She clenched her hands into fists, her nails digging into the palms. Keeping her trap shut was a lot harder in practice than in theory.
“Has the Council member informed you of the circumstances of Ms. LeBeaux leaving? Did she tell you she was intoxicated and lost Ms. LeBeaux’s work contract in a card game?” Nakia asked.
“No, she—”
She continued speaking over the guard, which made the petty part of Emry’s soul do a happy dance. “Which I do not need to mention violates about a dozen labor laws and standards. In addition to this gross abuse of labor by a sitting member of the Sangrin Council, my client was given five minutes to pack her belongings before leaving with a stranger.”
“Dovak is not a stranger. He is a trusted business associate,” Pashaal protested.
“Did you know Mr. Dovak, Emmarae?” Nakia asked her.
“He had dinner with Pashaal once before, but no. I did not know him,” Emry answered.
“There you are,” Nakia said. “A stranger, who could have had any nefarious purpose—”
“Nefarious! How dare you,” Pashaal blustered.
“Please stop interrupting me or I will add witness intimidation to my list of complaints, Councilor,” Nakia said. “As I was saying, my client was stressed and concerned for safety, not just her job. It is perfectly understandable that the borrowed necklace slipped her mind. Isn’t that right, Ms. LeBeaux?”
Emry nodded. It took her half a second to realize that the lawyer could not see her gesture and needed to hear her. “Um, yes. That’s correct. I had a lot on my mind.”
Understatement.
“The necklace was recovered. The charges should be dropped,” Nakia said.
“The obsidian jewel is gone!” Pashaal slammed a hand against the table. “She sold it!”
“I don’t know what happened to it,” Emry protested. “I barely remember taking it off. I was so tired that night that I crawled into the wrong bed.”
A sharp look crossed Nakia’s face. Despite the flickering light of the projection, Emry understood she was meant to keep her mouth shut.
“Right. Keep silent. Forgot,” she muttered.
“The necklace was left in the care of my client. The necklace is damaged. That is an irrefutable fact,” she said, though Emry honestly thought Nakia could refute the facts if it suited her purpose. “My client will pay for a replacement stone.”
“My necklace was priceless,” Pashaal said. “My Kullar gave it to me.”
“Priceless? Was it of cultural or historical significance? A rare or high-quality example of a cut obsidian stone? Crafted by a famous artist?”
“No, it’s—”
“The raw materials exceptionally valuable?” Nakia barely paused before she answered the rhetorical question. “If you look closely, you can see the silver plating worn away at the clasps. That necklace is inexpensive, and the missing stone only cut glass.”
Pashaal’s mouth opened and closed, working like a fish. Was Emry gloating? A little. An appropriate amount of gloating. Eventually, Pashaal found her voice and said, “It has emotional significance.”
“Yes, emotionally priceless, but not without monetary value, you’ll find. I think the insured replacement value would be fair compensation.”
Pashaal glanced at the guard, as if he could help. “It was not insured.”
A sharp grin broke over Nakia’s face, and Emry knew they had the upper hand. Tension unwound in her chest, and she allowed herself to enjoy the way Pashaal huffed and kept adjusting the collar on her robe. Okay, it was gloating. She gloated. Just a little.
“Not insured. My. How unusual for a priceless item,” she said, making air quotes. “Fair market price for the cost of replacing the cut glass jewel.”
“I don’t want a replacement. I want the original,” Pashaal protested. “She took it. She knows where it is!”
“I don’t know what happened to it. I wish I did. I really do,” Emry said.
“Again, Ms. LeBeaux, exercise your right to remain silent,” Nakia snapped. She turned her attention back to Pashaal. “We’ll pay for a replacement, nothing more. This mediation is over, and you will not contact my client again unless you want to explain to the labor board how you trade contracted employees like chattel.”
Pashaal huffed. “Such threats. And who are you? A student. You are not qualified to practice the law. I am not impressed.”
“What? Thalia said—” Emry shut her mouth when Nakia made a slashing gesture across her neck.
This is what she got for trusting someone who knew a guy who knew a guy. Err, lawyer.
Shit, she was as bad as Gemma, going for a wacky scheme rather than just doing a basic search on the network for a lawyer. She was going to jail, and it would be all her fault.
“I am currently studying for my Sangrin qualifications to practice law, true,” Nakia said. “But let me assure you, I am a fully qualified attorney on Earth. I specialized in contract law, and interstellar contracts are a particular interest of mine. My client is a citizen of Earth and was a current resident when the contract was signed, which means that Earth has jurisdiction. And, fun fact, Sangrin recognizes my qualifications to practice law.”
Pashaal frowned but spread her hands wide in surrender. “I agree to your terms, but I am not happy.”
“Cry me a river,” Emry muttered.
“I’d like a few moments to speak with my client, please,” Nakia said.
The guard and Pashaal left. Soon Emry was alone with the flickering image. The overhead lights washed out the color of the projection, leaving Nakia pale and ghostly.
“That went as well as we could have expected,” Nakia said.
“I guess.”
“Don’t shower me with praise. No charges. You walk out of here a free woman.”
With a huge bill.
“How am I going to pay your fee? Sorry, not to complain, but I didn’t budget for legal fees.” Emry could hear the proverbial cash registers ringing.
“I’m charging the friends and family rate, but I see no reason why your mate can’t foot the bill.”
“He’s not here.” And Emry didn’t want to come to Ren with another problem. Apparently, she had her pride.
Yeah, she was as surprised as anyone.
“Hmm.” Nakia glanced down at something off-screen. “Why not use your allowance? I see it hasn’t been touched in four years, so you’ve got quite a nest egg.”
“My what now?”
“Your allowance.”
Emry blinked.
“That you get for petty spending and incidentals,” Nakia said, her tone implying this was common knowledge.
More silence.
“Because you’re a Mahdfel mate. We’ve all got one.” See? Common knowledge.
“I don’t have one of those,” Emry said.
“Yes, you do.”
“I think I’d know if I had a trust fund.”
“I’m looking at the account right now. You’ve got more than enough to buy your ex-boss the gaudiest fake stone in the system and hire a fleet of lawyers.”
Emry blinked.
She had a trust fund.
She was the kind of person who had a trust fund and didn’t know it.
“I have a trust fund,” she said slowly.
“Yes, like every other Mahdfel mate.”
Just… there wasn’t the right combination of words to express how monumentally huge that was. If she had known, she could have paid off Gemma’s blackmailers, she never would have taken the shady job with Pashaal, and she would have thrown that shady ass alien peddling his shady ass deals out on his, um, ass.
“How did I not know this?” she asked and intuitively knew the answer. Because Ren shipped her home in record time. There was no orientation or welcome packet.
“I’ll have the fund contact you,” Nakia said. “That’s everything on my end. Do you have any questions for me?”
“Uh,” Emry said, full of wisdom and insight. “Sorry,
I’m a bit overwhelmed. I’m free to go?”
“Yes. The charges are being dropped.”
“What about Thalia?” It felt wrong to walk away with Thalia still in the brig.
“Already released,” Nakia said.
“Can I call you if something else comes up or I think of a question?”
“Absolutely. I’m sending you my contact info.” She glanced down, off-screen again, before turning her attention back to Emry. “It was a pleasure working with you. Hopefully, we can meet again in better circumstances.”
“I’ll buy you a coffee next time I’m on Sangrin. Hell, I’m making you a muffin gift basket,” Emry said, before realizing that she had no idea when or if she’d return to the planet. She didn’t know what would happen once Ren returned with Gemma—he had to return with Gemma because she refused to imagine the other option. They hadn’t talked about the future or expectations or anything. Maybe he’d send Emry and Gemma back to Earth.
No. Ren said he regretted letting her go, so that meant he wanted her to stay.
Right?
Did she even want to stay?
Emry honestly didn’t know.
Released from the brig, Thalia rushed over to her. “Havik and Ren are at the hospital. We have to go. Now.”
Chapter 21
Emry
Emry raced down the corridor. Her mind dissolved into a mess of static and panic when Thalia told her Ren was at the hospital. Sure, Havik too. Thalia was probably worried, but she kept it together enough to hustle them both into an auto transport and to the correct hospital. Left on her own, Emry might have spun in a circle, unable to pick a direction, and fallen over in exhaustion.
Okay, maybe she was being dramatic, but the man she loved was in the hospital. Whatever doubt she had—the second-guessing, the unknown, all the things they never talked about—fell away. They were important, yeah, but not more important than him.
She turned a corner, her shoes skidding on slick linoleum. Ren stood in the corridor, wearing armor that fit him like a glove, and staring down at a coffee cup like it held the answer to life’s questions.
“Ren!” She jumped him, literally jumped, knocking the cup to the ground. Strong arms caught her, holding her against him. Words tumbled out of her in a rush. “Thalia said you were in the hospital. What happened? What’s wrong? Don’t you dare be injured. You swore you’d come back. You swore.”
“I am well,” he said.
“Well, he says.” She rolled her eyes, then kissed him because it seemed a shame not to be kissing him. “God, I was so worried. Why are you at the hospital?”
Carefully, he lowered her to the ground. “The signal was a trap. There were injuries.”
“Who?” she demanded. The door to the room was closed, and smoky glass protected the occupants.
“We found Terran females. Abductees.”
“Gemma? Was she there?” She was afraid to hear the answer, but not knowing would be worse.
“Yes. She is dehydrated, malnourished, and has a fracture.”
“I need to see her.” Emry slammed her hand to the control panel, and the door slid open.
“Hey, Ren,” Thalia said, finally trotting up. “We had an interesting day. Pashaal had a warrant to search the ship and—”
Emry stopped listening.
Gemma sat in the bed, pale and gaunt. For some reason, the quiet guy—Zalis or something—lurked in the corner.
“Hey, Emmy. He’s just like you described: a cartoon devil, but hot. He thinks he’s funny,” her twin said.
“He is funny, sometimes.” Emotion thickened her voice.
“I like him.”
“Oh, Gemmy-bean.” Tears rolled down her face. This was too much. Too big for one human heart to contain. These emotions couldn’t be expressed with a graceful little sniffle. This was a great big ugly cry, and she didn’t care. Gemma, her mirror, ugly cried right with her.
Emry crawled into the bed, careful of the IV drip and the cast on the ankle and hugged her twin like she hadn’t since they clung to each other during Invasion air raids. “I’m sorry I left,” she croaked.
“No. This is my fault. If I had just been tested—”
“No. You didn’t… I know why you didn’t want to be tested. I should have stayed. You were alone, and they took you.”
“Nah, you had to leave. You hated the bakery,” Gemma said.
Emry jolted. “What? No. I don’t hate the bakery.”
“I can’t believe how stubborn you are.” Gemma smoothed back the hair from Emry’s forehead. “Look, I don’t know what it takes to get you to be honest with me, but I was abducted and kept in a cage and was human bait in a booby trap, so the least you can do is admit that you hated the bakery.”
“God, you’re right. Do you need anything? Water? Juice? Morphine? I bet they can hook you up with really strong stuff here.”
“I think if I have any more water, I’ll explode. Your man kept pouring water down my throat.”
“Sounds like Ren.”
“This is good. I like this.” Gemma tightened her hold and sighed with contentment.
They lay there, listening to the shuffle of people in the corridor, the hum of machines, and the beating of her twin’s heart until Emry felt herself drifting off to sleep.
“I didn’t hate all of it,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“I liked how happy it made you and how it felt like Dad was with us.”
“I liked that too,” Gemma said.
“The hours blew.”
Gemma chuckled. “Yeah. Being your own boss has a lot of flaws.”
“You need minions if you’re planning to have anything resembling a healthy work-life balance.” Emry had wanted to hire more staff to ease the burden, but the money had never been there. Mostly, it had been her and Gemma working from open to close with the occasional part-timer to help during the busiest hours.
“Doesn’t matter now. I can’t imagine the bakery is still open,” Gemma said.
“The minions had keys.”
“But not the ability to pay rent or our suppliers. The bakery is gone.”
“You can go back and reopen. Find a new location.”
Gemma remained silent, mulling the option over. “I don’t think I want to. The bakery was for Dad. We did that. I want to do something new.”
“Like what? A café?”
“Maybe. I want to stick with you. Wherever you want to go from here, back on another interstellar cruise ship, a private client, or a café on a moon, I don’t care. I’m in.”
Emry mulled over Gemma’s words. The idea appealed to Emry. She enjoyed cooking more than baking. Cookies, even unicorn macarons, day after day got tedious. For all the trouble working for Pashaal ended up being, Emry had enjoyed exploring new cuisine and the challenge of adapting Earth recipes for new ingredients.
As clearly as she could envision that future with Gemma, that wasn’t what she wanted.
“I’m staying with Ren,” Emry admitted.
A throat cleared. Ren stood in the doorway, a stunned expression on his face. Heat flooded her cheeks. They hadn’t talked about what would happen next, after he found Gemma. It was always unspoken, an invitation to stay and the agreement that she might.
“I need to question Gemma,” he said.
“Sure, I’ll go,” Emry said, rising from the bed.
“Stay,” Gemma said, grabbing her wrist.
“Okay.” She pulled up a chair next to the bed. She held Gemma’s hand while Gemma recited the facts about how the people she paid to remove her from the Mahdfel Bride Registry decided that they’d make more money selling her at auction than blackmailing her. They jumped her one morning at the back of the bakery where the security lights didn’t reach.
“That damn light. I told you it needed to be fixed,” Emry muttered.
“I think I may have been in a stasis thingy. My memory gets fuzzy. I don’t remember leaving Earth, or an auction, just waking up in th
at warehouse with the other girls.” Gemma paused, rubbing her throat. Emry handed her a glass of water. “Thanks. Are the others okay?”
“Dehydrated and malnourished, much like you. One has a severe case of poisoning from the stasis chamber. Nothing they will not recover from.”
“What’s going to happen to them?” Emry asked, secretly asking what would happen to Gemma.
Ren’s eyes flashed, as if he heard the question she really wanted to be answered. “They will receive medical treatment and be returned to their homes.”
Emry squeezed Gemma’s hand. “Gemma is coming with us. It’s a big ask, but she’s not safe on Earth on her own.”
Ren remained silent for a moment. Eventually, he said, “As you say.”
“Did you catch them?” Gemma asked.
“No. The traffickers had long departed before we arrived.”
“They weren’t traffickers. They were Suhlik.”
Ren
Impossible. The Suhlik did not abduct females.
“You don’t believe me,” Gemma said, slumping back into the bed.
His mate looked at him furiously, accusation in her eyes. “I believe you.”
“Perhaps you saw another species. There are reptilians who bear a passing resemblance,” Ren said.
“I know what I saw. At least one of them was Suhlik. I heard them talking. They bought all of us and left a few of us behind.
“The Suhlik do not purchase people. They slaughter, nothing else.” Except he knew that was not entirely true. Sometimes the Suhlik abducted Mahdfel children for experimentation, and sometimes those children survived and returned to their clan. Foundlings were not uncommon. The warlord’s second-in-command was a Foundling.
“You think there’s anyone from Earth who doesn’t know what the Suhlik look like?” Gemma asked.
“You have never seen one in person. Seeing one in the flesh differs from seeing a broadcast or a photograph.”
“How do you know I haven’t seen one in the flesh?” The female lifted her stubborn chin, the image of his Emmarae.
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