Chapter 11: After the Gavel Falls
The ache between her legs was a dull, throbbing echo as the town car slid through the midnight canyons of Delta City. Brenda sat in the back, her spine rod-straight, the damp patch on the leather seat beneath her a secret she carried like a brand. The gavel lay in her purse, a guilty weight. The boardroom’s sanctity was another lie she’d torn apart. She watched the neon bleed across the window, her reflection a ghost over the bright streets. The crystallium in her blood had subsided to a whisper, a low-grade itch in her veins that made her skin feel two sizes too small.
Her penthouse apartment, which occupied the top three floors of the Wade Tower, was a monument to tasteful silence. The elevator doors sighed open directly into the living area, all clean lines, abstract art, and city light. She dropped her purse and the suit jacket, the keys clattering on the Carrara marble console. The silence was a pressure against her eardrums.
She went to the wet bar, poured three fingers of Glenfiddich, and drank it neat. The burn was a shallow distraction. She could still smell herself on her fingers. Coffee, sex, desperation.
A long, scalding shower did nothing to scour the feeling away. She scrubbed her skin raw with a loofah until it pinkened, but the sensation of invasion lingered—Slag’s stone, the lackey’s fingers, the cold polished wood of the gavel. They were ghosts in her flesh. Wrapped in a silk robe, she stood before the wall of glass, the city sprawled like a captured galaxy at her feet. This was her kingdom. From up here, the dirt was invisible.
The power belt rested on her dresser. She hadn’t worn it home. Now, its gem pulsed with a faint, sleepy light, as if sensing her proximity. The itch in her veins intensified, becoming a pull. A need.
“No,” she whispered to the glass. The woman in the reflection, pale and hollow-eyed, didn’t believe her.
She turned from the window. Her study was a quieter space, lined with first editions and a single, flawless Eames chair. Her personal terminal, a slab of black obsidian, glowed to life at her touch. She had work. Security reports from the R&D division, where her engineers were trying—and failing—to reverse-engineer the belt’s crystallium matrix. Charity foundation proposals. She scanned them, the words blurring into meaningless shapes. Her focus was a shattered thing.
A soft chime, proprietary and encrypted, sounded from the terminal. An alert. Not from Wade Industries. From the isolated, hardened servers that monitored police bands and underworld chatter linked to her other life.
Her body went still. The craving receded, replaced by a colder, sharper focus.
The alert flagged a voice recording, lifted from a tapped line in the Dockside district. The voice was a graveled ruin, unmistakable.
“...the package is at the usual drop. The alloy is unstable. Tell the client it needs the damping field or it’ll microwave the pilot’s brains to soup. Payment in crystallium, raw grade. None of that diluted shit.”
Slag.
Her heart hammered against her ribs. A transaction. Unstable alloy. A client. And crystallium as currency. This wasn’t petty theft. This was someone building something. Something that needed the very substance that was currently unmaking her.
The alert included a location code. The Old Granary, Wharf 7. Tonight.
She was moving before the thought fully formed. The robe pooled on the floor. She went to the dresser, her hands steady now, purposeful. She ignored the more substantial suits, the armored panels. She reached for a costume. This one was even more minimalist than the last: strategic strips of star-spangled fabric, little more than a harness, designed for maximum mobility and zero protection. It was an admission. The fight wasn’t about defense anymore. It was about access. About feeling the city’s grime and the belt’s power with nothing in between.
She clasped the belt around her waist. The hum was immediate, a wave of warm vibration that plunged directly into her nervous system. Her nipples tightened to painful points against the fabric. A fresh slickness warmed her. The need, which had been a whisper, became a shouting chorus in her blood. It clarified everything. The mission was no longer just to stop a deal. It was to get close to the crystallium. To smell it, to see it, to maybe, somehow…
She didn’t finish the thought. She was out the private terrace door, the night air cool on her feverish skin. A running start, a leap, and the city fell away beneath her as the belt’s thrusters engaged.
The Old Granary was a carcass of brick and rusted iron, silhouetted against the sulfur-yellow lights of the chemical plants across the river. She landed on a sagging roof beam, her boots disturbing a century of pigeon filth. The sound from below was a low murmur of voices, punctuated by the sharp clang of metal.
She dropped through a broken skylight, landing in a crouch on a catwalk. Below, in a pool of light from temporary construction lamps, was Slag. His stone-plated bulk was unmistakeable. He was overseeing the transfer of a crate from a forklift into the back of a shielded van. Two men in tactical gear stood watch, their postures professional, mercenary.
And then she saw the client.
He stood apart, silhouetted near the van. Tall, lean, in an impeccably tailored black overcoat. His hair was silver, cut close. He held a tablet, his face illuminated by its glow, features sharp and calculating. He looked utterly out of place. He looked like money. Like the kind of money that sat on her boards.
“The damping field specs are included,” Slag rumbled, tapping the crate. “You try to run it without, you’ll be hosing a corpse out of the cockpit.”
“Your concern is touching,” the silver-haired man replied. His voice was smooth, accentless, cool as a surgical blade. “The crystallium.”
Slag jerked his head. One of his lackeys—not the one from the warehouse, a new one—brought forward a small, heavily shielded case. He opened the latch. From her perch, Brenda saw the glow. Raw crystallium, unrefined, pulsed with a deep, visceral purple light. It was the size of a brick. It called to her. Her mouth watered. A tremor ran through her legs.
The silver-haired man took the case, closed it. “A pleasure.”
“Don’t spend it all in one place,” Slag grunted.
This was it. The moment to strike. To intercept the crystallium, to stop whatever that alloy was meant for.
But she didn’t move. She watched the silver-haired man turn, the case in his hand. She watched Slag count his own people. The craving was a knot in her stomach, a relentless pull. The crystallium was right there. But it was walking away with the client. Slag had more. He always had more.
Her decision was not a hero’s calculus. It was the decision of an addict. She needed a sure thing.
She let the client go. She waited until the van’s engine faded into the night. Then she dropped from the catwalk, landing silently behind a stack of pallets, twenty feet from Slag and his three remaining men.
“We’re done here,” Slag said, turning. “Pack it up.”
Brenda stepped into the light.
For a second, there was only the buzz of the lamps and the distant drip of water. The two mercenaries fumbled for their weapons. The lackey froze, eyes wide.
Slag just stared. His stone face was unreadable, but his eyes, those human eyes, tracked over her nearly naked body, the damp patch already darkening the flimsy fabric at her crotch. A slow, knowing smirk cracked his features.
“Well,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “Look what the cat dragged in. Miss me, superstar?”
“The crystallium,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady. “The raw grade. You have more.”
He laughed, a sound like grinding stones. “Thirsty already? That boardroom coffee not doin’ it for you?” He’d known she’d listen. He’d known she’d come.
“Give it to me.”
“Or what?” He spread his massive hands. “You gonna fight me for it? You gonna try?”
She didn’t answer. She took a step forward. The belt hummed. She saw his eyes drop to it, to the gem, then back to her face. He saw her desperation. He tasted it in the air.
He made a short, sharp gesture to his men. “Wait outside.”
“Boss, she’s—”
“Outside.”
They retreated, footsteps echoing, leaving her alone with him in the vast, dusty space. The silence they left behind was thick, charged.
“You let the big fish swim away,” Slag said, taking a step toward her. “Came for the bottom feeder instead. That’s interesting.”
“I came for what I need.”
“And what do you need, Brenda?” The use of her name was a violation. He kept advancing, a mountain of hostile stone. “You need another dose? You need to be reminded who owns that pretty cunt of yours?”
She stood her ground, fire and ice warring in her veins. “I need what’s in that case.”
He was right in front of her now. He didn’t touch her. He just looked down, his breath hot and metallic. “It’ll cost you.”
“I don’t have money here.”
“I don’t want your money.” He reached out one blunt, stony finger and traced the neckline of her costume, down to the swell of her breast. “You know the price.”
Her resolve, so brittle, shattered. The need won. She nodded, a tiny, broken gesture.
He grabbed her then, not with passion, but with contempt. One hand fisted in her hair, yanking her head back. The other slammed against the small of her back, crushing her against him. The stone was cold and rough through the thin fabric. She could feel the hard line of his cock, already straining against his trousers.
“Since you’re so fucking eager,” he growled into her ear. He half-dragged, half-shoved her toward the open crate the alloy had been in. It was lined with molded packing foam. He bent her over the edge of it, her cheek pressed into the gritty foam. The crate came to her hips.
He didn’t bother with her costume. He just gripped the flimsy fabric at her lower back and tore it sideways. The sound was vicious in the quiet. Cool air hit her exposed ass. He shoved her legs apart with his knee.
She heard his zipper. Then the blunt, broad head of his cock was pressing against her, still soft from the lackey’s use, from her own frantic gavel-fucking. She was open, wet, an easy entry.
He didn’t wait. He didn’t push. He shoved himself into her in one brutal, shearing thrust.
Brenda screamed. The pain was bright and shocking, a stretch that bordered on tearing. He was huge, and he filled her with a single-minded, punishing completeness. He bottomed out, his stone pelvis slamming against her ass.
“There,” he grunted, not moving, just letting her feel the full, splitting intrusion. “That what you needed? A reminder?”
She couldn’t speak. Her fists clenched against the foam. Tears of pain and shame squeezed from her eyes.
Then he moved. He fucked her with a steady, piston-like rhythm, each thrust a calculated punishment that drove the air from her lungs. There was no pleasure in it for her, only a deep, brutal claiming and the overwhelming, degrading fullness. The crate scraped across the concrete floor with every drive.
“You’re nothing like this,” he rasped, his breath hot on her neck. “In your towers. In your boardrooms. You’re just this. A hungry hole. My hungry hole.”
His words were like the thrusts—hard, true, and devastating. He leaned over her, his weight driving her deeper into the crate’s edge. One stony hand left her hip and snaked around her front, his fingers finding her clit, roughly, indifferently.
The dual sensation was too much. The painful, stretching fuck below, the crude friction above. The belt’s gem flared against her abused belly. Her body, traitorous and tuned to the crystallium, began to respond. A heat coiled tight in her gut, separate from the pain, fed by the vibration and the sheer animal brutality of the act.
“You’re gonna come,” he stated, feeling her muscles begin to flutter around his cock. “You’re gonna come on my dick while I take what I want from you. Because that’s what you are.”
And she did. With a choked, sobbing cry, her orgasm ripped through her, a convulsive wave of shame and electric release that made her cervix ache against his pounding length. She clenched around him, spasming violently.
Her climax seemed to trigger his. With a final, grinding thrust, he buried himself to the hilt and held there. A hot, pulsing flood filled her, distinct and hotter than the last time. He groaned, a sound of pure, selfish satisfaction.
He stayed inside her for a long moment, both of them panting in the dusty air. Then he pulled out. The sudden emptiness was a shock. She heard the wet sound as he tucked himself away.
She couldn’t move. Her legs were shaking. She felt his come start to leak out of her, down her inner thigh.
A small, heavy object landed in the crate beside her head. The shielded case. It was open. Inside, a single, rough chunk of raw crystallium glowed, smaller than a golf ball, but pure. Its light pulsed in time with her heartbeat.
“Don’t spend it all in one place,” he said again, his voice now thick with smug exhaustion.
She heard his footsteps recede. The granary door groaned open, then shut. She was alone.
Slowly, trembling, she pushed herself upright. The torn costume hung off her. She picked up the chunk of crystallium. Its energy sang up her arm, a siren’s promise of oblivion. She clutched it to her chest, naked and filthy in the empty warehouse, the taste of his victory and her defeat sour in her mouth.
The mission was a failure. The client was gone. The alloy was gone.
She had exactly what she’d come for.
The raw crystallium throbbed in her palm like a second, diseased heart, its purple light bleeding into the cracks of her fingers. She brought it to her face, inhaling the ozone-sharp scent of pure power, and her cunt clenched around the emptiness he’d left behind. A thick strand of his come dripped onto the granary floor. The need was a shriek in her veins, louder than pain, louder than shame. She didn’t hesitate. She pressed the jagged chunk to the gem on her belt.
The fusion was instantaneous and violent.
Lightning arced up her spine. Her back bowed, a silent scream stretching her mouth. The granary vanished, replaced by a torrent of raw sensation: every nerve ending fired at once, a feedback loop of pleasure so intense it bordered on agony. She came again, dry and wrenching, her body seizing without touch. The high was cleaner than sex, sharper than victory. It filled the hollows he’d punched into her. For sixty seconds, she was invincible and empty.
Then it faded.
The crash was a physical blow. She sagged against the crate, gasping. The crystallium was gone, absorbed, leaving only a dull grey husk. The itch was back, deeper now, hungrier. She knew the math. That chunk had bought her an hour of peace, maybe two. Then the shaking would start.
A low buzz cut through the ringing in her ears. It came from her belt. A frequency Slag had embedded during their first encounter—a direct line.
“Enjoy your snack?” His voice grated from the gem, tinny and close.
Brenda swallowed, her throat raw. “What do you want?”
“What, no thank you?” He chuckled. “That was a taste. A courtesy. The next batch has a price tag attached.”
She closed her eyes. The polished boardroom table flashed behind her lids. The gavel. “How much?”
“Not money. You’re gonna do a job for me.”
“What job?”
“The First Metropolitan Bank on Grand. The underground safety deposit vault. You’re going to empty it.”
She laughed, a brittle sound. “You’re insane. I don’t rob banks.”
“You do now. And you’ll do it as yourself. Brenda Wade, CEO. You walk in during business hours. You use your override codes for the private elevators. You clear the vault. Simple.”
The absurdity of it curdled in her stomach. “They have biometrics. Armed guards.”
“You have a power belt that can bend steel. And you’re motivated.” His tone shifted, going flat and cold. “The vault has a private box, number 117. I need what’s inside. You bring me that, you get a brick of raw crystal. You fail, or you try to be clever, the supply dries up. Forever. And we both know what happens to you then.”
She saw it. The shaking hands in a board meeting. The public collapse. The loss of everything she’d built. The craving twitched in her gut, a puppet’s string.
“Why me?” Her whisper was barely audible.
“Because nobody stops Ms. Americana from walking into a bank she partly owns. Because you’re perfect for it. And because I own you, Brenda. Last night proved that. Your little boardroom adventure proved that. You’re a fucking junkie in a star-spangled bikini. Now suit up in your other costume and get to work.”
The line went dead.
Silence pressed in, heavier than before. The scent of dust, coolant, and sex hung in the air. A pigeon cooed in the rafters. She looked down at her torn costume, the dried streaks on her thighs. The order echoed in her skull, a death sentence for her other life. Rob a bank. As Brenda Wade. Using the access her civility had granted.
She straightened up. Her legs held. She walked to where her street clothes were hidden in a vent shaft, moving with a robotic precision. Each step was a calculation. The bank’s security layout. The timing. The alibi. The crystallium’s hunger, a constant drumbeat beneath it all.
She dressed in the sleek, cream-colored pantsuit from her earlier day, the fabric feeling like a stranger’s skin. She fastened the pearls at her neck. Her hands didn’t shake.
She had exactly what she’d come for: a reason to keep going, and a command that would break her world in two. The sun was beginning to bleed into the sky over the river, painting the towers in hues of gold and rose. It was almost business hours.
It was almost business hours. The pristine lines of her pantsuit felt like a surgical bandage over the fresh bruises, the pearls a delicate choke-chain. She rode the silent elevator down to the executive garage, the scent of Slag’s come still clinging to her if she breathed deeply enough. Her driver, Mark, held the door of the town car without meeting her eyes.
“First Metropolitan, please.” Her voice was CEO-calm.
“The bank, ma’am?” A flicker of surprise. She never made unscheduled appearances.
“An unexpected audit.” The lie slipped out, smooth and cold. She watched the city stream by, every neon sign a smear of color. Her thighs, stuck slightly to the leather seat, ached.
First Metropolitan’s Grand Avenue lobby was a cathedral of money, all marble and hushed voices. The manager, Phillips, scurried over, his smile tight with confusion. “Ms. Wade! We had no appointment—an honor, of course.”
“Internal security review, Level Five.” She invoked a clause from the bank’s charter her company had written. “The underground vault. Now, please.”
His hesitation was a brittle thing. “The biometrics require dual authorization—”
“You have my override. Run it.” She didn’t blink. The belt’s gem, hidden beneath silk, pressed a dull heat into her abdomen. The craving was a quiet hum now, a patient predator.
Phillips swallowed, nodded. He led her past the main floor, through a brushed steel door, into a private elevator that descended with a gut-tugging lurch. The air grew cooler. The elevator opened onto a short corridor that ended in a vault door like the face of a tomb.
“Your handprint and retinal scan, ma’am,” Phillips said, gesturing to the panel.
She placed her palm flat. The scanner light passed over her eyes. A deep thunk echoed in the corridor as heavy bolts retracted. The door sighed open. Inside, the safety deposit vault was a grid of cold steel drawers under flat fluorescent light.
“You may wait outside,” she told Phillips.
“Protocol requires I—”
“I am the protocol today.” She turned just her head, her emerald eyes flat. “Shut the door.”
He retreated, the massive door sealing behind him. Silence, absolute and cold, descended. Her breath fogged slightly. This was it. The point of no return. Brenda Wade, philanthropist, pillar, thief. She moved to Box 117.
It was larger than the others. No simple key; it required a physical combination. Slag’s whispered digits in the warehouse repeated in her head. 34-7-19. The lock clicked. She pulled the long, heavy drawer out and set it on the central table.
Inside was not cash or jewels. It was a sealed titanium cylinder, frosted with cold, roughly the size of a thermos. Stenciled letters on the side read: X-12 PHASE-MATRIX / PROPERTY OF DARPA / EYES ONLY. Her blood went icy. This wasn’t stolen art. This was a weapon, or the core of one. The client in the granary, the unstable alloy—it connected here.
A wave of nausea, unrelated to the crystallium, hit her. She was stealing from her own government. Treason wrapped in patriotism.
The itch in her veins spiked, as if sensing her hesitation. It tightened like a fist around her spine. She needed the reward. She needed the crystallium. Now. She shoved the cylinder into her oversized leather portfolio, the cold metal seeping through the fine hide.
She hauled the empty drawer back into its slot, the sound final. She straightened her jacket. One breath. Two. She walked to the vault door and triggered the internal release.
Phillips was pacing. He started at the door’s groan. “All satisfactory, Ms. Wade?”
“A minor discrepancy in the log for Box 117. I’m taking the contents for forensic analysis at Wade Industries. You will note the removal under my authority. You will speak of this to no one.” She breezed past him, a woman used to being obeyed. The portfolio weighed a thousand pounds.
“But—the forms—”
“Are being drafted. You’ll have them by end of day.” The elevator doors closed on his anxious, pale face.
Back in the town car, she said, “The usual drop site on the riverfront. Then you’re done for the day.” Mark nodded.
She stared at the portfolio beside her. She’d done it. The crime was complete. The high from the raw chunk was a distant memory, the crash now a gathering storm in her limbs. A faint tremor began in her left hand. She clenched it into a fist.
The drop site was an abandoned boathouse. She dismissed Mark, telling him she had a private meeting. The car pulled away, leaving her alone with the river’s rotten smell. She walked inside, the shadows deep. He was already there.
Slag leaned against a rotting post, a different shielded case at his feet. His gaze went straight to the portfolio.
“Took your time.”
She threw the portfolio at his feet. It landed with a thud. “Box 117. Now give me what’s mine.”
He didn’t move to pick it up. He just looked at her, a slow, comprehensive study that took in the faint sweat on her temple, the barely-contained shake in her stance. “You look like shit. Jitters already?”
“The crystallium. Now.”
“Open it,” he nodded to the portfolio. “I want to see.”
Her jaw tightened. She bent, unzipped the case, pulled out the cold titanium cylinder. He whistled softly, a sound of genuine appreciation. “Yeah. That’s the stuff.” He finally picked up the case at his feet and tossed it toward her. It slid over the dirty concrete.
She snatched it, fumbled with the latch. Inside, nestled in black foam, was a brick of raw crystallium three times the size of the last. Its purple glow lit her face from below, carving her features into a mask of desperate hunger. The need roared, drowning out all thought, all regret.
She reached for it.
“Ah-ah,” Slag said, his voice a low rumble. He had closed the distance silently. His stone hand closed over her wrist, not hard, but utterly immovable. “You did good. Maybe you deserve a little… bonus.”
He used his grip to turn her, pushing her back against the splintery post. The cold, damp wood bit through her silk blouse. He plucked the crystallium brick from the case with his free hand and held it up before her eyes, letting its light dance across her parted lips.
“You want it?”
She was panting. She nodded, a frantic jerk of her head.
“Then be a good girl and earn it.”
He didn’t ask. His other hand went to the fastening of her tailored trousers, popping the button, yanking the zipper down. The sound was violently intimate in the quiet boathouse. He shoved the fabric down over her hips, baring her to the waist. The cool, damp air touched her skin. She was still wet from him, from hours ago, from the constant hum of the belt.
“Please,” she heard herself whisper, not sure what she was begging for.
He ignored her. He shoved her legs apart with his boot. He was already hard, his cock springing free from his trousers, thick and ruddy in the weird purple light. He didn’t bother with any preamble. He just pushed the broad head against her entrance, still loose from his earlier use, and sank in with a single, deep, stretching thrust.
“Fuck,” she grunted, the air punching from her lungs. He filled her, a brutal, familiar invasion.
He started to move, a slow, deep, grinding rhythm designed to be felt in every nerve. He held the crystallium brick up beside her face, so close she could feel its radiant heat on her cheek.
“This is what you’re fucking for,” he breathed into her ear, his voice gravel. “This is the price. You’re my little courier whore, and this is your tip.”
He fucked her harder, the post creaking with each thrust. The sensations twisted together—the painful, delicious fullness of him, the agonizing proximity of the crystallium, the sheer degradation of being used in this filthy place for a score. Her body, treacherous and tuned, responded. A tight coil of pleasure built beneath the shame, fed by the belt’s vibration and the raw visual of the glowing prize just inches away.
“You gonna come for it?” he taunted, his pace becoming punishing, each slam knocking her head back against the wood. “You gonna squirt all over my dick while you stare at your candy?”
She was. She couldn’t stop it. Her hips began to move against his, meeting his thrusts, seeking more of the friction, more of everything. The orgasm gathered, inevitable and huge.
“Yeah, that’s it,” he growled, feeling her tighten. “Come on, junkie. Come for your fix.”
He shoved the crystallium brick against her lips. “Taste it.”
She opened her mouth. He pushed the rough, cool edge of the raw crystal between her teeth. The energy buzzed against her tongue, a metallic, electric shock. That final sensation snapped the coil.
She shattered. Her climax tore through her with a silent, screaming intensity, her cunt clamping down on his cock in rapid, milking pulses. Lights flashed behind her eyes. She bit down on the crystallium, a muffled scream vibrating through it.
Her convulsing triggered his. With a final, bottoming-out drive, he emptied himself into her, a hot, pulsing flood that mixed with her own slickness. He held there, grinding against her, as the last waves of her pleasure rippled through them both.
He pulled out, leaving her empty and trembling. He took the crystallium brick from her slack mouth, a string of saliva connecting her lip to its shimmering surface for a second before it broke.
He dropped the brick into her open portfolio case on the ground. “Payment rendered.”
He tucked himself away, zipped up, and without another word, picked up the titanium cylinder and walked out into the grey afternoon light. His footsteps faded.
Brenda slid down the post, her trousers around her ankles, to the filthy floor. She was wrecked. Used. Stuffed with his come. She stared at the glowing brick in her open case.
The crash from the granary high was gone, swept away by the violent arousal, but the deeper need remained. It would be back. This brick was bigger. It would last longer. But the cost was escalating.
With shaking, unclean hands, she pulled up her trousers, fastened them. She felt his release leak into her tailored silk. She picked up the portfolio, clutching the brick to her chest through the leather.
SHE TAKES THE DRUG.
She didn’t wait. She couldn’t. There, on her knees in the boathouse filth, she opened the case. She pressed the entire brick directly against the gem of her power belt, bypassing any pretense of ceremony.
The world detonated.
This wasn’t a wave; it was a supernova contained within her skin. Every synapse fired white-hot pleasure. She didn’t need to touch herself. The feedback loop between the raw crystallium and the belt’s matrix tore a endless, screaming orgasm from her core that had nothing to do with friction and everything to do with neural overload. She lost time. She lost self. She was pure, screaming sensation, a conduit of violet light and devastating, mind-emptying ecstasy.
It lasted an eon.
When it ebbed, she was sprawled on her side, gasping like a landed fish. The brick was half-consumed, its glow diminished. She felt terrifyingly calm. Clean. Empty of everything, even shame. The shakes were gone. The craving was a silent, sated beast.
She stood on steady legs. She smoothed her hair, straightened her ruined, stained clothes. She placed the remaining half-brick carefully in the portfolio.
She walked out of the boathouse. The sun was high. The city bustled, oblivious. She had a board meeting at two to discuss humanitarian aid grants. She would sit at the head of the table, cool and composed, the taste of crystallium and betrayal fresh on her tongue, the evidence of her theft drying on her thighs.
She hailed a cab. She gave the address of Wade Tower. She leaned back against the seat, staring out the window with vacant, peaceful eyes.
The job was done. She had her prize. And she knew, with cold certainty, that she would do it all again the moment he called.