledge the order, waving him away. He withdrew after a moment's hesitation, closing the door softly.
"Manfred?" she asked in a low voice. He mumbled but did not move, so she turned to face him, putting a hand on his shoulder to shake it gently. "Hey, sleepyhead," she said a bit louder, "it's time for us to get up."
He opened his eye, bleary and disoriented, and blinked as he took in the scene. She kept her expression neutral as he stared at her, eyes roaming over her body, and held still despite the stench that wafted over when he yawned.
"I..." He blinked again, ran a rough hand over her breast, and seemed to be fighting confusion.
She smiled at him and kissed him on the cheek. "Who gets the first shower? Vicious is up already - I heard him earlier, but you looked like you needed to sleep."
He sat up, and she shivered as the blankets followed his body, leaving her completely exposed. He sat staring at her, rubbing his jaw.
"I'll go," he replied groggily. She knew he was trying to fill in the blank that began with manhandling her into the car and ended waking up next to her. He seemed about to say something else, but finally stumbled out of the bed and lurched to the bathroom door, slamming it behind him. She heard a clatter, a thump, and then the sound of violent vomiting.
Vicious knocked on the bedroom door and then opened it without pause. He looked from Julia to the closed bathroom door and whispered, "Do we have a problem?"
She grinned. "No."
He nodded and closed the door again; she got up to dress, waiting until she heard the sound of the shower to join him in the living room.
For a moment, she felt fear as he crossed the room to meet her, long strides closing the gap. She couldn't read his expression, but he simply wrapped his arms around her and pressed his face to her neck, and she relaxed, returning the embrace.
"I was wrong," he murmured, his tone more human than she'd ever heard it. "I was wrong, and I apologize."
She pulled back and took his face in her hands. "Wrong about what?" she prompted.
The admission was already more than she had hoped for, so she was surprised when he replied.
"Wrong about you. Wrong about your motivations. Wrong to think my solution was the only one that would make the situation right." He dropped his gaze and raised his hands to take hers. "I do not deserve forgiveness, but I hope this can be a new beginning for you, the way it is for me."
Her head swam, lack of sleep and confusion putting her off-balance. She wanted desperately to believe him, but doubt and fear would not allow it. Her heart pounded in her chest as she said, "I loved you. I loved you and you told me to go. I loved you and you asked me to betray you."
He raised his eyes to meet hers and she fought to hide her anguish. "And I was wrong," he repeated, "to think you could not handle yourself."
She sighed. "This has been too long and strange a day, Vicious. We can talk on the way home." She pulled free of his grasp and turned away as Manfred emerged from the bedroom, dressed but still foggy, swaying when he walked.
"I need a shower," she said as evenly as she could manage. "Do you want me to come along this morning?"
"Of courshe," Manfred said enthusiastically, at the same time Vicious replied, "It won't be necessary." The two men looked at each other, and Manfred deferred, telling Julia, "Make yourshelf right at home."
"You're very kind." She closed the bedroom door, glad to be alone and glad to leave Vicious to the task of assuring his business partner the night before had gone as planned.
She heard them talking and preparing to leave, but tried not to listen to what was being said. She climbed into the shower with steam rising all around her, and found herself too weary to stand, so she sat back in the tub and let the water pour down, washing away the stale smell of Manfred's bed, too much perfume, and the smoke from the club that clung to her hair.
Part of her had instantly crumbled when Vicious apologized, and she hated the feeling. She had survived for the last ten years by not trusting anyone and following her gut instincts. His apology seemed sincere, but it had come from the same mouth that ordered her execution if she tried to leave. She knew so little of his past, though she'd intuited their similarities and understood those similarities made them a good match. She never questioned whether he was trustworthy, but she realized she had confused loyalty with trustworthiness – or at least, she had misappropriated his loyalty to the Syndicate and thought it extended to her as well. He'd never told her he loved her; told her she was beautiful, yes, and talented, and charming, and irresistible – but with growing dismay, she realized he'd never expressed anything about his feelings for her because they were all wrapped up in what he saw her doing, rather than who she was.
She scrubbed off the last of the night before and dressed. Since the silent, empty apartment held nothing of interest, she finally settled on the couch, and sleep took her before she could think any more about how the last strange day had played out.
***
Late morning sun glinted off the buildings and the bay as Vicious' zipcraft ascended toward the gate. He'd had almost nothing to say since the meeting. Settled in the jump seat, Julia tuned out the radio's familiar chatter and watched the scenery until they had passed the last guide ring.
Vicious set the autopilot and turned halfway in his seat to look at her. She looked back, unsure why their usually companionable silence seemed so strained now.
"I gave Manfred a few things to think about," he finally said. "I'm certain he was suspicious, but you were right that he would not admit it."
Julia chuckled. "I figured as much when he woke up. If he wouldn't say anything to me, he'd never let you know he couldn't stay awake to deflower your wife." She leaned her head against the bubble of the cockpit.
"I meant what I said this morning," he went on. "You have a different approach. I admire that. It can be valuable to me as much as to you."
"What would you have done if I really had sex with him?" she asked, cautious but hoping his frame of mind would temper whatever bothered him about the sentimental nature of the question.
He sighed. "The Van -"
She stopped him. "I didn't ask about the Van. I want to know what you would have felt."
"I would have felt disgust," he replied.
"At me?"
"At both of you. At the thought of you with him. Probably at the thought of you with me."
"Well, then, I'm glad I handled it my way." She tried not to make it sound like an accusation.
"I have already said as much." He turned forward again and she watched him fiddle with controls that needed no adjustment.
"Vicious, I have to know something. The truth," she added.
He didn't face her, but nodded for her to continue.
"Did you send Spike to kill me if I tried to leave?"
She heard him inhale sharply. "He told you," he said, his voice flat.
She was glad he couldn't see her face; it made the lie easier. "No. You just did."
He squared his shoulders. "I gave him an order I knew he wouldn't carry out."
She considered this, and remembered thinking much the same thing that night. "You took the chance he would."
"I trusted he would be able to convince you to stay, if you wanted to go - though I also did not believe you would do it."
"Don't play games like that with me again, Vicious," she admonished. "I did nothing to lose your trust on an order with your behavior."
He whirled in his seat, irritation on his face, but it faded when he saw her furious expression. "I doubted myself more than I doubted you," he admitted.
She searched his eyes. "Promise me. You want honesty and reliability from me. You owe me the same in return."
"I promise," he said softly, looking down, and she didn't have the energy to disbelieve him any longer.
"All right, then. A fresh start for both of us?"
He nodded. "And one that will go well, I believe. What I learned this morning will please the Van."
She didn't answer; he always had both eyes on business, but for the first time it bothered her. She wanted this to be about them, two people, rather than about them as Syndicate members. He went back to the control panel and she shifted in her seat, looking for a more comfortable position. At least the silence didn't seem so ominous now; the hypnotic slipstream of hyperspace flashed by outside the cockpit and her mind wandered through the years before Tharsis City, searching for anything that made it seem better than where she was now.
***
The insistent buzzing of her comm. woke Julia from half-slumber and she rummaged around her seat for it. They were out of the slipstream, in the guide rings to Mars, and now that they were back in range she saw a half- dozen message notifications – all from Spike. His number appeared in the I.D. window this time as well, and she pressed the answer key as she rubbed the grit from her eyes. "Spike," she said, stifling a yawn.
"Yo." She held the comm. so he could see that she was inside Vicious' ship, and he hesitated.
"We're just coming in," she told him. "I haven't heard the messages."
"Oh. Well, never mind. I was just checking to see if you two were back yet." He made a "don't" motion with his hand and she nodded.
"I'll see you tomorrow," she replied. "Do you need to talk to Vicious?"
"Nope. Tell him hello." Spike looked downcast as he cut the connection.
"Messages?" Vicious asked.
"Two," she invented, thinking it seemed like a safe number. "Did you tell him where we were going?"
"Yes." He took the craft out of autopilot and began the diagonal traverse, crossing over the planet's surface toward the city lights. "I'll come to your apartment."
"Good. I need to change." Julia rubbed ruefully at the insides of her elbows, where the leather had dug deep creases while they flew.
***
"You are the most beautiful woman in the universe," Vicious declared when Julia emerged from her bedroom in simple – and far more comfortable – black pants and a tank top.
"Beautiful and ravenous," she replied. "How can you go so long without eating?"
He shrugged. "I grew up hungry. Got bored of feeling it."
"So did I. And I don't like feeling it now that I don't have to," she said over her shoulder as she rummaged in the fridge.
She stood up with a container of pasta from the night they went to Henshai's and bumped directly into Vicious. He took the container from her hand and set it on the counter before wrapping his arms around her waist. "You'd best eat well," he whispered in her ear as his hands slid lower. "I owe you tonight."
In spite of everything, her body responded to his as it had done from the beginning – with a flush of heat and an ache for more contact. She raised her head and kissed him, surprised at how comforting his familiar smell and taste could be, after the long night spent beside Manfred. He'd learned her body and reactions well over their two years, and wasted no time employing his most successful techniques – gently biting down on her tongue as he slid his hand beneath her shirt to graze her shoulder blades with his fingernails. She shivered, pressing against him, but he pulled back with a wicked smile.
"Eat your dinner," he urged. "Get your strength up." He sat down on the couch and crossed his legs, waving a hand at her. "Go on."
Between the hunger and the confusion, she was glad of a respite. Vicious' apology and his much-changed demeanor ever since morning on Ganymede weighed heavily in his favor, but it had been barely three days, counting all the hours in travel, since he'd ordered Spike to make her stay. She wanted to believe his explanation more than anything. Even so, in some corner of her mind, she found it disingenuous – Vicious trusted Spike in a battle more than any other person. When the three of them first met, Vicious had said of his partner: "He fears neither death nor remorse." And Julia had seen for herself how Spike's easygoing personality could invert like a sea anemone, turning to armor and venom in the blink of an eye. As good as he was with a firearm, she knew his real skill was in hand-to-hand combat, and that he enjoyed it. So when he'd sat on the couch – where Vicious sat now, she thought with a pang of something like remorse – and talked to her, she'd been shocked at how human and gentle he could be. Maybe Vicious knew this side of him, but she doubted it.
As she licked the last of the pesto from her fork, Vicious rose and extended his hand. "Please," he said, his voice a husky baritone, "I'm hungry too."
She knew the look he gave her well, but tonight it seemed tempered by need. His self-control had been his most impressive asset when they first became lovers, and she was surprised when he lifted her in his arms and carried her into the bedroom. Confusion gave way to abandon, though, when he slid a hand down the front of her pants and drove his fingers deep. He watched her writhe, propped on one elbow with a smile on his lips, leaning in every once in a while to kiss her throat; when he'd brought her to the brink, he released her and offered, "help me with my tie?"
She turned to him, flushed and glassy-eyed. "My pleasure," she breathed, and rose to her knees, loosening the knot with slow, deliberate twists. "This is my favorite part."
He chuckled deep in his chest. "I think you're lying."
"I'm not," she countered. "I love unwrapping presents." Some part of her felt like it was watching the proceedings; this was so familiar, their dance of words while they undressed, and yet she couldn't believe she was doing it.
She pulled the strip of cloth free and went to work on the hooks of his shirt while he shrugged out of his jacket. When she had his shirt off, she sat back on her heels to look. "I don't think I can wait until Christmas."
He lifted her tank top over her head with a single rough yank. "We can have anything we want, whenever we want," he replied, and pushed her back so he could remove her leggings. "Someday, it will all be ours."
It was a familiar duet – a tangle of words, challenges and their bodies. Words gave way to a passionate kiss, broken when he entered her and they both gasped in pleasure. He had little need of his disciplined stamina – her body began to shake almost immediately, and he growled with satisfaction as they came together. Propped on his elbows, with his hair hanging down around her face like a curtain, she saw again the man she had fallen for, and didn't care if the image was enhanced by euphoria. He leaned in to kiss her, much more gently than before, and stroked her side as he shifted to lie beside her.
"Am I forgiven?" he asked.
"Do you love me?" She drifted in a pleasant fog; the revelation had bothered her since the day before, though she managed to make it sound like a nonchalant question.
He did not look at her. "Love is a weakness that limits our choices."
"I am not weak."
He hesitated. "Sooner or later, you will be confronted with a choice between love and survival. There will be no third door, no trinket in your handbag or weapon in your arsenal that can make it anything other than a decision to live or perish. Survival is the strongest instinct, Julia, and that means we are all doomed to betray those we think we love."
She shook her head. "Your whole life in the Syndicate negates that idea, Vicious."
He chuckled and sat up, the moonlight frosting the tips of his long gray hair and etching the shape of his muscles in white. "Why have you never asked me about my life before I came here?"
"I've lived the kind of life I don't like to talk about. I can recognize the same in other people," she replied. "But you can't blame me for wanting to know what I mean to you, why you're still here, after everything that's happened in the past few days."
He leaned back, looking down at his feet, and did not answer for a while. She felt herself drifting, watching him breathe, the rise and fall of his chest like an old black and white movie in the bluish light. Finally, he spoke.
"Julia, I am not a sociopath. I've just learned firsthand what limits love has."
She looked up at him, frowning. "That's a little vague."
He nodded. "I have never told this story to anyone."
"Please tell it to me," she said gently.
He hung his head and spoke with his eyes closed. "My father used to launder money for the White Tigers through his Mono-garage. For years he skimmed a little extra every transaction. He grew careless and greedy."
Julia snapped alert at the mention of a White Tiger connection, though she tried not to show her surprise. Vicious' desire to eliminate the rival Syndicate altogether was no secret, but this certainly was.
"He was caught. I was thirteen when they came the first time. They broke his toes and forced me to watch." His voice was steady, rote, as though he'd told the story in his head a thousand times but never had to deliver it. "He agreed to work on all of their Mono-craft for free, to work off the debt. But he could not make time for his own customers with everything they brought him. It went on forever – two years, I think. My mother left. He sent me out to steal parts when he couldn't get anyone to give him credit anymore."
Julia moved closer, laying a hand against his hip. "I'm sorry. I never imagined."
He didn't seem to hear her. "I woke up one morning, and he was gone. I was sure they had come and killed him. I wanted to go out and hunt them down, kill them all, but before I'd even gotten dressed, one of the Tigers rolled up in a Mono-racer and asked where he was. And I realized he had left... left me there to whatever fate the Syndicate would assign me."
She sat up and wrapped her arms around his chest, tucking her head beneath his chin, where she could feel the rumble of his voice.
"They took me back to some shopfront and grilled me for hours. Who did he know; what friends did we correspond with? The more they hounded me, the more I began to think I knew where he had gone. He always talked about a place on Earth, a city in the shadow of a mountain where the meteors, he said, just passed on by. I never really believed him – but I wondered if he believed it himself.
"It did not even occur to me to tell them where I thought he was at first. I was so focused on not letting them wear me down that I just kept refusing to answer. They broke my fingers, my toes, electrocuted me."
She shivered, and for the first time he acknowledged her, putting an arm around her body.
"Eventually they cuffed me to a chair and left me alone. I must have been there a day, maybe two, in a storeroom. It ran together. When they returned, they told me they had put out word they would kill me if my father didn't show himself – and he did not."
He moved back to look into her eyes. "Julia, everyone says the love between parent and child is the strongest, most unconditional love in the universe, but it doesn't matter. I know because he never came back."
"They let you go?" she asked, trying to keep her voice from breaking.
He smiled then, but the expression was terrifying, joyless and haunted. "I told them I had realized where he was during the time they left me sitting by myself. And I told them I would give him up if they promised to let me go."
"Oh," she breathed, and he looked down again, though he cradled her face in his hand in a strange, tender gesture. "Was he there?"
"We all have an innate will to survive. He had it, and I forgave him for it. I had it, and I managed to succeed. They must have found him, because I still live."
Julia tightened her hold on him, her mind racing. All this time, he had known how similar their pasts were – because she had told him, almost at the beginning. But he had kept his own hidden, and now she was the only one to know his secret, his motivation, the weight he carried.
He returned the embrace at first, burying his face in her hair, but when a few seconds had passed he abruptly stood and began to dress.
"You don't have to go," she said. "I wish you wouldn't."
His grim expression matched his voice. "I have to make my report to the Van." He pulled on his boots.
"Let me tie your tie," she offered. "Please."
He came to sit on the edge of the bed, looking off into space. She tied the knot slowly, unsure what to say. It was Vicious who broke the silence.
"The Syndicate has taken care of me, because I fulfill my obligations to them, because I am useful to them. And one day, it will be mine, because everyone else is forever weighing their emotions and their desires against their obligations. You wanted to know what you are to me. You are the one pleasure I allow myself, the one person whose happiness can make me happy as well. I want you to be with me when I take over the Red Dragon. I know I will be stronger if you are."
He pulled her close, kissing her jaw, her cheek, her eyelid, her forehead. "You surprised me and impressed me on Ganymede. If I loved anyone, I would love you."
Before she could think of an answer, he rose and was gone.
Julia wasn't sure how long she sat, replaying Vicious' story in her mind. She didn't catch his meaning at first, but it came to her now that he had not only been betrayed by his father; his attitude stemmed from the fact that he had returned the betrayal in kind. She wondered if his mother still lived, or if she had been used as similar leverage, and realized Vicious either wondered the same thing, or knew the answer.
He was always adamant that business drove his desire to shut down the White Tiger syndicate. The one time they had spoken of the goal in detail, Spike's opposition to it was a source of much debate. For her part, Julia sided with Spike - though the existence of the two clans made for frequent bloodshed, it also divided the loyalties of the ISSP and prevented them from making any real attempt to shut down the syndicates altogether.
Thinking of Spike, she remembered the messages on her comm. and went to get it, shivering in the night air. She returned to bed with her bathrobe and the comm., pressing the playback key.
Spike's face appeared on the screen. His surroundings looked oddly familiar. "Hey. Please call me when you get back."
She skipped forward.
"I hope you're all right. Check in?"
"Annie was asking about you. Thought I would see if you were back -"
She chuckled and skipped again.
"Yo."
"Julia, I'm worried. Thought you'd be back by now."
"It's Friday. Friday afternoon. If I don't hear from you tonight, I'm coming looking."
She sighed. Apparently, he'd had the same fear she did before they'd left for Ganymede. She checked the time - barely ten - and dialed his code.
He picked up on the first ring, and she switched on the lamp, realizing he wouldn't see anything onscreen. "Hey!" he greeted her enthusiastically.
"I'm fine, Spike." She smiled at the camera. "But your concern is sweet."
He looked embarrassed. "I just - Vicious seemed better when he left, but you worried me when I called you."
"I'm sorry. I was worried myself, but it went off without a hitch."
"Who'd you go see - Manfred?"
She wrinkled her nose. "You know him?"
"Met him once, but I didn't remember until after you'd left. He didn't try anything on you, did he? The guy's a world-class weirdo."
She realized she never wanted to talk about those two days with anyone again. "I didn't have any trouble dealing with him," she said, looking for a way to change the subject. "Where are you?"
He grinned. "Look familiar?"
"Yes, but then again, so do you."
He turned the comm. around in a slow pan and it came to her. "What are you doing in my room?"
"Well, technically, you're in your room, and I'm in my room." His face reappeared. "I'm renting from Annie."
She raised her eyebrows. "Rina finally kicked you out? I figured you'd just live in the library."
He looked a little sheepish. "I ditched. But the problem with the library is that everybody wanders in and out. Except you. Why didn't you ever wander in?"
She laughed. "I always figured I'd wake you up if I went in there."
"I'm not that lazy," he came back, putting on his best wounded face. "I like it in there because I can read."
"You can?" she bantered, grinning. "I always thought you were a thug."
"You slay me," he moaned, clapping a hand to his chest, but he was smiling as well. "I'm a literate thug, I'll have you know."
She nodded. "And probably the nicest one I know."
"Don't let that get out," he said with mock seriousness. "Vicious would banish me to the ice mines."
There was no avoiding the subject. "I got him to admit what he sent you here to do," she said. "I thought you should know, in case he asks you about it."
He didn't answer at first. She watched his expression transform from amusement to worry. "You told him what I said?"
"No, of course not. I asked if he sent you to kill me, he asked if you told me, and I said he'd answered me by asking the question."
Spike chuckled. "You're good. Remind me not to get on your bad side."
She smiled. "I meant it, Spike, that I trust you. And that you're nice. But I won't let on."
He seemed far away, and stretched, cracking his neck. "Thank you," he finally said, "on both accounts. Where's our better third now?"
"Went to see the Van about a manufacturer."
"How'd he manage to get that bit of information?"
She looked down. "That was my job."
Comprehension dawned on his features. "Please tell me -"
She shook her head. "It's not important. The problem is fixed. I'm fine."
He frowned. "Vicious is a bastard."
"He wanted to be, but I'm smarter than he gives me credit for."
"And that's saying something," Spike replied, still looking concerned. "But if you say so, I believe you."
"I say so. And I should turn in. But I didn't want you worrying all night."
"I won't," he said, sheepish again. "Come see me tomorrow. You know the address."
She chuckled. "I will. Good night." She pressed the disconnect and lay back to stare at the ceiling, marveling that life could slide back to normal with as little effort as it had turned nightmarish.