Chapter 5

Aiden

Smoking outside was a habit from the RUSA. No one cared what or where you smoked here, but there were strict laws back home. He wouldn’t have been able to smoke cigarettes like these back home either. The RUSA was conscientious of its citizens’ health. The same ache welled up in his chest, the longing he felt whenever anyone talked about the RUSA. All the drinking and drugs could never make the pain go away. Of course, seeing as the RUSA had stopped caring about him, he figured he was welcome to whatever self-destructive behaviors he wanted.

“Goddamn it,” Aiden grunted.

Which god? asked Horatio.

The one who sent me here, Aiden answered.

Judging from Magnus’s reply, the ravens were back in insolent mode: You sent yourself here. The gods hardly helped. When they weren’t criticizing his life, the ravens were always talking about gods.

Quiet, Aiden told them. I’m trying to have a moment.

Watch out, said Horatio.

Six huge figure suddenly appeared out of the darkness off to Aiden's right. One man's head was shaved and the moonlight shined on it, make Aiden notice him first and identified him as Paolo Jessups. Beside him was his brother Miguel, and Aiden soon recognized the others as Jessup-family. He had a sinking feeling that he might be closer to Hans’s hell than he’d realized.

“Hey, Paolo, how’s it going?” Aiden managed a smile and wondered what the chances were that this wasn’t about Blanca.

“Don’t f***ing waste my time. Did you think you could get away with that? You think you could just take advantage of my sister like that?”

The chances, as it appears, were not good.

Tell him she wasn’t that unwilling, Horatio suggested. Aiden ignored him.

“There’s some mistake,” he told Paolo. “I’d never do anything to Blanca.”

“That’s not what she told Dora Ramirez,” growled Miguel.

Dora? And Ana? How many people had Blanca talked to? Aiden at least hoped she’d been complimentary about that night.

He also wondered where the hell Chris's security was. The outside of his businesses were usually crawling with guards.

Miguel took a few threatening steps forward, snarling like one of Chris's badly trained dogs. He kind of smelled like one too. “I’m going to rip you apart!” he yelled.

I don’t think Blanca was worth it, Horatio told him. She wasn’t even that good.

Magnus’s comment was more baffling: Your Valkyrie.

Miguel’s motion was put on hold as the door opened and a woman stepped outside. Not just any woman. Her. The blonde from earlier. Everyone froze for a heartbeat, and then, with impossible speed, she suddenly put herself between Aiden and the Jessups, her stance protective and dangerous. A fighter’s stance. Hans’s words came back to him: She’s military, whoever she is. She made no other moves, but there was a tension in her that said she was a lioness that could strike at any moment.

You know, remarked Magnus conversationally, lionesses do all the work while lions sit around.

“Stay back,” she told Aiden, her words verifying that she was indeed from RUSA. There were only a few inches between them, and he became acutely aware of the neck and shoulders he’d admired earlier, as well as the way the silk-wrapped her body. A few strands of hair blew around her face, and the faintest scent of what smelled like apple blossoms drifted over him.

The Jessups recovered themselves\, and Paolo smirked. “Nice trade\,” he said. “You f***ed one of our women\, now we’ll get one of yours. If you’re lucky\, we’ll leave you conscious to watch.”

The others laughed, and Paolo, with death in his eyes, took two steps forward. Unfortunately for him, he never got any farther.

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