Into the Lair (Lucas)

[Kesare]

It had been over a week since the contract had been sent out to the man that Matsu had promised to track down for her. "Good. He is very, very good." She stresses the second very in a subtle way of saying that he was better than just good at what he did. It had taken five days alone of Matsu pulling strings to get the information they needed, his name a phantom whisper in the dark, a figment of the imagination. He was a ghost.

Nar Shadda – forty eight hours
The Burning Deck at Midnight
Black dress, red lips
Don’t be late​

​

Matsu promised to come with her and lurk in the shadows in case of trouble, Kesare does not need to express her gratitude to know Matsu already understands but she does so anyways. Her friend not only offered her freedom but also a new life with new beginnings. She had also known from the start that there was no way of her moving on entirely until this last chapter of her past was closed. How could she repay such kindness? How could she ever make it up to her, for everything Matsu was willing to sacrifice to keep her safe? It is because of this that despite her initial reservations of meeting this man who took others’ lives as his profession she is willing to put her trust in the young woman who she knew would never lead her down a wrong path. If she said that he was good then until he proved her otherwise she would go along with this plan without question.

The ride to the large moon is quiet and uneventful, both women lost in their own thoughts as her leg fidgets and her heel tap, tap, tapping against the aircraft's floor. Miles below them lights shone and danced as she felt an unfamiliar flicker of interest and leans forward with her nose nearly pressed against the glass to catch a glimpse. With childlike wonder she found everything to be new and fascinating as the planet crooned a welcome, whispering in her ear seductively for her to slip on a new skin and become someone else for a while. They were early, the establishment easy enough to find as they slip into a booth and order a round of drinks while they wait, neither of them saying much but not because they do not want to but because they do not have to, they know. Already they are attracting more attention than desired, her skin crawling beneath any gaze that lingered too long on her open flesh.

The bar is already swimming in a sea of people that makes it difficult to really get a good look at their surroundings. Despite not knowing what he looks like she can’t keep her gaze from dancing across the crowd in hopes of laying eyes on him. “What if he doesn’t come?” She doesn't mean to voice her fears aloud but it slips out anyways and she can’t take it back now as she continues to keep her chin lifted hoping against all hope that this wasn't a waste of their time and that he would come. He had to come didn't he? It is the first time she feels her nerves run on edge as her gaze continued to scan the crowd that was growing thicker by the minute.

Where are you? Come out, come out wherever you are.​

​

​

[member="Lucas Asher"]​

 

[Alkesh Vizsla]

Nar Shaddaa was the kind of planet that Lucas sometimes felt he never got off of. Every city-planet started to look the same to him after the first few visits, a gritty blending of neon lights and dirt-laced fog. He could tell the difference if he had to – in his line of work to be lost was asking to die – but it was always subtle things, like the way Coruscant was purples and golds…or Nar Shaddaa was brown and gray. Not one of the brightest moons in the Galaxy despite its appearance from space.

Black dress, red lips.​

​

If someone asked him now he couldn’t say what had gotten in to him with that detail. It wasn’t the first time a woman had contacted him for a job and he certainly doubted it would be the last. Perhaps he’d just been feeling perverse that day but all the right messages had gone through and confirmation received. Somewhere in the back of his mind he hoped she was a leggy thing, that maybe she’d be dark-skinned – but in the end he was only playing a game with himself to pass the time. If she had credits it didn’t matter if she was a rancor in heels.

He would do his job.
Lucas had a reputation.

It was a quiet one. Lucas had no need for his name to be known, to strike fear. He’d had a hand in kidnapping Sith Lords, killing politicians, watching innocence in someone who had done nothing bloom in one final burst of hope before fading between his hands. He just wanted his credits and an outlet. Kidnapping and killing were a good source of both and if there was ever a man who would not flinch it was Lucas. He had been hired to do things that the person offering the contract had looked sick to be asking for and done his job with no questions asked or eyebrows raised. Besides, if he didn’t do it someone else would, and not half as well.

The Burning Deck was just getting started around this hour, the perfect time for him to show up as if his night was just beginning. He looked just like any other man moving in to the crowd that night, searching for a drink and someone to take home. But they would look at him and then…look away, eyes quickly averted, a ‘sorry’ kind of gesture he seemed to invite anywhere he went. Maybe it was the way he seemed to watch out of the corners of his eyes, a sense nothing escaped him as he moved between bright hologram slabs, a hard outline of shadow between their frames. Black dress, red lips. Black dress, red lips. Black dress, red -- …there. A little nervous. Has to be her.

If Lucas was one for laughing he may have because the joking wish for a leggy, olive-skinned woman hadn’t been far from the mark at all. She was sitting with an Atrisian with such high, fine features she almost didn’t appear human, heels so high she could push right through an eye and out the other side of a skull with them. Both appeared in total control though Lucas, with an eye for body language trained over years, sensed nerves in the woman in the black dress. Both were attracting more attention than he would prefer but there was only one way to stop that. He reached over to the bar, snagging some dark, frothy drink from in front of another man and silencing the protest from the stranger with a glance (it’s fine…take it), before moving to the booth the women had chosen.

He glanced between them, his hair pushed back messily back from a rake of his fingers, and pushed the drink to the side. It was principle not to drink on the job but he didn’t want to look strange sitting with them without one. He already felt some eyes move away when he’d taken his seat and it would stay that way.

“So, what do you want?”

The Atrisian woman suddenly wore the smallest smile.

[member="Kesare Salazar"]​

 

[Kesare]

They can’t control you, not if you don’t let them. Your body is your weapon. A woman had told her that once, a flutter of a whisper in her ear after she’d been sent back to her room (and room had been putting it nicely back then) battered and bruised as punishment because she couldn’t keep her mouth shut. That night she had scrubbed the tears from her cheeks and made a promise to herself. Do not show them weakness, make them squirm instead. There had been no more tears after that night or since.

It had given her a small sense of satisfaction knowing that even in the darkest times she still had her feelings and emotions. Her identity remained intact and untouchable because they would not touch her mind. It had given her that sliver of strength knowing they couldn't take the one thing she had left, not if she was careful. And she’d been very, very careful, learning how to use her body to bring men to their knees. It was a powerful thing to watch grown men become wrapped around her finger and believing the lies she weaved, like she could ever love them for the scum that she knew they were.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

The clock taunts her as the minutes drag on without haste, assuming that she has all the time in the world. With a slow, measured exhale and a final glance around she suppresses her nerves and forces them into submission. She’d gone this long without breaking that promise she’d made to herself all of those years ago and she wasn't about to start now.

He is somehow nothing what she expected him to be and everything she’d been expecting at once when he settles into the booth across from them. Glancing at the time her first urge is to express that she’d said not to be late but looking at him she decides to take an alternative route. Even though she is only staring at him she can actually feel every lingering gaze peel away from them. Although he looked to be no older than her she could understand why anyone would want to look away, his eyes alone could cut right through a person as if he was reading every single thought swimming around in your head.

“So, what do you want.”

Down to business, it was quality that she can appreciate as she lifts her chin and fixes her gaze forward, looking him square in the eye without faltering as she dips her hand into her clutch and procures a neatly folded up piece of paper and slides it across the table to him.

· Grayson Rhys
· Slade Killian
· Abner Erkin
· Edric Halstein

Each name is written out neatly in a small list that she waits for him to read, her gaze studying him when he is not looking at her. Frustrated, she is unable to get any real read off of him and it makes her want to squirm. “I need them dead.” Her voice is low, making sure that nobody can just walk into the private conversation. Her fingers toy with the rim of her untouched drink, gaze unwavering as she leans back and tilts her head slightly to study him. “But first I need you to get information from them.” This was the difficult part for her because in order for him to get the information that she needs it also means that she is allowing this stranger of a man to glimpse into something so personal that she almost decides it's not worth it to ask for the information.

But her hunger for revenge is a bottomless pit, a rage that can’t be satisfied and she knows that she would never be able to move forward without at least making an attempt of finding out the name of the person who ruined her. “I’ll spare you the sordid details, but I need you to see if you get any information about the man or I suppose woman who hired Slade and his men to take me and force me into slavery.” It takes all of her willpower not to make a disgusted face when Slade’s name falls out of her mouth, just the memory of him is enough to make her stomach twist violently, out of all the men he was by far the cruelest and most revolting. “If you can get the name I can pay more.”

​

[member="Lucas Asher"]​

 

[Alkesh Vizsla]

[SIZE=12pt] He accepted the slip of paper without a word, glad to see that it seemed she hadn’t expected any pleasantries. A lot of clients tried to comfort themselves, bring some sense of humanity to the situation by trying to have a conversation with him. Many more were faceless, sending those lower on the ladder to contract Lucas. He prided himself on a detachment from his work, a professionalism in the perfunctory. But his favorite jobs had always been like this one – down to business because not only did they need something, but they wanted something. He could see a determination born out of sheer hatred on the lines of that pretty face.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] Dead. There was something to the terminology too – she didn’t want them killed, she didn’t want them taken out, she didn’t want them tortured. She wanted them dead. Like saying ‘gone’. Erased. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] Though…it made sense. Lucas didn’t have any particular feelings about slavery if only because he’d spent so much time in the company of both owners and chattel that it almost didn’t feel real to him anymore. There was a part of him that felt sad for her, but the majority felt…nothing. He didn’t care. He thought in terms of money and seeing another day. The only thought he had when he heard the venom in her voice in Slade’s direction was that perhaps he’d make the guy suffer more just so he might get more credits out of it.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] He was half-tempted to ask if they were so terrible why she was asking him. Why didn’t she just do it herself? She was lithe, light – but anger was a hell of a motivator and he doubted it would be a terrible sight to watch her blight them from the Galaxy herself. But there was something to be said for keeping your name of the mix. He was living proof of that. Regardless, he didn’t care about her motivations for hiring him. He would gladly take her credits…which were certainly something to consider in the equation in front of him.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] He sat back in the booth, slipping the piece of paper in to one of the pockets on his vest and crossing his arms over his chest. The Atrisian was still watching him intently and he could swear it was…too intent, and not like she found him attractive. (And he was too trained, too highly honed not to notice the second slight quirk of her lips in the last five minutes. He’d never been accused of being amusing but apparently he was funny to this woman. Maybe she was touched. Was she really actually smiling now? He needed to exit this loop.) None of them touched their drinks and he supposed if the conversation carried on that might look strange but he didn’t plan on being there for long. The list would burn a hole in his pocket, take up his time until he could collect his credits and start another.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] “Ten thousand credits a head. The price of the information, which I’ll get, can be negotiated once I see how long it takes to acquire it.”[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt] As if discussing dinner.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=12pt][member="Kesare Salazar"][/SIZE]​

 

[Kesare]

Her gaze searched his face, looking for something, anything that might crack. He gave her nothing, not a single thread to grasp onto so that she could unravel his impassive expression to find what was hidden beneath that coat of armor and she was willing to admit that she found it unbearably frustrating. She had always liked to think that her one specialty was reading people and she couldn't even get a single emotion off of him let alone a reading. Cocking her head slightly to the side and lips twisted into a faint frown she lets the silence stretch out.

What is hell are you thinking?​

​

She nearly asks and is so caught off guard by this faint glimmer of uncharacteristic interest in this ghost of a man that she is caught doubly off guard when he voices his price. It takes every inch her features not to fall as she sits there another long silent minute as if weighing the price around, perhaps maybe be so bold to try and negotiate. Except she doesn't even have a quarter of that amount, she didn't even have enough to cover one head let alone four.

Forty thousand dollars. Forty. THOUSAND. Dollars. And that didn't even include the information.​

​

It physically pains her just to think of what she would have to do to get that kind of cash and even then it would take too long, there was no way. Desperation claws at her, scratching with a ferocious need beneath her skin. The various possibilities circle around like vultures but none of them are good enough to make an offer and she fears that within minutes he will realize that this is just a bluff and will leave. Screw him. Her brain teases, urging in the back of her mind. Maybe he’d take a better deal if he got laid. She becomes angry at herself for even entertaining the idea when she had promised herself never again, not when she was free. Disgusted with herself she suddenly feels ill and wants nothing more than to escape from herself as she suddenly becomes irrationally angry at this man for making her feel this way in the first place. If she couldn't afford him then she would find another way, one where she didn't have to get on her knees for multiple reasons.

“Unfortunately for the both of us I don’t have that kind of money for you, the best I could offer is a quarter of that price and a good lay – which by the looks of it you could use. However, you don’t appear to be a man who negotiates his price so I’ll stop wasting both of our precious time so we can go our separate ways and call it a night.” She didn't care anymore, she just wanted to get the hell out of there and scrape the humiliation off of her skin.

​

[member="Lucas Asher"]​

 

[Alkesh Vizsla]

He can see the shock on her face, written plain in just the way he imagines she wishes it weren't. If he were giving her credit anyone else may have missed it: the slight downturn of her mouth, the way her eyes narrowed and the hint of the wild storm of thoughts behind them.

"A quarter of that and a good lay..."​

He's already laughing before he can stop himself, a cruel sound. There is no trace of humor, but perhaps a bit of annoyance for having his time wasted. Didn't these two know what he'd done, the kind of jobs he'd pulled? If he was being honest ten thousand credits a head was being generous - he'd gotten thirty thousand per target on jobs less complicated than she was asking for. Four men, all probably within seconds of each other and all able to warn each other? Yes, ten thousand was generous. Maybe it was his fault for entertaining the notion - how much money could a former slave have? He shouldn't even have entertained her.

The offer of sex meant nothing to him, especially when tossed so casually and begrudgingly. Just what he wanted - someone looking up at him like she wanted to rip his heart out and eat it the whole time.

"Tempting. You should work on your delivery though. Leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth," he said, moving to slide out of the booth and get on with his night.

"I will pay you," came a voice he didn't recognize, stopping himself and looking at the Atrisian questioningly. He didn't know who she was to the woman who'd started the contract but her ominous silence had led him to believe a guardian of some kind. He would have said sister if they weren't so obviously unalike physically.

"So you can afford me when your friend can't?" he asked. They were both dressed similarly and held themselves in a proud way. There was nothing about the dark-haired woman to suggest she was any better off than the contractor. He continued his move to leave.

"Money is no object Mr....Asher, is it?"

He stopped dead in his tracks, his entire body tensing in the kind of lines one saw in an animal about to turn and savage what threatened it. She knew his name. There was no way the middle man had shared it and he was virtually unknown otherwise. He sat back down, rigid and predatory and without expression except for a look of wary violence in his eyes. The Atrisian was smiling at him - calm, unaffected by the tension that sang in his muscles.

"You shouldn't leave your mind so wide open Lucas. My name is Matsu. This is my friend Kesare. Now that we have an understanding - I will pay you 15,000 credits a head. The price of information can, as you suggested, be discussed once it's attained. You come highly recommended. I'm sure we won't be disappointed," she said, each word bewilderingly easy. Lucas felt somewhat as if he were discussing carpentery and not murder.

He stared between the two of them, trying to decide if he was going to take this or just walk away. The Force...at least one of them has the Force. He had done business with countless Force Users but none of them had used it to grab him by the throat. Walking away didn't seem to be an option any more now that the Atrisian had named him. She'd backed him in to a corner. His eyes drifted back to the woman who wanted all the men dead, at the sleek downward turn of her jaw and lips so red and full that in another life he might have done anything to get close to her. As it stood, he wanted to reach across the table and slam her face down in to it.

Feth.

"Fine. Three days. I'll contact the number you left with the middle man."

And with that he was gone, his fists clenching and unclenching as he stalked back to his ship to finish this karking job. Once he took her credits he'd kill her.

_________​

​

The Atrisian turned her head to look at her friend, finally picking up her drink and taking a sip now that business was concluded.

"I like him."

[member="Kesare Salazar"]​

 

[Kesare]

His laughter grates against her skin, her lips twisting into a scowl and nails biting into flesh as her fingers curl into fists. Meanwhile she keeps a steady glare directed at him, a slew of choice words hovering on the tip of her tongue. (You think you can laugh at me? I’ll give you something to laugh about)

​

“I will pay you.”​

​

Four words, four simple words that hold so much impact – they are four words she never would have banked on being voiced during this entire conversation. Her gaze snaps towards her best friend, it is impossible to disguise the shock that rests on her sharp features. “Matsu…” Her tone cautions in her head, knowing that she is listening because she is always listening for her. “it’s too much.” She already didn’t know how she could ever pay Matsu back for all that she had done for her since being rescued (the clothes, the living arrangements, caring about her) let alone something like this, she simply could not ask her to do this for her when she’d already been so generous.

Except it appeared that it didn’t matter to Matsu, who she watched effortlessly breeze through the negotiations like she was discussing the weather. It never ceased to amaze her how well Matsu was able to sway a conversation in her favor, it was a skill so few had but so many wished to possess. Just watching Lucas sitting across from them she could sense his unease, his gaze untrusting and leery as he looked between the two of them in silent contempt (now you see, who’s laughing now?) the corner of her lips ticking upwards at the notion.

Feeling like the cat that caught the mouse she sits back in her seat, draping one leg over the other and stirs her cocktail. She knew that angry look he wore behind his dark gaze, it was one she wore often as her smirk grew increasingly smug and watching him resign to take the credits that Matsu had offered him and also his displeasure in taking them from her. A sick curiosity makes her wonder why he wouldn’t automatically jump at the chance to take the credits; after all he didn’t strike her as someone who would decline such a large payment. Ever. “It was a pleasure doing business with you!” She calls out after him with a mock cheerfulness that drips sarcasm, her smirk dropping back into a scowl.

“I like him.”​

​

Startled she turns back towards Matsu, eyes growing wide before narrowing. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” She looks at her best friend, her frown deepening when she realizes that the woman was in fact not kidding her, but entirely serious. She shakes her head, her expression bewildered. “You like too many people, Mat.” She does not say how if she liked less people that she would still have her arm and that liking people would bring betrayal and pain. Instead she looks at her sincerely, her gaze softening and posture relaxing now it was just them as she spoke softly, meaningfully. “Thank you.”

​

[member="Lucas Asher"]​