2. Eros

The thingabout humans is that they overshare. Social media, location trackers and the like. It's not hard to find anyone at any fucking time, even when they think they are hiding. They're not. Not with the systems the Dorian government has given me access to.

I debarked from the Kraken's high-speed cross-Atlantic transport this morning. The Kraken dropped me in the Boston harbor with my go-bag of gear and my own wits. I've done more with less. I've traveled around the world on contracts for the security council but never here. Boston. This section of town looks like a lot of industrial cities; it's seen better times. And just like in those other cities, no one is paying any attention to me. Even the men who are holding Sunshine's family. Two of them walked right past me. But then that's what people do when they think you're homeless—walk faster and avoid eye contact. I've used the same ploy a half dozen times for cases on land.

The fucking security council thinks they are being clever. My orders? Kill my mate's kin. There are those in the Veiled City who see them as a threat to our way of life. So I must kill Sunshine's cousin and aunt or my sister gets turned over to the Kraken. No one harms my family. Annabelle's family are mine now. I'm not letting any of these females down.

I'm huddled outside a warehouse. It's the location of an organized crime unit that has put Sunshine's cousin and aunt up on auction to the highest bidder. It's a large operation, and while they've got bodies, some of the guys holding down their keep are just that, bodies. There are so many holes in their defenses a grandma with a grocery bag and a hand grenade could take the place down.

I'm not doing the hit, but I am saving my sister. I've got a day at most to figure out how to rescue Annabelle's family but make it look like I did the hit instead—while getting them to safety.

I open my pervisculum to its full length and get a much better view of the inside. It's a warehouse, or rather, it used to be one. Most of the windows are missing and replaced with plywood. There's a sign on the alley that says, "Pembroke Bottle Company." It's been gone for at least a decade. Through the brick I can make out the heat signatures of a half-dozen men on the first floor. On the second floor, there are another four heat signatures. Two of them are small enough to be my targets.

My stomach clenches at the term. Targets. They're my mate's family. Two females whom I will protect, just as I would Sunshine and my sister Marina. But first I need to find out more about the males keeping them. Because my instructions were to pay the ransom to Sunshine's uncle to free her cousin and aunt, then get rid of the women, but that was before he sold them to the crime syndicate. Most importantly, do it without involving the human government. I've done some creative work in the past. And sure as shit, if I wanted to, I could get this job done the way the security council framed it, easily.

There's one window on the second floor that's not boarded up or blacked out. The pervisculum is a long single-lens binocular device. But it's so much more than that. With the one clear shot inside the warehouse, it can see everything. I launch the micro dart with a click. In a few minutes, I'll have the complete layout of the building. I take a step back, crashing against the brick wall of the abandoned storefront across the alley. The clock for all three women's safety ticks down in the back of my head: my sister, along with Sunshine's aunt and cousin. After I've dealt with this fucking mess, I'm going to sleep for a week. But not now. I have to keep my senses alert.

I've been awake since I received the details of the hit, somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. I have thirty-six-hours. No, scratch that, I had thirty-six hours. I'm down to thirty-two.

I glance quickly at my block. The data from the pervisculum is still downloading, but heels clicking on the sidewalk below have me putting my tech away. I flatten myself against the wall, shoulders hunched, head down. I put the shopping trolley I'm using to hold my go-bag to the side of me and the oncoming pedestrians. The heavy application of alcohol to my tattered winter coat should have them looking away. The two coming aren't human—their massive shoulders suggest shifters. One is at least a foot taller than me. He's wearing expensive clothing. And the other? Shit. The other is the fucking golden prince. What in the hell is he doing here? How does he even know about Sunshine's aunt and cousin being in danger? And what the hell is he wearing?

Castor looks past me, but the other male doesn't. His gait slows, and I have no choice. "Can you spare any change?" I say in a low voice.

He slows and takes me in. "I don't have any." Which is hysterical. The massive male next to Castor narrows his eyes at me. "I'm sure the good folks at the coffee place around the corner will be willing to give you something." I'm not meeting him around the corner. He needs to get the hell away from here. The last thing I need is for the clueless humans inside to make me and move the women.

I nod. "This isn't the place for two upstanding Bostonians."

"We'll take that into consideration," the giant says. A true half-giant. I've come across a few in my work. He's not originally from around here. His voice has a southern drawl to it.

Castor nods at me. He knows who I am. He cocks his head to the giant and lifts his head.

The giant purses his lips. "I haven't seen you around here before."

That's when I spot the sniper on the roof. Damn, he's good. I didn't make him until his hand twitched. Fuck, there's another one on the other side of the street too. They're all focused on the building where Sunshine's family is. Now I know why Castor's here—he thinks he can buy his way out of the problem. How typical. I'm about to pull him back around the corner, when I spot a sharpshooter on top of the building next to the warehouse.

I keep my shoulders rounded, in character. I lift my eye at the snipers. "I'm new around here. Sure is cold. You must have lots of family in the area?" If they're his men on the roof, that's one less worry.

"I do. Good family. Nothing to worry about." Hagen nods and takes a step off the curb.

Castor's lips tighten with recognition. "Therodonsian," he says.

"Frodorian," I say, countering his rotten whale's spleen insult with a much simpler one.

When a cloaked helio appears in front of the building—well, it doesn't shut off its cloaking, but to the casual observer, Dorian soldiers stream out of nowhere. They're crew from the Omicron—I'd bet anything on it.

Things happen fast. Really fast.

The soldiers rush into the building. The way the helio is positioned, it's hard to see how many come out. With the flash of black uniforms between the shimmering cloak of the helio and the door of the warehouse, maybe there are twenty or thirty, it's hard to tell. The pilot has gotten them extraordinarily close. The crewmen are only visible for a fraction of a second, a black and gray blur. I focus the pervisculum on the building.

There's exactly one gunshot from the humans inside. One muffled male cry for help. The weapons the Dorian use won't make more than a whisper.

"We need to get in there now." Castor steps off the curb, racing toward the building, but the giant clamps down on his shoulder and swings Castor back around to the wall.

"Negative," the giant growls. "I want to save them as much as you do. But you're my client, and I'm not letting you go in there."

"I'm good," Castor says.

"No." The giant holds Castor with one word, pulling him behind the cover of an overflowing dumpster.

I've got my trident blaster out. It's modified with smaller tines, making it look more like a standard human rifle. I hand one to Castor. Although the giant is right—Castor is a CEO—he knows how to fight. The giant has one eye on my equipment bag and the other on the building. But I know what's going to happen.

The strike team is in and out, and as fast as the helio appeared, it's gone. I didn't see the women leave the building, but then my angle was off.

"We should check out the warehouse," the giant says.

"No," Castor and I say in unison. Dorian don't leave evidence behind.

Now it's me stopping the giant. "That's definitely not something we should do." A beat later, a Dorian rocket arcs through the sky, silently hitting the old building. I shouldn't smile, but I do. It's a well-aimed rocket, only one, and it will vanish. It won't have any traces on human radar either, making the humans believe the implosion was caused by gas or something else. In the third story, a glowing fire rages.

"We need to get you away from here." I grab Castor by the elbow.

The giant is on his phone, talking to the human authorities. "I called it in, anonymously. He's right, let's go."

I pull the dirty blanket off my equipment bag and pull it from the cart.

"Hagen," the giant says as we walk away. I strip off the worn jacket and run my hand through my hair. We round the corner and silently walk with quick steps for a block. Along the way, I remove the items of my disguise as a homeless man.

"Eros," I state. My block vibrates with the pervisculum's analysis of the building.

Castor's scowl reminds me of my papa's. He's shaken by the Omicron attack. It dawns on me that he thinks they killed Sunshine's cousin and aunt. I've let the two of them take point.

We're following the giant through the city. Another block, and he ducks into a bar. Or rather, a coffee shop. He nods at the barista, and we head to the back and down a hallway to an elevator.

"How the hell—" Castor starts.

"Not here." The giant punches a button, and we descend into a sub-basement. He scans his retina as the door opens into a brilliantly shining white space. A few heads turn, and some hands wave at him, but he ushers us into an office filled with mahogany and dark green leather.

"What the hell?" Castor turns to me while Hagen takes a seat behind a desk that fits him.

"They're not dead." I sit on the leather sofa, scrolling through the information filling my block.

"That looked like a security council hit to me." Castor's all but yelling.

"It wasn't." I'm having a bit too much fun with this, but my problem is only half solved. I still need to get my sister back. "It wasn't the council." I look from my block to Castor, my foot tapping on the green and brown Oriental rug.

"Then what was it?" Castor sits next to me.

"I have ideas, but why don't you ask your brother? He's on the Omicron, isn't he? Let him confirm things."

"Yes, but they're in the Caribbean." He frowns. Does he not want to talk to me about this in front of Hagen? The giant doesn't appear to be a fool.

"Can I speak freely in front of Hagen?" I ask Castor. He's already brought the giant into the matter. He has to know enough.

Castor gives a firm nod.

"That was a guided, cloaked missile. The only way you can do that is with a ship like the Omicron." There's no reason Castor would have the right level of military studies to know; he's spent the last decade working at Glyden Mining. "If they had wanted the women dead, they wouldn't have bothered with the extraction team." I cock my head at him. "This solves some of my problems."

Castor glares at me from where he's standing. "Solves some of your problems?"

I flick my eyes to Hagen. I have no qualms about the male, but the mountain is a stranger to me.

"He's aware that you're the one who took Annabelle from the Athens airport. And our involvement with the New Year's Day battle. His team figured out a lot on their own."

"I work with the best." Hagen lifts his chin. "Although today doesn't feel like a win."

"It's not." Castor glares at me.

"I didn't say it was." I glare back at him. "I don't know why they took the females." But then, our government is nothing but convoluted. One side not knowing what the other side is doing is not uncommon.

"And that was your people?" Hagen raises a thick eyebrow.

"Yes, or at least our military is working with some level of involvement from someone in the government." Castor has his block out, in full view. I stop holding mine like it might be a human cell phone. "But not the security council?" Castor asks me.

I shake my head.

"And what about this makes this easier for you?" Hagen takes a bright turmeric yellow tumbler out of his desk and gulps down the contents. A pasty sludge remains in the bottom. "Protein shake," he explains when he sees my questioning gaze.

"Our people are decisive. Some might call it impulsive. We take action and ask for forgiveness. I'm the person they call when they want action."

"They called you in to rescue the women?" Hagen now has a full-size granola bar. It looks like a grain of rice in his hand. He eats it with one bite.

"No, the opposite."

"And yet you're mated to Annabelle Portsmouth, the cousin of Marlee Strickland?"

"Yes, but I had no intention of fulfilling the order. Only to find them and hide them away safely." I pause. There's something about Hagen that says I can trust him. "The same council that I work for has taken my sister. If I don't return with evidence that the women are dead, they are going to let the Kraken keep her." It's not the best outcome for me. But I've talked my way out of worse.

"Kraken?"