Forged Absolution (Fates of the Bound Book 4) Read online

  Lila sat on the couch drinking a glass of chocolate. Cold chocolate, rather than hot, for Dixon had cranked up the heat as soon as they’d returned to the apartment. She’d changed clothes around noon, donning one of Dixon’s old purple t-shirts and a pair of his shorts, for she’d not taken any warm weather gear when she fled the Randolph estate. Every few moments, she lifted the laptop off her thighs to keep from overheating.

  It made reading through the oracle’s message a bit more difficult and time-consuming, but there hadn’t been much to read. She’d sent it only ten minutes after Lila had exited the courtroom.

  Clearly, her parents hadn’t been the only ones bugging the room.

  According to the oracle, her older sister, Kenna, had put together a second list. She’d considered every person with regular access to their compound and written down the names of those she found the most suspicious. The oracle claimed Kenna was an excellent judge of character, almost preternatural in her assessments, and requested that Lila take her impressions seriously.

  Lila intended to do just that after she finished reading through the transcripts. She’d managed to work her way through half the folders while Dixon flitted in and out of the room, checking on tasks downstairs and attending meetings with workborn contacts and spies. By three o’clock, she paused to check the age progression software. It still chugged away in the back of the room. The fact that it hadn’t finished yet didn’t surprise her.

  By the time she’d scanned through another quarter of the transcripts, her age programs had finished compiling the data for the empire. Lila copied the file to her laptop and set the computer to begin its work on the Allied data. Nibbling on chocolate chip cookies, she wrote a short program that pulled biographical data for each name on Connell’s list from the official registry. Everyone had a few pictures in their public files, for their government ID, for school, work, and the library, as well as various licenses for the net, driving, marriage, and children.

  When the program finished pulling all the photos, she loaded the facial-recognition software onto her laptop and wrote a quick program to compare both sets. She used a low tolerance, unconcerned with false positives. Too many hits were preferential to a match being lost due to a too-sensitive filter.

  It took the matching program a few hours to run. Thirty possible matches had been tossed into a new folder while she skimmed through more transcripts. Lila tossed out half as false positives and scrolled through the biographical data for the remaining fifteen. Connell and the oracle would have to investigate them without her.

  For the rest of the evening, she finished reading through the serum transcripts, paying a great deal of attention to the questions Connell and the oracle asked of the mercs.

  If she had to let Bullstow inject her, would her interrogator be so blunt and unforgiving?

  Chief Shaw would be careful about what he asked her, but there were no guarantees he would be in the room. The senate might choose someone else, for everyone now assumed they had some sort of professional or personal relationship.

  Dixon brought her Chinese for dinner, and she read through the files she’d flagged as they ate. She skimmed through more of the transcripts while she chewed, her eyes straying to the door every five minutes as she listened for a pair of boots on the staircase.

  It wasn’t until ten o’clock that she heard them, heavy and measured on each step.

  Tristan sighed heavily when he saw her. Not the sigh of satisfaction he’d given a thousand times as he settled between her legs, nor the sigh of contentment as he nuzzled her neck at the end of a hard day—not even the sigh of a tired man plopping down on the couch.

  It was a sigh of disappointment.

  Plans canceled, chores undone, the thousandth excuse.

  An ex-lover lingering on your couch, unwanted.

  “You’re still here,” he said evenly, moving to the kitchen sink to wash his hands.

  “Yes. You once said I could stay here. Has that changed?”

  “As I recall, a lot of things were said,” he muttered, turning on the water. “I meant that you haven’t been hanged. I told you they wouldn’t. They don’t hang heirs.”

  “They might. They haven’t decided yet.”

  “So I heard. Three cheers for senate theater.” Tristan grabbed a towel to dry his hands, then tossed it away on the counter. He sat down on the sofa chair near the couch and steepled his fingers. “I want to make something very clear, Ms. Randolph, because I do not want you to misunderstand me and be disappointed later. Whatever sentence they pass tomorrow, Dixon and I can’t help you. There is far too much press. Your face will be too well known to hide, and it would put my people in danger. More to the point, your bounty will be far too high. Someone might be tempted to turn you in, and I won’t be able to guarantee your safety. Don’t involve us.”

  “I guess I’m not one of your people after all.”

  “You made it clear many times that you weren’t. You were so fired up last month about going back to the highborn—let them help. Or use your abundant financial resources to secure a safe house. Better yet, go to the oracle. You’re safer there.”

  Dixon scribbled on his notepad.

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Tristan said, waving his brother away. “She won’t need our help because the committee won’t do a damn thing to her. Even if they did, we couldn’t help, and you know it. We can’t take that kind of heat, and we have other things to focus on that are more important.”

  Dixon gripped the couch cushion. His knuckles turned white, but he didn’t argue.

  Lila found herself doing the same.

  “I didn’t know you’d be here tonight, Ms. Randolph. I know you don’t care, but I feel it only fair to warn you that Katia will be coming over. You don’t have to leave, but—”

  Lila snatched up her laptop and marched into Dixon’s room, not wanting to hear the rest of his speech—a well-rehearsed speech, by the sound of it. The last thing she wanted to do was sit on the couch while Tristan and his new lover watched a movie together or stopped watching it and made out a meter away.

  She curled up on Dixon’s bed, her laptop abandoned on his desk, listening to Tristan’s hushed voice in the other room.

  Moments later, the apartment door opened. Katia did not hush her voice.

  Neither did Tristan in reply.

  Dixon slipped inside the bedroom and gently closed the door. He sat down on the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. “I should go somewhere else,” Lila whispered, not wanting her voice to carry. “This is your room, and—”

  He shook his head and dug into his pocket for his pencil. I like you being here. It’s been ages since I’ve had a woman over. It’s soothing.

  “I seriously doubt it’s been ages.”

  He’s an idiot, you know. You’re a far better hacker than Toxic and Reaper. We could use someone like you, no matter what sort of heat it might draw. He should be offering you a job and protection.

  “He’s right. I’m not like Toxic. I’ll be a lot harder to hide.”

  He never questioned hiding me, and I wasn’t some teenager charged with misuse of a computer. They didn’t cut out my tongue for fun.

  Lila did not know what to say. She’d asked over and over again about the circumstances behind his torture, but he had never explained.

  Dixon didn’t explain now, either. He rubbed his scalp and returned to his notepad. Tristan didn’t question hiding Maria or Oskar. You’ve pulled his ass out of the fire so many times, and what does he do in return?

  “He’s right. He’s finally learned some restraint. He’s finally considering the consequences of his choices. I only had to tell him a thousand times.”

  The oracle will help you.

  When Lila didn’t reply, Dixon climbed into bed and curled around her, his weight and heat a comfort.

  She needed that c
omfort, for small moans leaked through the wall near their heads.

  Dixon held her tighter as the moans grew louder. He pulled out his notepad. We could make noises of our own.

  “I don’t want to,” Lila whispered, even though the thought tempted her.

  I didn’t mean they had to be real.

  Lila shook her head.

  He’s being an ass.

  “Is he? I’m in his apartment—”

  It’s my apartment too!

  “I know. I just mean that I’m in his space, and he’s clearly moved on. He’s already met this woman’s mother, for oracle’s sake. At this point, he’s probably been with her longer than he was with me.”

  When Dixon said nothing, she rolled over. “Oh gods, he has been with her longer, hasn’t he?”

  Dixon did not answer.

  “So…he started screwing the first woman he found the night we broke up?”

  He shook his head.

  “Does he love her?”

  He shook his head again, far too quickly.

  “Oh gods, they’ve been together before. Katia is an ex-lover?”

  Dixon nodded, his eyes heavy. Katia is Fry’s little sister. She and Tristan dated several years ago, but they broke up when she went off to college.

  “So distance, rather than an argument?”

  They never argue.

  Lila wondered what that was like. Probably very similar to the relationships she’d had in the past. She rarely argued with lovers. Things were always so easy with other highborn.

  Then again, those relationships involved little more than sex.

  “College? Her family comes from the well-off workborn?”

  No. She won a scholarship. A full ride.

  “So she’s smart, younger, and has fewer responsibilities. I bet they get to see each other all the time.”

  Another moan filled the air. Katia called out for Tristan, just as Lila had done once.

  Even when she’d been with La Roux.

  He didn’t have to bring her here. He had to know. He’s being an ass.

  Dixon shifted as though he might get up, but Lila clung to his chest. “No. Don’t go.”

  He curled his arm around her, not budging as another moan broke through the quiet.

  On one hand, she now understood how Tristan claimed to feel the night of the Closing Ball, knowing she’d be with another, knowing there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Even if he and Katia moaned together just to make an heir, it didn’t make it sting any less.

  He’d told her once that she wasn’t like the other highborn, that she didn’t have room in her heart for many lovers at one time. It wasn’t until that moment that she thought he might be right. Perhaps her previous lovers hadn’t been lovers at all, or perhaps Tristan had been something entirely different.

  A man filled with lies.

  She couldn’t get away from that. How he’d claimed that he loved her, that he’d needed her, that he couldn’t be without her, that he’d do anything to keep her. Then he’d quickly traded her in for someone else a few days later. While she’d been miserable without him in her little cottage, he’d been fine and happily bedded.

  If he hadn’t been lying, then she must have been quite easy to get over. She’d never been all that special at all.

  The whole situation was far too embarrassing for words.

  Lila cuddled deeper into Dixon’s shoulder. “Tristan was right about me picking the highborn over him, but he’s wrong that they’ll save me. No one will. My father won’t. My mother won’t. The day before the story broke, I found out something about her, about my sister. I used it against my mother to get my mark back. Part of the reason why she wanted me to become prime was to protect me from this. If I had taken my position officially, I might have been spared. She tried to protect me, but I bit her hand and walked away.”

  Will she help you now?

  “Somehow I doubt she’s talked to the Massons on my behalf, no matter what my father has said, not when she’s emptied every account I own as a last fuck-you. If I’m sentenced to a slave’s term tomorrow, I won’t have one single credit to my name to pay for my mark after I’ve served it. There will be a bidding war for me, and I’ll sell for too much money to ever work it off. Any term is a life sentence, and I already guaranteed one with what I admitted in court.”

  Another moan filled the air.

  Not Katia.

  Tristan.

  Lila curled deeper into Dixon.

  Chapter 6

  Thump.

  Thump.

  Thump.

  Lila covered her ears as the headboard smacked against the wall in the other room—a headboard she was quite familiar with; a headboard she and Tristan had broken almost nightly when they’d been together.

  A headboard now being grabbed by another woman during morning sex.

  Her eyes cut to the clock on the bedside table. Seven o’clock. It was as good a time as any for her to get up. She had work to do. Always work.

  Dixon stirred and flopped a barely conscious arm around her, tugging her closer. He pressed his hand against her ear and pushed her head into his chest, kissing her forehead.

  Another muffled thump broke through his grasp.

  She wiggled away. Dixon was hot. Very hot. Even wearing nothing but boxer briefs, his skin radiated heat like a volcano. She couldn’t dwell so near lava, not under so many blankets.

  Thump.

  “Katia,” Tristan said, moaning.

  Katia answered, groaning as she climaxed.

  “Tristan and I weren’t this loud, were we?” Lila whispered.

  Dixon shook his head, his face covered in red sleep lines from his pillow.

  “You’re very diplomatic. We woke you up often, didn’t we?”

  He shrugged.

  “Gods, I’m sorry.”

  Murmuring broke the moans next door.

  Great. Now Tristan and Katia would talk about the morning sex they’d just had.

  Lila rolled her eyes. She’d had enough. She untangled herself from the blankets, eyeing Dixon’s shorts on the floor. She’d been wearing them when she went to bed, but she’d somehow kicked them off during the night, most likely due to the heat. Thank the gods she still wore her tank top and panties.

  So far, sleeping in the same bed as Dixon hadn’t bothered her. It hadn’t made her horny and frustrated, a common problem when highborn slept so near another. She supposed she was too upset by the trial, La Roux, and Tristan to have any sort of libido. She really didn’t want to test it, though. Dixon was her friend, and getting into a sexual relationship with her ex-lover’s brother was both tacky and fraught with drama.

  Besides, she rather liked Dixon as her friend. She liked him as a best friend even more.

  She had precious few of either at the moment.

  And more importantly, her gut and her heart said she could trust Dixon, and she needed at least one person in her life that she could depend on.

  Slipping out of bed, she snatched up her clothes and toiletries from her bag and padded to the door, opening it as soon as Tristan opened his.

  He wore nothing but his boxer briefs.

  He cast an eye toward her bare legs, her panties, and the damp tank that outlined her breasts. For a fraction of a second, his eyes narrowed, and his jaw clenched.

  So did his fist.

  Lila stepped backward awkwardly, slamming her back on Dixon’s door, but Tristan didn’t snap or yell or raise his hand. He just turned away and padded into the kitchen.

  She darted into the bathroom and closed the door.

  As she exhaled over the sink, her mind returned to La Roux, how he’d snapped that night in her bedroom.

  What if Tristan had done the same thing?

  He had looked angry enough, at
least until he’d wandered off. She’d promised herself that she’d take a self-defense course last month, but once again she hadn’t followed through—not that she’d really had a chance to take a class while hiding at the cottage.

  Lila looked in the mirror above the sink. Fuck Tristan if he thought he’d have a shower. She’d take one first.

  Damn right. The reflection smirked back.

  She hopped into the shower, wishing she had access to her old bathtub. Her soaks were long and legendary.

  Was that what her life had come to?

  Did she really miss a bathtub?

  As she scrubbed shampoo into her hair, she realized that she did. It had only been a month. How would she survive a lifetime of slavery if she became this maudlin over a bathtub?

  Had Alex felt the same every day of every week?

  Lila knew she’d soon miss a lot of things: large beds, good food, great wine, expensive clothes, easy sex. She wouldn’t have the credits for another CUT, an operation that would prevent her from becoming pregnant, an operation she’d reversed to be with Senator La Roux.

  That wasn’t the only thing she didn’t have the resources for. Even if she wanted to keep the baby, she didn’t have the resources to care for it. It would be born a slave, too, rather than a highborn heir. And what of its father? He’d either died or was screwing another woman. The latter shouldn’t have bothered her. Highborn didn’t keep one lover; they kept several, and they should be able to toss them away at a moment’s notice.

  So why couldn’t she toss away Tristan? He’d tossed her away, even after he’d spent weeks murmuring all those lovely words, even after he’d asked her to run away from her family and her responsibilities and join him.

  The liar.

  She shoved her head back under the spray, giving herself a scrub and a rinse. At least she could take comfort in the fact that she’d said no to Tristan. She’d at least keep her damn pride. It would have made the breakup so much worse if she’d given in, only to have him change his mind after she’d given up everything to be with him.

  Tristan’s bedroom door opened and closed. Either Tristan had returned to bed, or Katia had come outside to join him.