Page 77 of Enthraller

Linao swore softly. “I knew we were taking a risk using amateurs like that, but then, we don’t have too much choice anymore. All the professionals are either dead or in jail.”

“Professional thugs that did what they were told on the breakaways?” Ed asked, and there was an edge in his tone.

Linao quirked her lips. “Exactly. I gather you took two of the last ones we had left down on the streets the other night. They’re in custody, and my contact on the inside says the VSC is sending someone to collect them to answer for crimes on Lassa.”

“You seem to have recruited a few more here on Aponi,” Wren said. “There are a few Demeter SF team members who are clearly onboard.”

Linao looked away to hide her reaction.

She hadn’t known they knew about that.

She may be pretending to be all about cooperation, but Wren guessed she was giving just enough to try and get a deal.

Most likely because her crimes were too numerous for anyone to be comfortable giving her a light sentence.

And she didn’t miss that when she’d talked about the difficulty of hiring good thugs, she’d used the word ’we’. Like she had a say in the hiring.

If Evette Linao wasn’t at the top of this food chain, she’d be very surprised.

“Where were you going to escape to?” Ed asked her after a long silence.

“I was just going to get away. Go to Faldine or somewhere where the VSC has less of a hold than the Verdant String planets.” Linao hunched a shoulder.

She was lying, but Wren didn’t think they’d get the truth out of her.

“Time to call Lieutenant Bartam,” she said.

Ed gave a tight nod. “Agreed.”

30

They stood outside,in the chill breeze.

Ed had restrained Evette Linao, but he wanted a conversation with Wren out of their prisoner’s earshot, and so had moved outside to wait for whoever Lieutenant Bartam had sent to take her into custody.

They stood on the slender bridge that connected the freighter to the docks, and happy to use the cold as an excuse, Ed slid an arm around Wren’s shoulder, and felt another one of those strange flutters when she curved her own around his waist, so they stood, angled toward each other. Entwined.

He had not allowed himself to become entwined with anyone for a long time.

Not, he forced himself to admit, since he had been held hostage as a teenager while his planet, Halatia, imploded, and the rest of the VSC bickered about who would take the most number of refugees.

Aponi had taken him in once the extent of the disaster became clear. Captain Drake of the planet Parn’s Special Forces had broken ranks and saved a smuggler ship of hostages—orwhat was left of them—and after that, the whole VSC had acted swiftly.

It was why he’d become an SF officer himself. He wanted to be in a position to do what was right, damn the consequences.

But he’d let his deep seated anger at that original rejection—that original delay—dictate his actions two years ago. Those long weeks, when he was no more than a child, held in a tiny cell on a smuggler ship, grieving his parents, as he slowly worked out help wasn’t coming, had colored his whole life. And he could see how that feeling of bitterness had influenced him, and not in a good way.

He had been manipulated two years ago because someone knew how he would react. Knew they could force him out of Special Forces. That alone was as enraging as it was uncomfortable.

The breeze lifted Wren’s dark hair, and it caught on the rough fabric of his jacket, lying across his shoulder and tickling his neck.

He bent his head, and she looked up at him in surprise, gave a little gasp as he kissed her.

She smiled against his lips, and was still smiling when she leaned back a little, opening her mouth to say something, but at the sound of boots on metal, she turned her head.

Two men were walking toward them, the SF uniforms they wore identifying them as the team Bartam had sent to collect Evette Linao.

Wren turned back, still relaxed in his arms, but before she could speak, light bloomed around her and she fell, pulling him down with her.

---