3

Chapter 3

In the hallway outside the hearing room, Gretel looked fragile, confused and very sad. It nearly broke Abbie’s heart. But at least she could go home with her family instead of spending another night in lockup. The administrator who’d received the case was one Abbie knew to be fair and had been appointed for many years, and his rulings were unquestioned. It was one less thing to worry about in the short term.

“I will do everything I can to keep her free. You have my word,” Abbie told Gretel’s family, who’d assembled there for the hearing. They thanked her and she watched them walk away, relieved and united.

On Abbie’s way to her next hearing, Saul Kerrigan stood in her path to block her. She sighed inwardly and braced herself. There was a bit of history between Abbie and the Kerrigans, so she knew to expect an outburst.

“Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Kerrigan?”

“You think you can just get your pet, Lyons, to fix things for you?” He yelled it so loud people stopped to stare.

“I have no idea what you are referring to. If you’ll excuse me, I have another case to attend to.” She attempted to walk past but he grabbed her arm to halt her progress and a cold chill ran up her spine.

“Look here, girl.” His face was very close to hers and her arm began to hurt where he gripped it. She fought the panic, fought the memories and amazed herself by staying outwardly calm.

White noise filled her ears. It seemed as if she watched the entire scene from afar. She noted the way her hands shook slightly. The sheen of sweat down her spine, cold and flat, kept her anchored to the spot. Now was not the time to lose it. So she didn’t.

“You need to unhand me this instant.” Hmm, how very calm she sounded.

“Sir, is there a problem?” A security officer approached and attempted to get in between them. The guard knew her and Abbie realized he addressed Kerrigan first because he was Ranked, but he’d stepped in to protect her.

Kerrigan let go of her arm and she had to concentrate on not rubbing the spot where he’d gripped her so tightly. For an old man, he had a lot of strength. And a lot of audacity if he thought she’d just roll over and let him harm her. Her panic subsided, replaced by a growing rage that he’d just hurt her for no other reason than that he could.

“This woman is a traitor! She and all her little friends trying to overthrow Familial Rule. How dare she darken these halls?”

The guard stepped back, urging Abbie away with his body.

“I’m on my way to another hearing. If Mr. Kerrigan is done assaulting me, I need to be going.” She kept her voice bored, even as she worked to tamp down her fear. An accusation like Kerrigan’s wasn’t anything to play around with. In the wake of the recent scandals regarding the Imperialists, calling someone a traitor wasn’t an idle thing.

“Saul, come on. Let’s get moving, we have a meeting.” A nearly emaciated, stooped male about Gretel’s age pulled gently on Kerrigan’s arm, and Kerrigan sneered at her one last time before bustling down the hall, away from them.

“Abbie, are you all right?” Logan shoved his way through the crowd.

No. No, she wasn’t, but she had no time to fall apart just then either. “I’m fine, thank you, Logan.”

He saw her face and nodded. “I need to talk to you about a case. You have to be in Administrator Ubai’s motions hearing, right?” He put a hand at the small of her back and ushered her through the crowd toward the sky bridge between the buildings, all the while chattering to her about meaningless things.

Marcus sailed into Roman’s office and tossed a stack of papers and files onto the desk.

“Did Ms. Haws’s office call to set an appointment? And have you heard any results of the hearing for the old woman?” Roman asked.

Marcus stopped and turned to look at him carefully. “My, you’re very interested. She’s cute, isn’t she? That tiny little spitfire thing works for her. You know, I hear she’s single.”

Great, the last thing Roman needed was for Marcus to think he had a thing for Abigail Haws. “Stop it right there, Marcus. I asked because I wanted to be sure Cushing followed up. Ms. Haws’s romantic status is irrelevant to me. The woman has no manners at all.”

“You need that, Roman. You need a wild woman who will show you a world you haven’t seen. A woman who doesn’t need something from you other than some satisfaction in bed.”

“Marcus!”

Marcus, his assistant of nearly twenty years, simply laughed. “Let me check and I’ll get back to you.”

His younger brother, Alexander, would probably frown at him for giving Marcus such leeway to say things like that in his presence but Marcus made him smile. Marcus respected him without taking him too seriously. Very few people apart from his children and a small circle of friends treated him like a person instead of the Roman Lyons. It wasn’t so much that Roman gave Marcus the leeway to speak to him so informally, but that Roman preferred it that way and saw it as respect. Marcus was an employee but also a friend. That was a rare thing anywhere, much less in his world.

Roman had been standing at the window, reading a report, when Marcus rushed back in sometime later. “Roman, the old woman, Mortan, she was freed until trial. But the big news is that Saul Kerrigan grabbed Ms. Haws and screamed in her face, threatening her even, in the hall after the hearing had ended.”

Roman gripped the sheaf of papers until they crinkled. “Grabbed her how? Is she all right? Has she spoken with the media? Where in the seven hells is Saul?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Not from what I can tell. Shall I send for him?”

Roman exhaled sharply. “This sort of thing only feeds the anti-Family party line. Get him in here immediately. And get me the vid footage of that hallway. I can’t trust Saul to tell me the truth.”

“Abbie, you’ve got several high-priority comm messages,” Tasha informed her as she got back to her office. “Are you all right?” Tasha followed her into her tiny office as she asked in a hushed voice.

“Gretel is out until trial, that’s a huge relief for her family.” Abbie scrolled through the messages, stopping when she saw two from Marcus, Roman Lyons’s assistant.

“He’s not hard to look at.” Tasha grinned.

“He seems very nice,” she said absently as she watched Marcus request her presence in Roman Lyons’s office as soon as possible.

Another comm, this one from Roman himself.

“Now that is one handsome male. Looks like he’d smell very good.”

“He does. But he has terrible manners. I should hit you with this”—Abbie held up a hole punch briefly—“for forgetting to tell me he’d be on my doorstep at a very late hour.” She hadn’t even been wearing a bra when he’d shown up. Not that he’d shown any interest in the state of her nipples at all, but still.

“I left you a note. You always come back here.” Tasha raised one shoulder that told Abbie her assistant knew good and well Abbie wouldn’t get that message. Tasha knew Abbie would have put a stop to the meeting if she’d known.

She sighed after listening to Roman Lyons ask her to come to his office immediately. It wasn’t like she could say no. Not when she wanted him to listen to her pitch about the MRD and he had helped out with Gretel. But when it came right down to it, Roman Lyons had requested an audience and it wasn’t one she could refuse.

“I need to go over to House Lyons. I’m clear schedulewise. Please inform Mr. Lyons’s assistant I’m on my way and that I don’t have two hours to waste.”

“Um, he’s had a conveyance sent. The driver is waiting for you.”

“Tasha! You knew all this time and you didn’t tell me?” She stood and tried to smooth down the front of her clothing. Quickly, she managed to tuck errant strands of her hair back into the knot at the back of her head and hid a blush as she dabbed on lipstain.

“Abbie, if I’d told you at the beginning you’d have insisted he was manipulating you. And look, Kerrigan is a monster to have handled you that way. Logan told us how he was. Roman Lyons seems to care about the situation, so why shouldn’t you go over there? He needs to know what the Ranked get up to.” Tasha handed Abbie her case with a smile that said she didn’t feel a single bit of guilt.

“Logan shouldn’t be telling tales. I have to go. I’ll get even with you later.” She waved over her shoulder as she rushed out and the House Lyons driver who’d been waiting stood and gave her a slight bow.

“Ms. Haws? Mr. Lyons says to bring you right over when you get the opportunity.”

She smiled—what else could she do, she was raised to have manners, after all—and let him lead her to the conveyance waiting at the front of the building.

No one in the inner-circle part of the capital city had vehicles. Mass transit worked very well, and without vehicles other than trams and the subterranean trains, it was easy enough to walk through the municipal complex from one side to the other in less than half of one standard hour.

The Ranked, of course, did have vehicles, but even they didn’t use them very often within the municipal ring. And yet here she sat, ensconced in the plush seats of the transport of the House Lyons, headed to Roman Lyons’s office. It had been a total waste of resources and time, and a way to keep the upper hand but, at the same time, Abbie was glad she hadn’t had to walk and be jostled by the crowd on her way.

She should have taken a relaxer but it’d been so long since she’d had an attack that she’d left them at home. And now, jittery and burning with adrenaline, she headed straight into the absolute worst place she could go.