Winston (BBW Bear Shifter Wedding Romance) (Grizzly Groomsmen Book 3) (21 page)

“So, it seems to me what we have here is a thief with a ledger and an asteroid locked in a civil war,” she said. “And, of course, what we’ve always had: our job. It seems to me there’s a way to combine those.

“Stop me, Zosha, if I get any of this wrong. After Strathmore’s long overdue demise, the Rahm brothers split and began fighting each other for control of Lytos. You had the misfortune of pickpocketing the wrong man. Lan Doro, something of a supplier to the younger Rahm, had a notebook detailing the U4 trade he was running. This notebook is now in your possession. Yes? Good. Now, I know all of you know what U4 is and exactly how much you can make smuggling it because we’ve been on the lookout for an opportunity to get in on the game. And this,” Annie said, pointing at Zosha, “is that opportunity.”

“How so?” asked Hyde.
 

“We know what all three parties involved in this want. Zosha wants to get rid of the notebook and make it out of this safely. We want in on the U4 trade. And the older Rahm wants his brother out of the way.”

“Wait,” Zosha interrupted. “When did Sylas Rahm get involved?”

“We’re involving him,” Annie said, the steel back in her eyes, “because it’s the best way to tie up several loose ends. If we destroy or otherwise wash our hands of the notebook, Lan Doro still wants Zosha dead because he can’t let her live after reading it or give her the chance to tell his boss that he let it be stolen. If we take it to the younger Rahm brother, then we have to go into Lan Doro’s territory and we run the risk of him getting to Zosha before we reach our goal. And little brother already has a supplier.

“But if we take it to the older brother—Sylas, right? I was beginning to wonder if they had first names—then three things happen. The first is that Zosha gets rid of the notebook, but in a way that earns her the protection of someone powerful. I’m sorry, I know you didn’t want to choose sides, but that’s life. The second is that Sylas unbalances his brother’s empire, probably enough to guarantee him victory. As a result of that, I’d wager that either the little brother kills Lan Doro in revenge or Sylas kills him for being one of his brother’s men, which takes care of that. And last, Sylas Rahm, soon to be in charge of one of the most infamous asteroids of iniquity, finds himself without a U4 supplier, but with a crew of smugglers who have already proven their loyalty to him, aided by one of Lytos’ most talented thieves.”

“So what you’re saying is, essentially, you want to use Zosha as a battering ram to get into the U4 trade?” Dominic asked.

“Pretty much. Although I would like to remind you that, hopefully, we take care of her problems as well,” Annie replied. “So, you in?”

“I have a choice?” Zosha asked, because she was still processing the fact that this could work, that she could be
free
. Under the table, Rick grabbed her hand and squeezed.

“It’s more that we don’t have a choice in letting you have a choice,” Annie said. “You’re the one with the notebook, and this would work best if you were the one presenting this all to Sylas. This doesn’t exactly hinge on you being on board, but it would help a hell of a lot if you were.”

Zosha considered that for a moment, then stood slowly. “I think I need a moment. I’ll be right back.”

She walked out of the kitchen, her feet carrying her back to the cockpit. She sat in Rick’s chair, pulling her knees up to her chin and wrapping her arms around herself.
Breathe in, breathe out
.

“Europa, Ganymede, Io, Callisto, Amalthea, Ananke,” she muttered. “Pasiphae, Carme, Thebe, Metis, Adrastea…”

She’d gotten to Hegemone before Rick walked in.
 

“I’ll be honest, I thought you’d be a little happier about this,” he said.

“I can’t let myself be,” she said without looking at him. “I can’t do this.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. “You’ve already come so far on your own.”

“I already told you, I wasn’t alone,” she told him, refusing to let her voice break. “And you mean I’ve already run so far. That’s all I’m good for, you know. Grabbing something I think I can get a decent price for later and then hightailing. And it works, because I’ve always been faster than whoever’s chasing me. But making a stand? I can’t do that. I mean, look at me. I’m all bluster and bluff to cover up the fact that I’m a wreck who can’t even control her own life.” She wiped her nose on the back of her hand. “You should have just let Hyde airlock me.”

“Hey, look at me,” Rick said, kneeling down next to her. After a moment, she complied. “You can do this, and you won’t be alone. You’ll have five bear shifters backing you up. I mean, we took out
Strathmore
. This is going to be
easy
.”

Zosha nodded, trying to let herself be reassured. There was still one stubborn little worry that refused to dissipate.

“And then what?” she asked. “I already told you, I don’t want to take sides. I can’t live like that, knowing there might be a target on my back because of who I work for. I’d go insane. The only thing I can think of is to leave Lytos for good, but where would I go?”

Even on the run, she’d always imagined that one day, the dust would settle and she would be able to return to her asteroid. She hated living there, with the stink and the violence and the feeling that she’d never be anything more than she was, but the thought of never getting to live there again was surprisingly painful.

“You’d go anywhere you wanted,” Rick answered. “I mean, you lived your whole life on that hellhole. If you can survive Lytos, you can survive anywhere.”

This was a lie; being able to survive on Lytos meant that Zosha could survive on Lytos, or places like it. It meant she could sleep with one eye open, always on guard. It meant her fight-or-flight response, firmly weighted on the side of flight, had a hair trigger that had saved her life more than once but would never let her feel at home anywhere properly civilized. Rick knew it as well as Zosha did, but it was better than no reassurance at all and she allowed him to lead her back to the kitchen.

Hyde and Dominic looked unimpressed by her reentrance, but she ignored both them and Custer’s smirk in favor of addressing the captain and Annie.
 

“I’m in,” she told them. “I think you’re crazy for wanting to do this, but I’m in.”

Annie smiled. “Glad to have you on board.”

The next hour passed in a frenzy of planning that consisted mostly of Annie convincing the others they could just shift from the get-go and kill anyone who tried to get in their way and picking Zosha’s brain for information. Once she had drilled everyone’s script into their minds to her satisfaction, she declared the meeting disbanded and told the crew members to return to their duties and Zosha to rest up.

Zosha had the alarming thought that if Annie and Spinner ever met each other, they would either kill each other or take over the galaxy.

The captain and Rick shared a long look that ended in the captain walking to the cockpit and Rick walking Zosha back to his room.

“He’ll fly us in. At warp 8, it should take twelve hours,” Rick told her as he keyed in the passcode to his room.

“Three and a half weeks of switching ships and hopping city to city and asteroid to dwarf planet to space station to get away from Lytos,” she told him, “and twelve hours to get back. It doesn’t seem right.”

“That shouldn’t be new,” he responded. “Annie was right, though. You only got about an hour and a half of sleep in the cockpit, you really should lay back down.”

Zosha couldn’t think of anything else to do, so she fell back on the mattress.
 

“How are you feeling?” Rick asked her, shoving the papers on his desk into stacks.

“I think I’m actually so terrified I can’t even feel it anymore,” she answered. “You?”

“Eh. A little itchy from anticipation. Concerned about little Rahm’s defenses. Happy that your shit is getting figured out.”

“So is yours,” Zosha pointed out. Rick walked over and sat beside her, leaning back on the headrest.

“Happy about that too,” he said and put one hand gently on the crown of her head. She relaxed as he began running his fingers through her hair again. “Now, get some sleep.”

She closed her eyes, certain she wouldn’t be able to get a wink of sleep, and woke up eleven and a half hours later to Custer yelling over the intercom for Rick to get his ass in gear.

Rick moaned from where he’d passed out beside her and propped himself up on his elbows. They locked eyes and he gave her a crooked grin.

“Let’s go finish a war, shall we?” he said, and for the first time Zosha really, truly felt like this might just work out.

They gathered in the cargo bay. Dominic and Annie were staying behind. Rick and Zosha were splitting away from Captain Ingram, Hyde, and Custer to avoid drawing too much attention and then meeting back up at a rendezvous point after forty minutes. From there on, it was all a matter of getting into Sylas Rahm’s compound.

Rick and Zosha headed out first. She took him down to her favorite sweetbread vendor and they trailed around the marketplace, waiting for the appointed time.

Zosha remembered Spinner haggling with a tech vendor for the only decent monitor in the shop when they were barely in their twenties, his eyes narrow and lips thinned with impatience, and suddenly she missed him so much it hurt. She didn’t want to walk into what might be her death without saying goodbye to him.

She tugged on Rick’s sleeve and told him she’d be right back, then dashed into the nearest bathroom and pulled out her comm. She didn’t think she had time to call him, on the off chance he picked up, and she didn’t want to tell him face to face that, despite all his help, she could still very well be about to get herself killed. The habit to run away was, apparently, not something that could be kicked all at once.

She racked her mind for what to say, aware that Rick was waiting outside, and ended up sending a simple
about to do something stupid with the Rahm brothers, watch out for the kickback, and thank you for everything
. It didn’t scratch the surface of what she owed him or what she wanted to say to him, but it was better than letting her best, oldest, and only friend find out what she’d done through one of his contacts.

She walked back to Rick, and they killed fifteen minutes wandering before they changed course to meet the others.

Sylas Rahm’s base of operations was underground, which wasn’t unusual. Once the population had grown too much for the surface alone, mining shafts from before the asteroid had been converted for civilization were stabilized and turned into housing. Sylas’ compound was several of these tunnels connected and reinforced. They weren’t getting in without permission, regardless of what the shifter thought, so as soon as they reached the entrance she squared her shoulders and walked up to a guard.

“Hello. I need to talk to Sylas Rahm. Unfortunately, it’s important,” she said, trying not to feel like a child putting on an act.

The guard snorted. “I’m sure. Why don’t you come back later?”

“Look,” Zosha said, “can you at least tell me someone I can talk to that’ll pass on a message to him?”

“Can’t, actually,” the guard said. “Go waste someone else’s time.”

“Look,” Zosha said, patience running thin. “This is something that can help your boss and stop me from getting killed, so if you could please just tell me who I can talk to I’ll leave you alone. If not, you’re going to have to deal with me for a while.”
 

“Look, sweetheart,” the guard said, and shoved her backwards hard. Two things happened at once. The first was that Rick, snarling, stepped forward to catch her. The second was the almost as soon as Zosha stumbled back, a bullet hit the guard’s shoulder. The six of them stared dumbly at the blood splattering the ground for a second, then everything was screaming and motion. Rick spun to face the direction the bullet had come from, drawing his blaster and keeping Zosha behind him. Custer and Captain Ingram followed suit. Zosha squinted through the fleeing shoppers, trying to see the shooter. Behind her, she could hear the guard yelling into his comm.

Fear shot through her as she saw men in black full body armor pushing through the crowd. There weren’t as many as she’d feared, but more than enough to put a bullet in her head.

“I think they saw us,” Custer said, cackling.

“Not now,” the captain said, voice hard.

The black-suited mercenaries advanced steadily, and Zosha and the shifters dove for cover. Most of the stalls were wood or a plastic material, and a blaster bolt tore a hole straight through the side of one, narrowly missing Zosha’s head. She clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Rick jerked her close, putting himself between her and the mercenaries.

“Shifting!” the captain shouted, then tossed his blaster to the side and stood in the middle of the hail of bullets.

It happened in less than five seconds. His skin rippled, then exploded outwards, fur covering the expanding form. A snapping sound and a slick, organic noise could be heard over the report of the blasters and in the time it took to blink a giant, dark-furred bear stood where the captain had been. Zosha stared.

The bear shook itself off, then lunged for the attackers, who, understandably disoriented, scattered.

“Hey!” a voice behind them yelled. Zosha turned to see two new guards hauling their bleeding comrade into the compound, about five others in identical uniforms streaming out from behind them, energy shields flickering to life around them. They began firing at the mercs, who were forced to scatter.