Rebecca.

  Rebecca picked up her feet as she saw the club come into sight. The rge and overly 'bright' building and its nonstop strobes were as much an eyesore for those walking by as it was, in all honesty, the best pce to get id…

  Made up of more neon than wall, and with a predominant 'purple' palette accented by darker hues that drank the surrounding light, 'J's' was as packed and bloody damn noisy as the st time she'd come here—which was only a single week prior.

  Truth be told, she'd practically lived at the club for a few solid months, ughingly spending her money like there was no tomorrow while confident that bigger and better jobs were right on the horizon!

  Oh, how—heh… so naive she'd been…

  As soon as she signed the deal for her new tech, 'magically,' all the juicy jobs had dried right up! Then, all she'd been left with was the pool of shit that everyone else was given…

  But that's how the syndicates got you.

  Rope you in, make you feel like a superstar, wave some money and new hardware under your nose, then, bam! Next thing you know, you're indentured to the mob with no way out and no way to get ahead…

  A story as old as time itself.

  A tale that just kept repeating for all the dumb kids and bckhearted adults there were in the world.

  Beckie shrugged the bag she'd slung over her shoulder, heading right up to the front doors and bypassing the line of eagre 'to be' revellers without a second thought. Unlike herself, these people were just here for the drugs and booze.

  Eh... honestly, she sort of wished she was in their shoes rather than her own in some ways...

  "Hey! The hell does she get to walk right in for?"

  "Syndicate dickhead!" Beckie snapped, rounding on the asshole who was next in line and shoving her middle finger in his face. "Back the fuck off."

  She stared at the guy and his girlfriend, who looked as though she couldn't believe the guy had opened his big mouth.

  And they'd been so close too...

  Beckie gred, looming over them both until the man looked away. While big, she was much bigger and where genetics hadnt given her the same degree of testosterone that the dickhead wearing a popped white colr had, the greatest thing about modern medicne was modern steroids.

  Now, she could keep her gains and her tits.

  "Bitch." She growled, her mood, circumstances, and general existence, sort of right at the breaking point and looking for an easy target. And honestly, getting into a fistfight with some asshole just becasue she could was, well, kind of sort of exactly what she wanted right now.

  "Easy, Beck…He's just a dumb kid..."

  "Yeah, so what?" She grunted, gring sidelong at the bouncer who was only partially worried, "I'm on edge and pretty much enthusiastic to crack his fucking head open, so unless he wants his dy friend to see his insides on the outside—they'd better get to the fucking back of the line."

  Rick, the doorman who was working for the night, just sighed but didn't say another word, Beckie giving him a pyful wink before turning back to the uncertain and nervous couple.

  "So?" she demanded, "Back of the line or cracked head?"

  "You're a psycho bitch!" the girlfriend spat, though she grabbed her man by the shoulder and pushed him to leave.

  "And you should learn to keep your fucking mouth shut!" Beckie chirped, grinning at the pair as they sulked off, tail between legs, yet still loudly prociming they were going to 'Mimi's pce' instead.

  "Hah, fat fucking luck, Mimi's has a line twice as long!" someone from the line ughed, Beckie simply rolling her shoulders before turning back around.

  While not quite as cathartic as violence, fucking over someones night was strangely therepudic for all the hundred god damn butterflies that were busy making her want to spill her guts...

  "Got business with Big P, he in?"

  "Nah, hasn't been around all day. Mason's inside, though!"

  "Ugh… What about—and though I hate to even ask about him, but what about Chris?"

  "Chris? Ugh… yeah, yeah! He's, um, I think I saw him downstairs with Liam's crew. Don't think they're looking for visitors though—"

  "It's fine, he wants to talk to me anyway." Beckie grumped, pushing past the bouncer who just shrugged at her, dropping the conversation from his mind a second ter.

  He opened the door, let her in, and Beckie gave him a nod as she stepped into the mind-numbingly loud club, pushing through the small throng of people all standing around grav-tables that littered the interior perimeter.

  "Who's Mason?" Cire asked, her voice crisp and clear in Beckie's head, even as the thumping music pounded through her chest, the beat so resonant that she could feel it in her bones.

  For a moment, Rebecca eyed the dance floor as sweaty bodies, shining skin, and overly skimpy clothes all rubbed on each other as though she were staring at a school of greased fish stuck in a small pond.

  One couldn't even walk through the sticky and perfumed mass of bodies! And there were more drugs, alcohol, and swapped spit being spilled on the floor than there was floor to look at...

  Normally, Beckie might have jumped right in to join them… Maybe try and drown her sorrows in as much beer as she could get on her tab and find some asshole who wanted to share his pixie-powder for a few cops of her ass.

  But—Beckie was broke!

  As a matter of fact, Beckie owed a metric fuckton on her tab, and worse, the dickhead she was heading in to supplicate herself to probably wouldn't be sharing any of his coke.

  No, at this point, he'd already outright threatened to repo her mods for the money she owed him...

  And, if that didn't tell people how she felt about 'Mason,' then—no, fuck it, Mason was a douchebag with a capital D.

  At least Chris might listen to her… Mason? He'd just try to start a fight and probably drag Beckie right into it… And, at some point, he'd try to kiss her and buy her a drink and, honestly? She didn't exactly do too well when dealing with her ex's so who knew what that would lead to?

  No, Mason, despite dumping her, had always gotten all pissy when she told him to fuck off any time he tried to rekindle things. And, unlike the past few times he'd coaxed her back to his apartment with the siren song of free drugs and decent sex, Beckie wasn't here for that—this time...

  Some people found her oversized augments unattractive and had, on occasion, even made comments toward how she'd 'ruined' her, quite frankly, awesome looks that were pretty much all she'd actually gotten as inheritance from her shit as parents.

  Yet to Beckie, she knew her gear just weeded out the pussies, and if it weren't for her genuinely remarkable ck of self-control and impulse regution, not to mention a tolerance for narcotics that could drink most under the table, Beckie might not even be poor!

  Okay, she'd probably be poor, but she wouldn't be, you know, about to have her arms and legs cut off, 'poor.'

  Nodding to the two goons standing sentry at the cordoned-off stairs, Beckie headed down into the depths of the club, doing her absolute best not to let her nerves get to her.

  The 'hideout' of the mob was, in a word, mundane.

  It was weird, but a lot of people always seemed to think there'd be this massive amount of illegal shit happening, dozens of people snorting drugs, assholes pying 'pinfinger' or maybe just babies literally having candy stolen from them but, in all honesty, it was generally pretty tame.

  No, what a lot of people really didn't understand was that the syndicates were a business. And though they allowed people to take their shits upstairs and party to their heart's content, down here, that sort of unprofessionalism just wasn't tolerated...

  She only answered the 'voice' in her head when she took a stop by the small cafeteria to get a bottle of water, waving to a few guys she knew before speaking under her breath.

  "Mason and I were together for a year or two, back when I first joined up."

  "And—that's it?"

  "Eh, he's also an underboss—or, he was anyway. Dude still acts like he's hot shit, but Big P's pretty much just put him in the pypen with a handful of guys that report to him, just to keep him occupied. For the most part, these days, Adria, his younger half-sister, has all his old responsibilities since he just gets trashed every night before occasionally doing something stupid."

  "You were fucking the boss's son?"

  "Hell yeah, I was!" Beckie quietly ughed, grinning despite herself. "I've got ass for days, bitch. And my tit's never got that small, even though I hit the gym four times a week and pop stems like they're juicyfruit."

  "Yeah, I've kinda noticed."

  "Pfft! Eyes off the goods, sister, and shut up, I've gotta focus."

  Rebecca left the bottle on a counter after taking a few long chugs of it, nodding to another crew she'd occasionally run with who were all sitting around pying cards in an adjacent room, the door only partially open.

  They waved back, but didn't call out to her. Ehh, it wasn't much of a surprise really, since Beckie was sort of in a weird pce in the mob...

  A lot of people really didn't want to have anything to do with her because, half the time, Mason cimed she was one of his personal hitmen. Ignoring, of course, that she'd never taken that kind of job since she'd started or the fact that she adamantly refused to join his little 'do nothing' squad.

  The politics down here could earnestly leave you with a headache if you let it... That said, outside of a few select individuals, Beckie really did try to 'be nice' where she could.

  Granted, absent meeting Cire, she probably would have had a fairly decent chance at crawling back to the asshole upstairs, if only so she didn't get 'repoed' by the fucking people she worked for, but at the same time;

  Fuck that guy!

  Mason had literally been the bane of her existence for years now. Not only because he constantly fucked with her, but mostly because he constantly fucked with her.

  He was that special kind of over-controlling sociopath that sat in wait in every good starting but ultimately toxic retionship. Sitting there in the dark, rubbing a bde across his cheek while twisting his own nipple, just waiting to jump out at the opertune moment and ruin somebody's life.

  Heading down a hall and taking a familiar left turn, the young woman found herself face-to-face with one of the 'reasons' she tried to be everyone's friend.

  "Yo—Gwen! You know where Chris is?"

  "Back room, no visitors," a girl called back, her stance zy as she huffed on a burner, though the gun she held at her side was well within easy reach.

  The Republic had many, many rules.

  And one of those biggies that there was little wiggle room in; was that anyone caught with a firearm, absent a government deputation, well, they were just outright sentenced to the death penalty.

  The government did not py around with such things. And while corporate militaries were very often armed with live ammunition and 'big guns,' they were only so at the grace of official dispensation and monetary tribute.

  Anyone else so much as holding such a weapon was seen as grounds for lethal use of force when Peacekeepers inevitably appeared at a shootout.

  Of course, that didn't stop people from using them, but it also meant that it wasn't the easiest thing to funt out in the open.

  Laws were weird like that...

  You could beat a man to death in her hometown and hardly anyone would care if the dude wasn't syndicate, rich, or a government employee, but pop off a firearm and god have mercy on your soul!

  That said, Beckie didn't need to be an expert to know that Gwen's mag-driven slugthrower could unch projectiles speeds that beggared belief. More, they could and would put a hole in her fucking chest the size of her fist and four times that out the other side. Plus, she'd seen Gwen draw the thing faster than most people could blink.

  She was Big P's muscle down here. Not a hitman, but an enforcer who kept the peace and a level eye on things while he was away.

  Nobody fucked with the older woman unless they wanted a mechanical foot up their ass, and at this point, Beckie was fairly sure the crone would outlive her through sheer virtue of her mechanization.

  She had more 'chrome' than a fucking corporate soldier, and Big P liked to keep her that way as his ace in the hole in case anyone got funny idea's about 'who' should be running the show.

  Or, so she assumed... Maybe the two were just fucking.

  Smiling, Beckie hefted the bag on her shoulder, letting Gwen see it as she nodded her chin at the door. "Chris threatened to repo my augments if I missed another payment. I'm here to make good on it."

  "Then fucking wait till he's done."

  "Yeah, no thanks. It's already eleven, and I don't want to figure out if the asshole was being literal about the deadline."

  Gwen rolled her eyes, her bright teal orbs fshing in the dim interior before they nded on Beckie's bag. Then, they flickered, and the woman frowned, gncing at Beck, then the bag, then Beck's hands, which were currently partially covered by a sweater, and then she barked a ugh!

  "Ha! You didn't fucking pawn the things to pay the loan, did you?"

  "Nope, just needed to give them some time in the shop. Got the backups on."

  "Right… And the bag?"

  "Some tech I'm putting against my debt. Reaper shit, you know how it is."

  Gwen considered her for a moment, clicked her tongue a single time, then abruptly shrugged, stepping slightly to the side with a mildly amused expression. "Don't say I didn't warn ya when he tells you to fuck off or kicks your ass."

  "Chris? He's a natty, and like five-two..."

  "Liam's in there too. And he can zero you just as fast as I could, kid. So mind your damned manners for once and try to be a little humble, yeah?"

  Beckie just grinned at her, offering a wink and a sembnce of confidence she really didn't feel before pcing a hand on the door and stepping inside.