Page 1

Chapter one

Insurance

Niko drew in a steadying breath, then patched the call through.

Lady Death’s holographic contact photo stared back at him, her expression grim.

Accusing. His mouth grew dry as he waited for it to ring.

After several seconds of silence, an automated beeping picked up, the universal symbol for a dead line.

Shit.

He sighed, thinking of his options. Back in the bedroom, Elliott was still asleep. Niko sat alone in the vast and empty cafeteria. He’d needed space for this call, needed to work himself up to it. Now that he finally had, the ex-hunter’s contact was dead.

So, what now? He drummed his fingertips along the arm of his wheelchair, thinking. The industrial white lights of the facility buzzed quietly overhead. One had a slight flicker that Niko had noticed once and could never unsee. It only added to his sour and anxious mood as he glanced at it now.

There was someone else he could call, an old contact that had collected dust for years. Niko grimaced at the very thought.

Aleksander “Aleksi” Mikhaylov. Illicit goods runner, general twatwaffle, and Niko’s ex-boyfriend. It hadn’t ended well.

Aleksi knew Lady Death, though. He’d worked to secure her exclusive and first-serve stock on rare black market goods—including plentiful RapiGel and the corrosive bog-theun toxin—and Death paid him handsomely.

Niko hadn’t spoken to either in over three years now, but he knew they’d still be working together.

Aleksi never turned down good money, and Death had the credits to spare.

Reluctantly, he scrolled down—way, way down—through his list of contacts until he reached Aleksi’s. He’d long since replaced his contact photo with an image of a yauntha’guur, often considered one of the most gruesome looking animals the galaxy had unfortunately ever evolved.

“Okay,” he murmured. “Let’s do this.”

He patched the call through and was almost disappointed when it began to ring. It rang on and on—so long that Niko was about to give up—before he heard muffled sounds on the other end of the line.

“Uh, hello?” Aleksi said, voice grossly familiar. Niko hated him so much. “ Niko?”

“Hey, Aleksi. Yep.” He wanted to make this brief. “I need Lady D’s new number.”

Aleksi gave the same consideration to Niko’s obvious attempt at keeping their interaction short that a ship’s engine did to a pigeon it encountered.

“Oh my god, Niko. Wow. It’s really been a while.

You know, imagine my surprise when I saw your pretty face on the news.

We all thought you were dead.” He laughed. “You’ve been up to a lot lately.”

Niko wanted to throttle him. “Yep. Hey, can you get me Lady—”

“How did you even end up mixed up in that? And where have you been these last three years? It feels like it’s been forever.”

“Aleksi.”

Aleksi’s tone flattened. “Come on, Niko. At least humor me.”

Niko ran a hand over his face, praying to the spirit of his kind and benevolent mother for patience he didn’t have. “It’s complicated. And none of it is what Galapol is presenting to the media.”

As for the last three years, Niko thought, I’ve been touring Mt. Gofuckyourself. It has a great view.

“So, he’s not actually killing people?”

“Uh, no, he is, but—”

“Huh. I never imagined you’d throw in your lot with somebody like that. Truth really is stranger than fiction. Hey, speaking of which, you know that real mean old bastard? The Xermotl that everyone was scared of, with the rumors about collecting eyeballs from his bounties and keeping them in jars?”

Niko sighed. “Yep.”

“Well, he got too old to keep it up and works as a pastry chef now. They say he likes to add extra icing to everything.” When Niko said nothing, he continued, “You know, like, eye- sing—”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. So, what’s he like? Kestrel.”

“Um, Aleksi—”

“Did you fuck him?”

“Wh-what?”

“You totally did, didn’t you? I saw he was gay. They mentioned he had some boyfriend who was interviewed. The moment I heard you ran off with him, I thought, oh, they’re totally fucking. They can’t not be.”

“Alek—”

“I can’t believe you’re fucking the galaxy’s most wanted sniper. Does he have good aim when—”

“ ALEKSANDER!” Niko shouted. Aleksi fell quiet. “For fuck’s sake.”

The other man sighed. “Still upholding the name ‘Killjoy,’ I see.”

“I just want to talk to Lady D. I need her number. It’s important.”

Aleksi’s tone shifted to something more serious—dark, even. “Are you sure you want to do that? I don’t think she’s very happy with you.”

Niko’s skin crawled. Great. That’s great. “I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t that important.”

“So, here’s the thing,” Aleksi started. “The Lady has changed things up in the past few years. New phone, new policies. A group of mercs actually almost got her. She doesn’t talk to people outside of a restricted list when it comes to calls now, and got a lot more paranoid.”

“So, tell her it’s me. She knows me.”

“Funny how you come knocking out of the blue, after years of silence, when you’re totally fucking the galaxy’s worst killer. Would you trust you in this situation?”

“I— No,” Niko relented. “Not really.”

“I always liked you, Niko.” Niko couldn’t really say the same. “So, I’ll help you. Why don’t you meet with me, and I’ll take you to her? We can have a meeting together and I’ll plead your case.”

Niko’s stomach twisted in a sharp pang of unease. “You can’t just talk to her and have her call me? If she’s that paranoid—”

“Niko. I could sing your praises until my face turns Heenvan blue. But you know how she is. It’s been years and you left her high and dry. Didn’t hold up your end of the bargain. And now Kestrel. She doesn’t know who you are anymore. You have to be there to show her and defend your honor.”

“Fuck,” Niko murmured. He buried his face in his hands.

“I’ll vouch for you, Niko,” Aleksi said. “Consider this my apology.”

Niko sighed. He didn’t want Aleksi’s apology.

Even if it had been given sooner, it still wouldn’t have mattered.

The man had all but killed anything they’d once had as quickly and efficiently as Elliott took down his targets.

Niko had really liked him, once upon a time.

But that was a lifetime ago, and he’d felt nothing but bitter contempt since. And now he’d long since moved on.

He had no other choice, though. Aleksi clearly wasn’t going to give him her number, and from the sound of it, she wouldn’t answer if he did. Unless he’s lying , Niko thought . He’d become quite experienced with the man’s dishonesty.

Niko hated cheaters.

This was probably a trap. He felt it, deep in the marrow of his bones. This was Baouban all over again. If he even got to see Lady Death and this wasn’t just a ruse to try and isolate and kill him, maybe she would do the deed instead.

Over three billion credits was an insurmountable sum of money.

Even Niko’s comparatively meager hundred and twenty million since he’d last spoken to Baouban was a game changer for almost anyone.

And Niko was about to dive into the shady underworld of the black market again—a society spread across the stars, governed only by a single emperor: capital gain.

“ Fuck ,” he said again. It was stupid. It was suicidal, even. But if he wanted to help expose the sickening truth about what and who Honeybliss was to the public, he had to do it. He had to try. This might be their only chance.

For every victim of Honeybliss. For Elliott.

“Okay, Aleksi.”

The other man gave him coordinates to a parking garage in Dainna, a gargantuan asteroid-turned-black-market-hive.

Niko had been there before, worked there before, played and partied, in another lifetime.

Dainna’s surface was perpetually ablaze in a crowd of kaleidoscopic holograms advertising everything that lay within, just beneath the thick layer of rock—bars, casinos, brothels, vendors of every exotic item anyone could dream of.

Arena matches, seedy hotels that lifted any personal item not secured in the night, and strongholds of influential underworld denizens, Lady Death included.

He felt like a sardine leaping headfirst into an ocean of circling sharks.

When he hung up the call, Niko caught a glimpse of pale gold in the corner of his eye. Elliott was leaning in the doorway, one arm wrapped around himself, the other rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“Hey, babe,” Niko said.

“I heard you yelling.”

Oops . The cafeteria was a good way out from the room they slept in, but with the eerie and oppressive silence that always permeated the facility, Niko wasn’t surprised he’d managed to overhear.

Especially with ears that had been conditioned to listen for shouting after years spent in an abusive household.

“Yeah, uh, somebody on the phone was giving me the runaround. I’m sorry for waking you.”

“Somebody? The illustrious, so-called ‘Lady Death?’”

“No, I couldn’t get through to her. She changed her number. Come here.” Niko held his hand out, and Elliott pushed off the doorframe and crossed the all-too-large, all-too-empty cafeteria. He sank down into a chair across from Niko and took his hand.

“So, what’s going on, then?”

Niko had spent long enough around him to start picking up little tells. The question was innocuous enough, but something about the way Elliott didn’t look him in the face when asking and held his shoulders slightly rigid betrayed his underlying anxiety.

Niko sighed, leaning back in his wheelchair. “Ugh. There’s somebody I used to know who still works with her. So, I called him to try and get her new number.”

“Okay.”

“He says she’s turned paranoid over the last couple of years due to a near-miss on her life, though, so she doesn’t take calls outside of a vetted list and won’t talk to me because I’m all over the news for pairing up, of course, with an infamous assassin.”

“Right.”

“So, uh.” Niko waffled around. “So. Uh. I’m going to go there and meet with them both.”

“Absolutely not.”