The crimson emergency lights pulsed, casting long, distorted shadows across the Spire’s polished chrome. Tazien ignored the synthetic voice’s placid reassurances, her senses already mapping the room. The air, thick with the scent of burnt circuits and expensive perfume, vibrated with a low hum. Her fingers brushed the scarred hilt of her vibro-knife, a familiar weight. The main dining area offered too many angles, too many eyes. She needed a service corridor, a choke point. The kitchens, probably. Or freight staging. Always freight staging. “The bisque is probably ruined,” Rurik murmured beside her, a despondent tremor in his voice. He looked utterly bewildered, scanning the sealed exits with a puppy-like vulnerability. “Do you think they’ll still serve dessert?” Tazien didn’t reply. She moved, a low-slung predator, pushing through the bewildered patrons now huddling in terrified clusters. Rurik, deceptively quick for someone so soft, kept pace, tripping once over a discarded napkin dispenser. His pale face turned up toward her, mouth parted. “Where are we going? Are we going somewhere safe? Is there a back exit with a secret menu?” “Survival,” Tazien snapped, her gaze fixed on a maintenance panel near the restrooms. “And no.” She ripped the panel open with a practiced yank, exposing a tangle of conduits and a narrow, grime-coated service passage. The scent of stale grease and something vaguely chemical assaulted them. “Move.” She plunged into the darkness, Rurik scrambling after her, his meek protests swallowed by the echoing corridor. It led them down three grimy flights of stairs, past humming ventilation shafts and the rhythmic drip of unseen leaks, until they emerged into the humid chill of the Spire’s subterranean freight dock. The air here was heavy with the smell of exhaust fumes and damp concrete. A single flickering emergency lamp cast the cavernous space in sickly yellow. Crates stacked haphazardly formed a maze, shadows dancing in their crevices. Two hulking figures, clad in the drab grey of the cartel’s enforcement arm, stood silhouetted against the bay door. They wore standard issue vibro-machetes on their hips. Joric must have been efficient. He’d tipped off his superiors, and they’d sent the clean-up crew. “Well, well,” one grunted, lips peeling back. “Look what the rain dragged in. Tazien Ro. The Ghost of Old Town.” His partner chuckled, drawing his blade. Tazien didn’t waste words. She moved. The vibro-knife hissed free, a blur of silver. She ducked under the first thug’s clumsy swing, the blade finding the soft spot beneath his jaw, severing the carotid with surgical precision. He crumpled, a bloody wheeze whistling from his throat. His partner roared, swinging his machete in a wide, desperate arc. Tazien pivoted, the air displaced by the weapon whistling past her ear. Her elbow slammed into his solar plexus, driving the air from his lungs, then her knee connected with his groin. As he doubled over, she brought the flat of her blade down hard on his temple. The crack was sickeningly final. He dropped, twitching once, then slack. She wiped the blade clean on the fallen man’s tunic, her eyes already scanning for more. “Stay behind the dumpster,” she barked at Rurik, who crouched behind a rusted recycling bin, chalk-pale. He peeked out over the rim before dropping back down with a breathless whimper. But as she turned, a faint *thwip* sound, barely audible over the hum of the dock, registered in her peripheral hearing. A moment later, a third cartel operative, positioned on a high catwalk, tumbled silently, his neck bent sideways. He landed with a soft thud amidst a pile of discarded industrial netting, completely unnoticed by Tazien. Rurik, still behind the dumpster, let out a terrified gasp, pressing himself tighter against the cold metal. “Oh, dear. Oh, me. That looked… so very bad. I’m going to need a hug. And maybe a blanket. A very thick, weighted blanket.” Tazien frowned, her paranoia flaring. *Too easy.* She’d expected at least a squad. Had Joric truly only managed to rally three men? Or was this a diversion? Was the real trap waiting outside? “We need to move. Now,” she said, grabbing Rurik by the wrist. His skin felt cool, almost clammy. He stumbled along, clutching her sleeve with unexpected grip. “My poor, fragile nerves,” he whimpered. “This is all too much excitement for one evening. I just wanted a quiet dinner. A very quiet, safe dinner.” They burst out into the rain-slicked alleyway behind the Spire, the cityscape a blur of neon and driving water. The air was colder, cleaner. Rurik shivered. “This… this whole experience… it’s made me realize something, Tazien,” he said, his voice surprisingly firm despite the chattering teeth. He fumbled in his cheap suit jacket, pulling out a small, tarnished silver ring. It looked like something from a pawn shop. “What?” Tazien asked, her eyes still scanning the rooftops, the shadowed doorways. Every shadow held a potential sniper, every flicker of light a trap. He got down on one knee, splashing water on his threadbare trousers. “Marry me, Tazien Ro!” he blurted out, holding up the ring. “Marry me, and keep me safe forever! I can’t live in a world where I don’t have you to protect me from… from all of this! From scary men with pointy knives and… and ruined lobster bisque!” Tazien stared. The rain plastered strands of hair to her face, mingling with the last vestiges of blood. *A trauma response.* That was it. He was a simple civilian, overwhelmed by violence, latching onto the only competent person he’d encountered. A desperate, pathetic attempt at securing a protector. It was almost… sweet in its sheer transparency. “Fine,” she said, pulling him up. “But we’re not getting a wedding cake.” His face lit up with a blinding, innocent smile. “No cake! Just… safety!” They took the grimy mag-rail to Sector 4, the car rattling and sparking through the perpetual downpour. The Dredge Sectors were a sprawling, brutalist maze, concrete hives stacked like chipped teeth, neon signs bleeding into the smog. The Rust-Mansion, their destination, was no exception. It towered over a black-market bazaar, a grim monolith of corroded metal and cracked ceram-crete, its windows patched with poly-sheeting. Rain hammered against its worn facade, finding every crevice. “Home sweet home,” Tazien muttered, kicking open the warped door to her fourth-floor flat. The air inside was thick with the scent of mildew and cheap synth-fiber. A persistent drip-drip-drip sounded from the corner, where a bucket sat beneath a ceiling leak. Rurik inhaled sharply, clutching his collar. “Oh, Tazien! It’s… it’s so… *quaint*! Look at the character! And a skylight, almost! The way the rain sounds… it’s like a lullaby!” He spun, taking in the chipped paint, the exposed conduits, the singular, battered recliner. “And the space! So much open space! We can put a plant here! Or maybe a small… very small… water feature!” While Tazien systematically checked every nook and cranny for surveillance, Rurik pulled out his chipped datapad, his thumbs flying across the screen with a speed that belied his earlier clumsiness. He navigated through a series of encrypted shell corporations, his brow furrowed in concentration. The sum he authorized for the immediate, discreet purchase of the entire Rust-Mansion, funnelled through a dummy corporation in the name of ‘Danthos Property Investments LLC,’ was eye-watering. He then quickly deleted the transaction log, returning to a game of 'Flappy Glorg'. A frantic knocking rattled the doorframe. Oola Kimm, Tazien’s best friend, burst in, her usually pristine jacket soaked, her face pale with worry. She held out a battered datapad. “Tazien! You picked a fine night for a date! The whole network is alight! They’re calling you ‘The Cerulean Butcher’! But I got something! A lead on the Sanctuary Pass! It’s with a data broker in Sector 7, name of Rask. He’s got the whole data packet.” As she spoke, her hand subtly tapped a small, almost invisible device on her wrist, sending a burst of encrypted data, along with Tazien's location, to an unknown receiver. “Rask,” Tazien mused, taking the datapad. “Reliable?” “As reliable as a broker can be in this gutter,” Oola replied, glancing at Rurik with a hesitant smile. “And who’s your… friend?” Before Tazien could answer, a weak groan echoed from the far corner of the apartment. She followed the sound, her vibro-knife already in hand. Behind the sputtering radiator, bound in heavy synth-rope, slumped a man with split lips and swollen temples. A shattered comm-link lay beside him, the serial stamp matching standard enforcement channels. He stared up at Tazien, then at Rurik, a flicker of dawning recognition in his pain-filled eyes. He knew. He knew her face. And if he lived, he would know Rurik’s too. The man twitched, trying to speak, a desperate gurgle in his throat. Tazien raised her knife, the blade humming softly. The choice was stark, immediate.

Spousal Privilege