Read The Corsair Uprising #1: The Azure Key Page 3

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  “What are you doing here, Takara? I still have plenty of time.”

  Takara entered the apartment with two thugs following closely behind her. They each stood a whole head taller than her and were dressed in stylish suits. They were what Liam thought of as the classy mob; agents of Vesta Corporation come to collect their credits. The one to her left was completely bald, eyebrows and all, with an implant covering one of his eyes. The other was a burly black man with a close-cropped haircut and a scowl that said it all. Liam couldn’t make out any implants, but somehow he doubted the guy needed any.

  “I grow impatient, thief. Transfer it now.”

  Liam put up his hands defensively and said, “Okay, Takara, you win. It’ll just take me a minute.”

  He walked to his plain, beige kitchen and opened a drawer, reaching inside. The cracked wood inside the drawer gave him a splinter as he rustled his hand around until he found what he was looking for. Takara stepped closer to Tiffany and pressed the tip of the barrel to her head. “Ah, ah, Kidd. Don’t cross me.”

  Liam released the handle of his gun and grabbed his chip reader instead, closing the drawer and holding it up for her to see. He walked toward her, scanning a chip in his forearm with the reader as he did. The reader was a skinny device with a small screen and an infrared sensor at the tip. It read his ID chip, which linked to his bank account, displaying his account balance on the screen. It read just a few credits over five thousand.

  “Give it to me,” Takara ordered.

  He handed her the device and she scanned the chip in her gun-wielding arm with her free hand. She handed the device back to him and said, “Fingerprint.”

  Liam pressed his thumb down on the screen and the money transferred. He showed her the screen until she was satisfied.

  “So, about that payment plan,” Liam began.

  “Let’s start with a down payment,” Takara said, pulling her trigger and sending a concentrated burst of energy through Tiffany’s skull. Her thin, lifeless body crashed to the ground, the sound from the blast echoing out into the hall.

  Liam was mortified. Tiffany might not have meant anything to him romantically, but she was still a person. Takara had gone too far. The redhead had nothing to do with this. Liam never meant for anyone else to get in the middle of his backwards affairs. He felt bad enough about the previous night, and now this. She didn’t deserve it.

  “You have two choices, Kidd,” Takara said while stepping over Tiffany’s body with a sultry walk that would turn heads in a gay bar. “I have my boys knock you out while I call the police, telling them I heard you arguing with your girlfriend, or you can come with me.”

  “Come with you where?”

  “I hear they need help on the Asteroid Belt.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “It’s that or you go down for murder, your choice,” Takara said with a sinister smile. “Choose quickly.”

  Takara signaled her henchmen, who advanced on Liam. He took a step back, glancing down at Tiffany’s body. Vesta Corporation had enough power to rig a murder trial. Takara wasn’t lying. They could even produce false witnesses from the building. Neighbors he’d known for years. Everyone had a price. Everyone.

  Liam nodded, more to himself than to anyone else.

  “All right. What are your terms?”

  “Ten years on the mine. Your pay will be reabsorbed by Vesta Corporation, for tax reasons of course. After which, you’ll work for Vesta for free in any manner we see fit. You’ll be provided the basics to live, of course, nothing more.”

  “For how long?”

  “Until you’re deemed fit to enjoy the perks of being on payroll. You don’t know what you’ve squandered, thief.”

  Liam looked around his apartment in disgust. It was one of the oldest buildings in the city and in disrepair. His ‘perks’ amounted to poverty. Still, a first-degree murder sentence would be for life, and the prisons were no better than the mine. At least he’d have a chance at the mine.

  “All right, Takara.”

  Her henchmen took his arms behind his back and led him out of the apartment. Takara closed the door behind them and led the way to the elevator. As they walked down the hall, Liam noticed a tattoo creeping up Takara’s back, revealed beneath the straps of her leather top. A tiger and dragon were locked in battle on the intricately detailed but monotone artwork. Takara turned her head and caught him looking.

  “In Japan its meaning is known even to children.”

  “Yakuza,” Liam mumbled.

  “Once, and always.”

  Liam let himself smirk. “But Vesta owns you now.”

  Takara spun around and grabbed Liam’s neck, forcing him into the wall. Her fingernails dug in, reopening her claw marks from the street and sending drops of blood down his neck where they quickly soaked into his shirt. She was too powerful for her size with a glare forming across her face that was at least as frightening as her disproportionate strength.

  “Nobody owns me,” she declared. “You’d do well to remember that.”

  She released Liam’s throat and took off toward the elevator. The larger black henchman shoved him forward, pointing for him to follow her. Once inside the lift, Takara turned to Liam and smiled, her cybernetic implants scrunching to the side of her cheeks unnaturally, contorting her otherwise beautiful face. “You’ll learn your place, Kidd. You’re going to enjoy the Belt.”