Page 75 of Breakaway
"Don't you dare turn a wonderful moment into something vulgar," Mauve says, chastising her son. Her tears have dried, though, and when she looks down at me, she shoots me a wink, letting me know she isn't as upset as she's pretending to be.
"I'm just glad I can be part of one good family," I say, leaning back down against the medical bed and settling in. I don't knowhow long the medical bot will need to work, but Mauve and Wyn both find comfortable spots to sit, and they stay with me the whole time.
CHAPTER 26
ZILL
Breaking News! Wishing our favorite pop star a safe and quick recovery after being kidnapped. We love you, Empress!
"What are we going to do with him?" Kolos asks, his head tilted to the side as he looks down at Reese's brother, who we still have tied up in the dining room of the ship.
I let out a sigh as I rub the back of my neck. My shadows are screaming at me to kill him because of what he put Reese through, and as much as I want to agree with them, we're still expected to maintain some semblance of following the rules of society if we want to keep working with the Intergalactic Alliance.
"We'll have to let him go," I say. The words taste bitter on my tongue as I say them, and I have to brace myself for the outrage my shadows are shouting into my mind. Kolos is disappointed in my answer as well, but he at least can see reason where my shadows are refusing to.
"Should I scrape his mind of what happened?" Kolos asks. "If he tells anyone, we did technically kidnap him and go through his mind without authorization."
I frown, debating the pros and cons of our options. What we did to Jeremy was illegal. It started illegally when we searched his mind to figure out if he had anything to do with Reese's apartment being broken into. And then it slowly progressed further into criminal territory when Kolos all but forced him into a transport with him, brought him to the ship, tied him up, and left him in our dining room, trapped for the last day and a half.
"Yeah, we have to wipe his mind," I say with a sigh. "Make it look like he had food poisoning or something and plant memories of him being at his hotel the whole time. Reese is planning on pressing charges, so everything else he did will get brought up at some point."
"You got it, boss," Kolos says, kneeling beside Jeremy and beginning his work. I leave him to it and continue checking on everything else that needs my attention.
Isha is in her private ship, and I'll just make sure there's nothing she needs. She's on strict bed rest for the next couple of days. Just until we're sure the tranquilizer Leo hit her with is no longer affecting her.
She's still beating herself up for what happened with Reese, no matter how many of us tell her she did nothing wrong. There's only so many times I can tell her that any of us would've been caught off guard by Leo like she was. If Skia hadn't already started his job, I'd be switching him out with Kolos so that Isha could have her brother here to comfort her. She'd deny that she needs comforting, but he'd still offer it to her better than Kolos and I can.
Leo got the upper hand on us because he had someone close to Reese watching us. It turns out that Jeremy was such a conniving jerk that he even put a tracker on Reese's comm, so he knew where she was at any time. It's something I scanned for when I first took over watching her, but I didn't do another scanafter she got back from visiting her family. Our best guess is that he managed to get it on then.
Besides Jeremy working for him, Leo also had access to very expensive and highly regulated technology. The kind of technology that can keep a Sombran from entering one's mind, no matter how strong they are. Which is why we're not in trouble for what happened to Leo once he was found. It turns out that the IA is particular about how their employees conduct themselves, especially those who are given access to experimental technology that isn't supposed to be known about yet.
So yeah, Leo's in a lot of trouble since he was head of Earth's Division of Protective Technologies. He used his position there to aid in his stalking of Reese and was willing to use proprietary technologies to help him kidnap her.
My entire family had to sign documents stating that we won't speak about the devices used to keep Sombrans from entering others' minds. We did after we spoke with the Sombran representative on Earth, who assured us that the IA was working with Sombra to create the technology.
The IA also requested our discretion regarding Leo's removal from Earth. None of us had any issue with that, so long as the IA agreed he would be punished accordingly. From what we could gather, he'll be spending a good long while in a prison station. Once he's done there, he'll have to reimburse the IA for the stolen technologies, which will consume a significant portion of the rest of his life. Reese will be alerted before his release, and he'll be forced to wear a tracker to ensure he never gets close enough to be in the same star system as her.
As for Reese's family, well, there's not a lot that can be done about them since everything we know about what they did comes from Kolos and me illegally searching through Jeremy's mind. As far as we can tell, her parents knew about sellingReese's information for more money. Why they allowed that and had no issues about it is something I'd love to know, but it probably all came down to greed. And I'm not willing to ever get close enough to know if my guess is correct or not.
Reese is pressing charges against Jeremy. Leo admitted to using him to help stalk her and told the investigator that Jeremy was aware of the plan for Leo to kidnap Reese. All of that is more than enough for her to open a case against her brother, and it'll be up to some other Sombran working with IA to sift through his mind and figure it all out. If it comes out that her parents played more of a role, then we can figure out what to do about it.
Kolos will implant Jeremy's mind with memories of being sick with food poisoning after leaving the coffee shop, and of him being in the same hotel he's been staying in near Reese's apartment for the last two days. He'll be none the wiser about the whole kidnapping thing. Leo will never contact him or send him the money he's owed, but that's the least of what Jeremy's going to be worrying about.
I knock on Isha's door, unsure if she even wants company. She's a strong Sombran, just as strong as Skia, and she's not afraid to get physical instead of relying solely on her mental abilities. Her temper flares easily, which Kolos loves, but it also means she's fully aware of when she can and can't handle being around others.
After being knocked out by a tranquilizer from Leo, she's been sulking a bit. Which I understand. I'd feel just as bad if something similar had happened to me on the job. Thankfully, Leo didn't feel like leaving a string of bodies in his wake, so Brandr and Isha were both knocked out but otherwise perfectly fine.
The Lokan ended up shifting as he came out of his stupor, the beast nearly tearing into Ingo, who was sent to watch over them while the rest of us looked for Reese. Now that Reese is officiallydone with everything, the Lokans have been released from their duties. They're staying in Reese's apartment and the one across the hall until George can come back. Reese wants to have dinner with them once more to say goodbye, and we're just waiting until Brandr's been cleared from bedrest.
"Unless you're going to tell me I can be done with all this resting, go away," Isha's voice comes through a small speaker near her door.
"You sure you don't want company?" I ask.
"Pretty sure you need to be tending to your soulbond," Isha says, trying to dodge my question.
"She's asleep. She also is in my head, and as soon as she wakes up, she'll know where I am."
Isha doesn't respond for a while, and I know she's in there stewing in bed, trying to come up with some other excuse to get rid of me. I wait her out, knowing there's no way she'll just ignore me. She doesn't have it in her to be that rude.
