A L E X

Makayla shamelessly flaunted my ring on her finger in the dimly lit booth. It suited her well. As did a certain dress in our wardrobe worth more than palace in some districts.

But something else was lingering in those sky blue eyes between flashes of the Crypt's coloured lights. A glint of mischief trademark to Xavier.

"What have you done." I stated casually, pulling a drink to my lips.

"Why is it always like that Scorpion..." She rolled her eyes before drumming her fingers on the table between us. I watched them a moment longer before slapping my glass on the table and stopping her fidgeting in a hand.

Those eyes met mine steadily.

"I should start with this first–" She smirked, pulling a box out of her cloak. I eyed it curiously. The Sector 1 design looked fresh out of the Empress–

"Tell me you didn't steal from Sector 1 Makayla."

"You can't steal what's already yours!" She laughed despite the warning in my expression.

"You can when we're about to start a war. We need all the head start we can get, not attention drawn to–" She shut me up with a hand over my mouth. The only person on this earth that could pull off such a stunt. I glared over her hand and she winked lowering it.

I think the last man that had managed to touch my face had a throwing knife sent through his–

"Just open the damn box like a good little crime lord." She said, dripping sweetness.

My eyes landed on the ornate wooden box large enough for a wristwatch or bracelet. Navy and silver. Former Silver Sun colours. I sighed and thought of the number of items the Empress could now have missing in her jewellery box and the rage that would follow it all because my.... fiancé couldn't help herself.

The lid flicked open under my thumb and I froze into my seat.

Her smile around her drink didn't help. But she didn't comment as I dropped my head lower to stare at the gleaming silver ring with a blue gemstone I had never seen outside of a museum.

"You stole. This?"

"It's not hers." She answered flatly not bothering to specify who, making me tear my eyes up to hers again. It startled me to realise that they were the exact same shade as the sapphire. But sapphires disappeared along with the rest of ancient gems long before gold did...

I dragged a glove over my face and spoke through it.

"Makayla, please just tell me you didn't escalate a conflict for some jewellery..."

"My father kept this." She said so low under the music I almost missed it. She plucked it from the box and tossed the wood off the edge of the table like it was worth as much as her father's memory. I watched her face intently as she held the gleaming ring before her eyes. "It was the one piece of my real mother I was ever told of–yet he kept it from me too."

She met my eyes and shrugged.

"I had Matty steal it for me. And now it's yours."

I found it hard to swallow suddenly. Perhaps my drink had been spiked.

She proceeded to drop it straight into my glass with a splash.

"Makayla! What the hell?!" I demanded, ripping it out of the Junak and scanning it for damage.

She leant back in the booth with her arms over the back and watched the dancers beyond the table with far too much nonchalance.

"I can't have you walking around without my ring. That would just be rude at this point..."

I was in the process of drying off all alcohol with my cloak while the Imperial looked positively unbothered by the bomb she had just detonated on the table. Once it was safely cleaned and hidden in my cloak I set my hands on the table and stared her down. Why did it feel like we had switched places so starkly. She was the royal of innocence and nerves and she was slouched in that seat like–like–damn it all.

"Exactly how many people want that maid dead now because of this?"

"Oh, I got Matty security clearance two days ago. She brought several other defectors with her..."

I almost choked. Again.

"Anything else?" I grit out, eyes burning on that slow smirk that took those full lips.

This time she turned the full power of the look she gave me when she wanted something–and placed her jaw on her palm appraising me closely. I let a slow breath go through my nose and tightened a fist on the table. She was fighting a smile and losing.

"They may as well become Division maids–"

"Makayla..."  I groaned, slumping back into my seat.

We may as well let local bakers in at this rate. Compromised security? No never...

"What? The place could do with Sector 1 cleanliness..." She drawled, playing with the gold on her finger again.

"They are Sector 1 defectors they could be spies." I stated flatly.

"They're maids and Matty was a spy for Proximo." She reminded me calmly. It cut off my next argument and I raised an eyebrow. "How did you... Ah. Velron of course." I concluded, thinking back to the nightmare Proximo had dropped us in so unceremoniously.

He was holding up well enough with a screen and intelligence reports that had been marginally helpful but he was useless to me other than that.

Makayla perked up coming to the same conclusions, "You let Velron stay. He's still in training–"

"He works with the techs yes–we don't have room for spares. Let alone maids." I scrunched my nose up at the idea alone. Service staff were a Sector 1 affair. It gave the wrong message. I walked into a room with a team of the most lethal men and women in the city, armed to the teeth–or I didn't bother at all.

"Alex, you're planning to dismantle both empires anyway. What difference does it make if she sits behind our walls until we bring them down?"

I was again lost for a quick counter. My glare continued.

Then Proximo's voice entered our comms breaking the stare down between us. I pressed my hand to my ear to hear over the bass in the room.

"She's taken it."

My eyes snapped over to the doorway that held my second and his sister beyond. Meaning he had given her the Virtu. The perfectly designed Virtu. Because the one thing that had been kept out of his sister's knowledge was that Artella was the artist behind his own ink filled back. That Virtu Proximo had yet to play... But he was no fool and this was the only way to predict her true allegiance.

The only reason she was here at all and not on a fusion craft was because of Makayla.

Whom now met my gaze calmly over her own drink. She valued Dazz's skill more than I did for her betrayals... Yet I had to give it to Xavier. She knew when to choose her allies and how to put the past aside to achieve the future. It is exactly what made her father so successful and it was the same playbook the Empress was using now. That is why we would put his sister so deep within simulations she would never know true reality until we wanted her to.

Then we would see whose side she was on and whether Proximo would keep his sister for our final play in this city.

* * * * *

"Dance with me." I smirked, shrugging out of the booth and not waiting on her answer.

I flicked my dark hood over my eyes and the Underworld reputation did the rest. They moved without being asked. We were too far into Division territory for it to be a suggestion.

I soon felt the warmth of her hand on the small of my back as I dodged patrons before they recognised the leader of it all. The pits still raged on between dancers and bookies. The cheers, the shouts, the drinks flowing and the music beating...

Then blue eyes danced between the lights with amusement.

We'd been here many times before. Timeless yet all the same. Sector 1. Sector 48. It hardly mattered where anymore. The woman I'd soon call mine so completely trailed her fingertips over my jawline as she circled me between the crowds. I gave her a lazy smile as she kept her distance and swiped a drink from a patron before disappearing from his view.

I watched her calmly as she drank the Junak before me.

Then she raised an arm and lay it over my shoulder and swallowed. I watched her throat move before her other hand pulled the drink to her lips again.

Proximo spoke in my ear again but I didn't hear him. Makayla tilted her head waiting for some sort of response. I ignored both requests and kissed her solidly. I tasted the cool drink on her lips and the smile on her mouth. I felt the bass of the music in our bones and took her hips against mine. It was easy to get lost with her.

Both her arms slipped over my shoulders now and she crushed her body close to mine.

She tore her lips off mine and ran her lips over my jaw to speak low over the music.

"Forgetting what we're here for, Scorpion?"

I pulled her body tighter to mine in response and heard the groan silence her question. She threaded her fingers against my high plaited hair and the purpose to our visit was lost again. Who'd have called a woman from Sector 1–the Emperor's line directly no less, would be the one to break me so completely. I had no doubts about what kind of person I would still be without her. Something close to the monster on a steady stream of combat serum and Kuzo's–

Makayla moved her hands from my hair to my face and something in her eyes was softer than dark desire alone. It brought me back from the thoughts.

I dipped my head forward and murmured near her.

"Is that joy I see on your face?"

The recognition of those words I had said so long ago to her registered and she slapped my arm.

"Don't flatter yourself!"

"All I see is you." I responded simply, "It's all I've ever seen since you ran into my path, Xavier."

"That's a pretty good pick up line." She smiled slowly, tracing her thumb over my lower lip. I continued to watch her eyes regardless. The same colour of that ring gem stone. "–is that what you tell all the girls, Scorpion?"

I broke out of my trace and schooled my features into calm, shrugging at her slowly.

"It's hard to keep count when you look like me–"

She threw me off her with so much force I hit several dancers behind me while I lost my ability to breathe. Several grunts were already apologising as I waved them off and threw a grin back to the woman that glared and stole another drink off a man that noticed this time.

He scowled at her before I strode forward slowly and met his angered eyes. His emotions quickly changed and he melted back into the shadows.

A hand grabbed my jaw and tugged it downward.

My glare turned into a smirk as I watched her under the low lights. I glanced at her new glass before ripping it away before she could take a sip.

"That's enough."

"I don't remember asking permission." She retorted flatly.

"No. That's why I'm saying it."

Our silent war over eye contact was interrupted by something my second said in the comm line but again I was too distracted to hear it. Makayla wasn't too far off the same mark the way she was looking at me.

I sunk the rest of the Junak in her stolen glass without another word and faced her glare. It wasn't angry it was amused.

"I've never seen you lose that control around me..."

"If it means keeping you from dangerous levels of drunk I'll do it." I drawled, throwing the glass over my shoulder and not caring about the impact.

"Maybe I want dangerous levels with you." She said directly onto my lips.

Heat flashed through my body as I felt the rest of hers press across mine. I took the next breath through my nose as her hands hooked into the sides of my combats and her chest went flush to mine. She knew exactly how to make everything impossible and possible all at once.

"Makayla..." I tried, tilting my head up to the ceiling.

It only made her kiss my throat.

I groaned loudly despite the beat of the bass around us. The dark space of the Crypt did nothing to hide my desire for her and she knew it. The music peaked around us and I wanted to join the ecstasy of dancers around us. Lost to the pulse and movement of simple things. It wouldn't be such a sin if we did... But I knew there was something I should have been paying attention to–

Makayla kissed me again and I lost the will entirely.

She had the rest of me.

Our bodies moved in sync slowly against the hum in the air and rush of our own heartbeats. Her hands slipped up under my combat skin along my back. I shuddered against her as her nails ran lines along my back. I claimed her lips deeply and secured the back of her neck. Her warmth on me was the only thing. For now it was all that needed to exist. Like the oxygen in me that burned when it was absent. We'd drink it in now.

I wasn't sure how long we were lost in our own world. The night seemed the same. The taste of her lips as glorious as ever. Our heat and the perfect fit of our bodies unchanged.

The only thing. Was that beep in my ear. That comm link that was dragging half of me away.

It wasn't until Makayla drew off me and tilted her head to hear the same that we started falling out of our limitless world.

"Wait–what?" She mumbled in a daze as I held her face inches from my own.

I released a breath and listened.

"–tella. What the fuck have you been doing? Artella is AWOL–"

"Proximo, slow down–"

"Xavier, are you fucking hearing me!" He snapped down the line making a protective instinct rip me back into focus and interrupt my second's snarl.

"Stop. Where are you?" I stated simply.

"SO glad you could join us, Scorpion." He retorted bitterly, so far from his usual emotionless demeanour. I pinched my brow and slipped my hand around Makayla pulling us from the centre of the room. She remained silently scanning our surroundings as I led us towards the exit.

"While you've been fuck knows where I've been informed Artella's brother has been assassinated and he has burned all his comms–"

"Dex is dead." I interrupted.

Makayla stopped dead beside me and stared at me with emptiness in her eyes. I ran my hand over her arm and waited on Proximo's one word response.

"Ryko."

We stared at each other.

There were no words for that. Of course. Who else could send things to a flaming dumpster fire other than the spawn of satan herself.

"Pull your sister out of that sim. I don't care what the risks are. She's going to hack that motherfucker's Imperial line and get us two steps ahead before sundown. I've had enough of this shit."

Proximo's response was simple and emotionless once more.

"Consider it done."