Page 43 of Stealing Mercury (Arena Dogs #1)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Most buildings outside the port itself had been made of scraps or converted from one purpose to another.

The Treasure was housed in a building that had once been a gambling house.

The previous owner had installed extra security measures to keep the place honest and to protect profits.

Now it protected whatever the indies who frequented the port considered valuable.

For some it was credit markers or account numbers.

For others it was halo-vid projectors or alien artifacts they hoped would be worth something one day.

Samantha didn’t know what her father had considered valuable, but she was about to find out.

She didn’t recognize the guard at the door, but she recognized the one inside.

“Jebedi.” She’d been prepared to be ignored or looked at with pity, but he did neither. His face scrunched in a grin.

“Hey short stuff! Been too long.” He reached over to rub her head the way he had when she’d been thirteen and hanging around the port after her shift at the wormery.

Mercury tensed beside her, but he managed to let Jebedi finish the motion and withdraw his hand. It was a good thing Lo had waited outside.

“Jebedi, this is Mercury.” She reached over and squeezed Mercury’s hand. “Jebedi has worked here as long as I remember.”

Jebedi laughed, rocking back on his heels. “Surely, not so long as that. I remember you already had engine grease under your nails by the time I first laid eyes on you.”

The familiar teasing went a long way toward putting her at ease when she hadn’t expected anything about clearing her father’s box to be easy. “You’re probably right about that.”

Mercury shifted to edge between them. “We’re here to open her father’s box.”

“So much for easing into the process,” Samantha muttered.

Jebedi kept his smile in place, but he crossed his beefy arms over his barrel chest. He’d picked up on the disapproval of their reminiscing that was radiating from Mercury like a soundless warning siren.

“Well, nothing to fear in that box, short stuff. Even if your father stuck a sand-viper in there it’d be dead by now.

Those boxes have an airtight seal and no one’s been in his box for at least a year. ”

A year. Her father had been gone more than a year. “Is that your way of telling me I put this off too long?” And she’d probably have left it forever if she’d stayed on the Reliable slinging tools for some mammoth corporation.

“Na.” He sobered. “You have a right to take your time with something like that.”

Mercury huffed. “Well, she’s made up her mind to do it and it’s best to get on with it now that we’re here.”

His hurry surprised her. She didn’t ever recall Mercury rushing her about anything. Even when Knock brought up the topic of the box, Mercury had seemed interested only in so far as she cared.

His voice softened. “Once it’s open you’ll be able to deal with it and your fear will be gone.”

Of course. He could probably smell her apprehension and he always knew what she needed. He was right. Once she knew what she was dealing with, there wouldn’t be anything left to fear. “Good point. Let’s do it.”

“Back wall,” said Jebedi. “Number fifty-two. It’s all set for you.”

She swallowed and nodded.

Samantha led the way. Rows of small doors reached from floor to ceiling. Each one DNA coded. She scanned the numbers and found the box. “This is it.”

She put her hand in position just millimeters from the pad.

She pulled her hand away. “I don’t think—”

“Will it hurt?” Mercury looped one arm around her waist and pulled her back to press all along his chest and thighs.

“Just a prick.”

“Good.” He bent down to speak directly against her ear. “We’ll do it together.”

“But—”

Before she could get anything else out, he’d seized her hand. He pulled it up to the pad, laid his hand over hers and pushed forward.

She never felt the prick. His hot breath tickling her neck and the subtle thrust of his hips rubbing his length against her ass distracted her until the box’s seal released with a whispered whoosh.

Mercury pressed a kiss to her temple and stepped back just enough to break the seal of warmth that had connected their bodies. “Time to see what’s inside.”

She pulled open the drawer, holding her breath as if she did expect that sand-viper Jebedi had reassured her wouldn’t be jumping out.

He’d been right about the viper, but the neatly organized carrier bit her as surely as any slithering reptile.

She could feel the poison spreading under her skin.

All that was left was to determine how deadly it’s effects.

She lifted the carrier out. Through the transparent material she could see the title to the Bucket and a data-strip with her name.

Tears welled in her eyes and threatened to fall, but she managed to swallow down the sudden surge of grief and regret.

And then she saw the rest—a half-dozen keys each labeled with a familiar name.

Mercury’s heat returned and his hand settled low on her belly as he looked over her shoulder. “What is it?”

It took her befuddled brain a moment to realize he had no idea what he was looking at. “It’s the Bucket . It’s mine.” If she could manage to reclaim it.

“What’s wrong, courra ? You’re shaking. Doesn’t this ease your doubts about your father’s feelings for you?”

“I wasted so much time being angry.”

“Yes, but you cannot change what is past.”

A startled bubble of laughter escaped her tight throat before the mirth dissolved under the weight of her regret.

Mercury turned her in his arms. “I didn’t mean that to make you laugh.”

“Oh, I know. You just reminded me why I lo—” She choked on the word she had no right to say.

Not when she was sharing her bed with two men and had feelings for them both.

Two men who might be in her bed, whether they understood it or not, because they needed her.

Two men who planned to risk their lives for another woman.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight against his chest. “Something else in the box is making you sad. Tell me.”

“Code-keys for my father’s lovers.” Her voice broke on the end of the sentence. Her father had cared for her, but he had cared for them all. She wasn’t jealous of them, not for her own sake. It wasn’t that at all. But she expected Mercury to come to that conclusion.

He stroked a hand down her spine. “Talk to me. I know you’re hurting, and I want to understand.”

“They don’t know,” she tried to explain.

“Of his death.”

“No. I mean... I did make sure they were all notified. All the ones I knew of. But the code-keys. If he left them credits or property...”

He cupped her face in his palms. “Don’t blame yourself, courra .”

He understood. Her self-pity had caused others to suffer. To think her father had forgotten them and maybe to go without support they’d relied on.

“They were his responsibility, not yours.”

“He counted on me and I let him down.”

“No. He let you down by not making sure you knew how he felt about you.”

Just as she was doing to Mercury. Stars, she was her father’s daughter and making all of his mistakes.

“You can’t change the past,” he said again. “You must change the future.”

“Is that what you’re trying to do?”

“Yes. I let my brothers down. I acted rashly when they counted on me to be clever.” He pulled her close again. “Because of me, my brothers were condemned to die. Because of you, I have a chance to make things right.”

“We all make mistakes.”

“Yes,” he said. “We do.”

But when, she wondered, would she stop making them.

***

Her father’s ship—no. Her ship... was parked somewhere in the port. A part of Samantha had wanted to hunt down Shred and kick him off the Bucket the moment she realized the truth. Ironic since she’d told the Chief she’d never do such a thing.

When her anger cooled, she realized there’d be no point anyway.

“Even though the Bucket ’s mine,” she explained to Mercury, Lo, and Carn as they headed back to her mother’s home.

“I’ll never be able to fly her legitimately again.

I could take her, to get us back to Roma.

Pillar would back up my claim. But the Bucket isn’t a speedy ship.

It would take us over a month to get there. ”

Carn protested immediately. “We can’t leave Hera alone there for another month.”

“I agree,” she reassured. “Besides that, Owens would be suspicious if the Bucket turned up in the Roma port.”

“Agreed,” said Lo.

“Explain about you not being able to fly the Bucket again,” said Mercury.

The man didn’t miss a thing.

“Right now, I’m wanted for theft on the other side of the border. And the minute Drake or Resler reports my Cerrillian heritage to the Earth Alliance authorities, they’ll pull my license. I can’t even own property of any kind on that side of the border.”

“What about here, in Gollerra territory?”

“I can own the ship, but there’s no work for her here.

The Golley have a monopoly on all freight and transport in this sector.

They only accept non-Golley ships at the border ports.

Shipping anything from here to further inside Golley territory can only be done through one of their authorized carriers. ”

When they stepped into her mother’s tent, Moira sat waiting at the table. She had a sealed packet in her hands. Shades of blue and indigo swirled across her skin—a mix of grief and other emotions, but Samantha had never seen this exact combination.

“Mom?”

The tense smile that appeared on Moira’s face aged her. “Come, sit with me.”

Samantha turned to see Lo and Carn backing out through the opening and Mercury waiting for her attention. “We’ll be outside.”

She nodded then sat with her mother. “You know what I found.”

Moira shook her head. “I don’t know for certain, but I can guess.”

Samantha reached out and clutched at her mother’s hand. “The title for the Bucket . He left it to me. Shred kicked me off my own ship.”