MASS EFFECT: ENTANGLED

CHAPTER 24

**This takes place near the end of Chapter 24 of "Solace."**

Shepard's Apartment, Citadel,

James panted hard to regain his breath as his head hit his pillow in pure exhaustion. His entire sweaty hot body was still quivering from his release. "Carajo, girl." His dark brown eyes glimpsed down to where Ashley Williams murmured in contentment as she nuzzled up against his chest. The strands of hair that outlined her face was covered in sweat along with the rest of her naked form.

Williams simpered naughtily up at him. "You asked for it. I told you to stop pouring me tequila shots."

Vega returned the sportive grin. "I may have to do this again" He lowered his face and captured her tired lips with his own softly.

She twirled her fingertip around his right pec. "I'm game for round two."

James snickered. "Easy. I don't think we can snag this room much longer. I feel kind of weird even being here."

"That's not how I took it earlier," She teased. "You are so hard to read, Vega. How come a hunk like you doesn't have a thousand women after you?"

He gaffed at her comment. "Nah. I'm not like that. To be honest, you are the only one I sought after Treeya…" His words trailed out painfully. "I hate talking about Fehl Prime…it's hard to get over. You know?"

"I get it." Ash propped her head with her elbow on her pillow as she glanced at his way. "Kaidan's death on Virmire hit Krysta hard. Speaking of which, I better grab a shower before she gets back. I don't think she planned on you using the apartment this way. I've seen her pissed before and trust me; I don't want to be on the receiving end of that." She sat up from the bed and moved over to pick up her clothes from the floor.

James moved to his side to look on. "You think Shepard is okay?"

Williams paused in her retrieval and glimpsed his way. "She has a lot on her with losing Alenko and then dealing with all this…I don't know how she's holding it together. I think at some point, I would have just snapped," She giggled. "She has more restraint to not just say what she's thinking sometimes. Dealing with politics all the time is very trying. I lashed out a few times at Udina when he had to speak with the Council while going after Saren."

"She loved him, huh?" James pressed sincerely.

"My my, Mr. Vega. Are you jealous?" Ash mocked as she walked back over with her clothes in hand. "What was I? A backup plan?"

"What?" His eyes widened by the implication, and he shook his head. "Nah, girl. Shepard isn't like that to me."

"When we lost Alenko, Krysta became very reclusive. I hardly saw her in between missions. After the debriefing, it was back to her cabin. All business and no personal chatter. Then on Horizon..." She hesitated. "Well, her with Cerberus didn't strike well with me. I was blunt. I don't blame her for being cold with me after that. To be honest," She sighed sadly for her friend. "I don't think the Skipper has moved on."

"I think she has," He muttered softly to himself.

"Oh?" Ash inquired after hearing him.

He froze in a panic and moved to his back. "Just mumbling to myself. It's nothing."

Narrowing her eyes at him at the refusal of information, Ash dropped the clothes in her arms and crawled back his way across the bed. "Nuh-uh, Lieutenant."

James sighed hard in frustration. "Listen, Ash. I can't say…." He tensed at the uncomfortable state he placed himself in. He remembered the look the commander gave him after he caught her and Bray in a tender moment following the Armax Arena match. The whole ordeal was still shocking to him; a complete rope-a-dope.

"You can't just admit to knowing something and hold it back. Spill it," Wiliams ordered in frustration.

"You better not tell anyone...I mean anyone. It may be my ass," He looked right into her eyes. When she gave him a silent head nod in acknowledgment, he sighed again before continuing, "When I took her to the Armax Arena on our last dock, I sort of saw her kissing Bray; the one that works for Aria. He was there doing matches that day."

Ash gaped at him in disbelief and shook her head. "Don't play like that, Vega. I highly doubt that is accurate. For as long as I have known her, the commander has never gone after the aliens, especially batarians. You know about Torfan, right?"

"Yeah, I know," He shook off the obvious. "I saw them two doing the match together before that. There's chemistry."

Wiliams grew quiet in astonishment. "That's…pretty random. No one has said anything about this. I wondered when this happened between them."

Vega shrugged. "I was thrown off myself. I can ask Blue." His eyes flickered her way once more. "Not a word. Comprende?"

"Roger that." Williams moved back off the bed to grab her shower. She was stunned by what she learned. "And to think, I thought I knew her."

Alivia sat on her bed with her knees hugging her chest. The lights in her small hotel room were set at twenty percent. After learning Thane's fate, she retreated to her assigned room for her extended shore leave period and never went back out. She couldn't make herself get up from the bed to eat nor drink. She sobbed so hard that she felt like there were no more tears left in her body. His death sent her anxiety into a complete relapse, and she sustained multiple panic attacks in the past forty-eight hours. Her squad deployed out that morning to their next assignment, but she was granted three extra days to grieve for her loss. She was surprised by the extension but welcomed it. She didn't reach out to her team beforehand and ignored their calls. She couldn't face them; Alivia couldn't face anyone in her present state. The whole event seemed like a nightmare that she could not wake from yet. The soar of emotions made her vulnerable to recurring hellish scenes from Akuze and it seemed as if the maw was waiting for her in her sleep. Without him, she felt so alone.

Her armor haunted her on the table nearby and every time her silver eyes laid upon it, she would scream in fright and sob uncontrollably. Krios was so strong, and death could have not taken him yet; not when she needed him the most.

Wiping the remnants of her tears off her face, she weakly turned on the extranet display monitor on the wall and saw to where the media was ecstatic to learn that Commander Shepard was back on the station. The salarian reporter was stating that requests had been sent over to the Alliance to get an exclusive with her about her war efforts. The picture of the Normandy rose a fragment of hope from the grave inside her. "Krysta…" Her lips trembled at the name.

A familiar phantasmic voice whispered into her ears, "Go to her, Siha."

Pushing herself from the bed, she hurriedly put on her civvies. She had to pull herself together and Shepard could talk her through it. After all, Krios served on her ship to go after the Collectors. Exhaling slowly and closing her eyes shut as she stood by her door, she clenched her fists. "Thane, stay with me. Help me through this."

"I thought C-Sec busted your ass months ago," Vossk skipped the pleasantries as he glared at Harkin's arrival in his private room a few levels down from the Presidium.

Harkin noted the fresh bruises on Vossk's body and the bandages on two of his men nearby. From what he could, at least one of them was limping. "Did you guys get into a fight recently?"

"No concern of yours," The leader of the Suns snarled at the observation. "What the hell do you want?"

"Hey, lighten up," Harkin barked back. "I gave you a lot of intel to get your ass so comfy on this station. I need a little respect." The man across from him said nothing. "I have new work for you."

"How the hell did they let you out of C-Sec?" Vossk questioned the obvious. "You had some pretty high charges."

"I knew a lot and I have friends," The bald ex-Citadel Security officer boasted.

"Maybe, I should just tell C-Sec where you are," Vossk smirked.

"You won't," Harkin didn't flinch at the threat as he pushed back against his chair with a victorious smile. "It would hurt your reputation. Now back to business, as I said, I have a new client with a very interesting query." He paused and glanced around in annoyance. "Hey, you got a beer?"

Vossk glowered and motioned one of his men to fulfill the demand. "Who is it?"

An ear-to-ear grin spread across Harkin's face as he chugged the bottle. "Commander Shepard. She's on the station. I need tabs on her: Where she is and where she goes."

The man downplayed the interest. "I guess we could pull up surveillance footage across the station to see if she picks up."

Harkin did not buy into this. "I know you can. I gave you the damn access codes for the facial identification match software."

"That will take a lot of resources. What's in it for us? How can you fucking pay?"

"I said I have a client. Military. I can get weapons and mods for you."

"What if we already have that?"

"Not what they have," Harkin challenged.

"Who are they?"

"You give me what I want and then I can share the details. Vossk, don't play this shit. You know you need this. Do you want an up on C-Sec, here? I can make it happen."

Tapping his finger on the desk, Vossk looked at his hand in deep thought and then signaled one of his men nearby. "Pull up the program for Shepard."

Harkin smiled as he watched on. A few moments later, the display monitor tapped into the surveillance footage, and the feed outside Purgatory came on. "She went into the club fifteen minutes ago, boss." One of the Suns stated from their terminal.

Vossk whistled at the feed. "Wow. What an outfit!" He admired the attire she was donning. "She has a better bod than I thought."

Harkin moved in closer to look on. "I'll send the address to send the live feed to."

Suddenly, the video flickered as the live capture showed Krysta moving away from the VIP section of the club to the sky car rental kiosk. "Where the hell is she going?" Vossk asked his men. "Track the car that picks her up."

"Looks like she's up to something," Harkin remarked as he watched on.

A few minutes later, the sky car arrived, and she got in. The feed shut off. "We have the car?" Vossk looked to the terminal.

"Yeah, car ID is AXM749," The merc at the controls replied. "Destination: Chasm."

Vossk chortled at the reveal. "You have to be fucking kidding me. What luck!"

"What is it?" Harkin was not catching on.

"That's a smaller club in the lower wards. I have a man there. We like that place. Not as snobbish and a lot of transactions can take place."

"Why the hell would she be going there…" Harkin watched dumbfounded.

"I want eyes on her inside the club, understood?" Vossk called out to his man.

"Got it, boss. I flagged Kavius inside."

"I think we are done here," Vossk returned his attention to the uninvited guest. "You bring a bad smell here. Your client better be legitimate, Harkin."

"They are," The man scowled at the accusation. "Why else would I come down here? I don't have a fetish for her," He motioned towards the continued live feed.

Vossk leered. "Isn't she the one that busted your ass?"

After Harkin flipped him off and stomped off in a foul mood. The leader of the Suns looked back at the display of the video footage outside the club. Krysta went inside minutes ago. He couldn't figure out why she appeared to be club-hopping and her taste in clothes would truly make her stand out there. "Does Kavius have a visual?"

"Yeah. I'll patch him through the speaker."

"Kavius, what is she doing?" Vossk neared the monitor.

"Seems like she has business with Aria's bodyguard, Bray," The turian's voice transmitted back over the communicator.

"What the hell?!" Vossk groaned. "So that's where that asshole went..."

"Payback time. Let's head down there," The turian that went with him earlier spoke up with resentment.

The bald man shook his head at the idea. "No way. He's down there with Shepard. We go against a Spectre and there will be a lot of attention on us. We have a good handle on this station with C-Sec too distracted about a possible second attack by Cerberus and the repercussions from the first attempt. I have Aria practically begging me like a slut to help her out. Maybe, she doesn't know her four-eyed pet is messing around with the Spectre..." He leaned back in his chair with a sadistic twinkle in his eyes. "Kavius, get what you can on this. She's so mine."

Bray sat near the back of Chasm with his table facing the doorway. He finished his third drink of the night and was enjoying the atmosphere as he puffed on his cigarette. Most of the patrons there consisted of a few humans, turian, and batarian refugees. He did pick up on a couple of gang members: One was from the Eclipse while the other was Kavius of the Blue Suns. It was not uncommon to spot merc members at Chasm since the smaller club was out of the way of the heavy traffic. He did watch a few undisclosed deals go down in the last few visits. The only concern he had that night was Kavius after his previous run-in with the Suns near his apartment. He didn't know if Kavius was there to plan a second attempt or just a coincidence. With Vossk's confrontation, he pegged the former versus the latter. The turian didn't sport any colors nor any facial markings. None of the mercs did to avoid harassment by Citadel Security. Though, he learned all their names and faces after arriving on the station with Aria for what she had planned. The turian flashed his avian eyes a few times his way but pretended to be waiting for another party to join him from where he sat on the other side of the seating area.

Hearing a few of the males spark up their conversations, he turned to see what their attention was on. That's when he saw her: Krysta Shepard walking in. She was not dressed in attire accustomed to those that frequent Chasm. She matched the ones that entered Purgatory instead. Her dress was glimmering and long with a very revealing cleavage in the front. The close-fitting form didn't leave much to the imagination. He tried not to let his eyes linger too much on her to grab her attention, but it was hard to deviate. He gently licked his lips, feeling himself become aroused from her appearance, but then realized what was happening below. Becoming embarrassed, he shifted his body on his chair and turned his eyes away, pretending he didn't notice her walking in.

It was hard to hear her heels approaching from the bass of the music as he kept his head down. "Bray?" Her voice called to him.