He pulled her closer. “By giving you this information, I’ve chosen a side. You are my side. That means I want us to be honest with each other from here on out.”
She paused. Not disagreeing but needing to clarify, she said, “I can’t give away Lasair’s secrets.”
“I’m not asking for that,” he said. “I’m asking for you to call off your personal vendetta against my family.”
Arden scrunched her face, not following. “We steal from you, in case you missed that part.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean the bigger plans to destroy us. I don’t want you personally involved in that.”
The implication caught Arden off guard, giving her pause. Was he speaking to a specific threat? Had he heard something about Project Blackout? Did Lasair really have a mole?
Dade rolled his eyes. “Don’t pretend there’s not a bigger play. Lasair wouldn’t be content with sticking to the drug trade. Eventually they’ll want to destroy us like they have other Solizen families. And I’m telling you, it’s a mistake.”
“I don’t make those decisions.”
Dade shook his head. “You’re not hearing me. Something is being planned between the families and the govies. That’s why they’re pushing so hard to extract information from your friend. It would be a mistake to fall into their trap. I don’t want you personally involved in that.”
“There’s always a plan. If it’s put into motion, there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I don’t make decisions for the gang. And if I’m called to act, I have to do my part.”
“There’s always a way,” he said, as if it were that easy. “No one else needs to die. Between the two of us, we can figure out a nonviolent way to stop the corruption.”
“You’re a dreamer.”
“A dreamer who’s doing something.”
She couldn’t argue with that. Admittedly, as the Ghost, Dade was doing more to help society than she was.
They were really going to do this, she realized. Make a real effort at this relationship and at fixing the problems that plagued them both. Together. It was crazy. And yet, she was happy. Go figure.
She wanted to ride this high for a while. But duty always came first. She needed to get the information about Mariah back to headquarters and plan her rescue if they had any chance of pulling it off. “I have to go.”
“I worry about you,” he said softly. When she started to protest, he added quickly, “Not that you’re not capable of taking care of yourself. It’s just, I don’t like not knowing when I’ll see you again.”
His words twisted her heart. She leaned forward, tilting her lips up and pressing them against his warm mouth.
“Soon,” she said. “When we figure out how to be together.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Arden tied her hair back, twisting it into a braid before pulling up her hood. The fabric molded to her head like a second skin, made to lessen the heat of phase-fire while allowing for movement. It was part of their skintight running uniform made of individually formed body armor inside a synth material. A simple black mask would go over her face, but she wouldn’t bother with it until they entered the grid.
They were in the Icebox, so named for the chilly steel-lined rooms where they kept their weapon caches. There was no heating system, and Arden shivered in spite of the synth-suit that was supposed to help regulate her core body temperature.
Lasair had weapon caches like this one all over the city. The soldiers knew the locations of the armories assigned for their use. Only the inner circle had the details about caches located in other quadrants. It made it easier to ensure their weapons weren’t seized if a Lasair member was caught and tortured.
Each weapon room was kept filled to capacity. Phasers of every sort and size racked the walls on hooks, filling up the space so that there was nothing but glinting metal everywhere. On the ground were racks and bins of various other weapons categorized by type and size.
Most of the items were grab-and-go. A gang member could take what they needed when a situation presented itself. The harder-to-come-by items were logged and kept in a cage that required a thumb-scanner. They were a gang of thieves, after all. Best not to play to their strengths. Especially when those items became critical and no one could recall where they had gone.
Benches rounded the space where they sat to strap up. The room also came equipped with a vid-projector for going over their missions.
Usually they talked and joked before an operation. Missions were thoroughly planned, so all they had to do was hit the target and go home. Not this time. They were moving on this information right away. Arden didn’t like that. Neither did anyone else, and they all made sure she knew it.
Arden knew she had to be right about this intel. If she led them into a trap, it was one they couldn’t escape. They’d never hit a target so well guarded before. The knowledge sat like a boulder in her stomach. She was betting their freedom on her relationship with Dade. Which wasn’t fair to them and sure as hell was dumb for her. She hadn’t yet come to grips with how much she blindly trusted him. Which made her a fool, honestly.
Colin sat too close to her on the bench, not respecting her space and generally driving her crazy. “It’s not your fault.”
Arden grunted. He’d been telling her a variation of that line for weeks. She was sick to death of hearing it.
“Mariah would have been taken that night anyway,” he said. “You would have made for the bolt-hole like you did. Nothing would have changed. It’s not your fault we picked the wrong exit.”
Arden ignored him, pulling on her metal-enhanced boots. They reached her upper calves where her suit had no armored plates. She began the arduous task of lacing them up.
Colin took her silence as a signal to continue trying to convince her she shouldn’t feel guilty. “You have to let it go. If you go in like this, you’re likely to get yourself killed or someone else killed. You know that.”
He was right. She’d been internalizing a lot of bad stuff lately. She missed the good old days of just doing her job and flying on an adrenaline high when they pulled off a run. All before Dade. Now there were equal amounts of anxiety and the rush she wanted.
Yet she didn’t regret meeting him. She wouldn’t have described herself as innocent then, but looking back, perhaps she had been. She’d changed so much, so fast. As if seeing a different way of life had opened her up to the possibility that there was no right and true side to this fight.
“What if she’s not there?” Arden asked, giving voice to her tightly held fear.
He shrugged. “Let’s hope we find her. Uri’s about to crack, and your brother’s not far behind.”