Chapter 20
Despite the barked order for her to stand, Audrey didn’t move.
The ship rumbled around her. It was a sound she’d only just started to understand and already hated. The blue barrier still buzzed between her and Emerson. Beyond it, he stood restrained exactly where they’d left him—broad shoulders set, shining eyes indecipherable in the half-light.
He only watched her.
An officer’s hand closed around Audrey’s upper arm. The grip wasn’t rough enough to bruise, but it made clear she could not refuse.
The officer dragged Audrey to her feet.
As she passed the threshold, the black bands around her wrists throbbed once.
They continued to snuff out her power. Heat licked up her arms like the memory of a burn.
Audrey bit back the sounds of pain and fury rising in her throat.
She thinned her mouth into a hard line and let them lead her into the hallway.
Behind her, metal scraped over metal.
She looked desperately over her shoulder, straining to see into the darkened cell. Even restrained as he was, she still hoped Emerson would try to intervene.
Emerson’s mouth moved, barely. “Listen more than you speak,” he said. Then the door slid shut between them, the locks shifting automatically back into place.
Dread crawled along her back at his words.
They weren’t encouraging. They sounded like a warning—Emerson would let her go if it served his mission.
The thought stung more than she wanted to admit, fusing with the pain of being used and discarded by him.
A part of her longed to scream that she wasn’t expendable.
She mattered. But another part already braced for being alone in whatever waited for her next.
Trusting him any further would be fatal.
Fuck him. Let him rot with his calculations.
Inside the corridor, everything was too white, too polished, too cold to belong to anything human. Hidden lights bled from the seams in the walls, flattening every face they passed.
Two armed escorts fell in behind her while the officer ahead led her through a series of security doors that opened only after silent scans of his face and wrist.
Nobody spoke.
Further in the station, alarms beeped in warning under the engine noise. It sounded as if fate were still deciding whether this would become a disaster. Despite Emerson’s certainty that they would pass this checkpoint, Audrey’s mouth went dry at what she would have to endure first.
Holding her shoulder in a firm grip, the officer led her through each door, making sure she could do nothing but walk forward under his control. Emerson’s warning ran through her head.
This wasn’t routine.
She’d been interrogated enough times about her crimes to know routine questioning did not come with armed escorts, mirrored glass, and enough security to bury a body behind.
The floor under her feet shifted from ship steel to smooth black composite.
The atmosphere changed too—less oily, more sterile.
If she had to guess, they were taking her into the administrative center of the transit system.
They passed a pane of dark glass. In it, she caught a warped reflection of her pallid face, tangled curls, and clothes hanging loose.
She looked like what she had become.
Cargo that had learned how to walk.
At least she still had Cary’s leather jacket.
They came to a final door displaying symbols she couldn’t read and one line of English beneath them: RESTRICTED TRANSIT ADJUDICATION.
The officer pressed his hand to the panel. More impossible-looking locks disengaged in a heavy sequence. Even here, she could feel the low vibration of the transit station under the floor.
When the door slid open, every person in the holding bay looked up at the sound, their attention snapping to Audrey and her escort. She squared her shoulders and held her head high, determined to stay focused on anything she could use for leverage, whether it be lies or confusion.
Revealing that she was a captive from Earth didn’t feel smart. They probably already knew and didn’t care—that was likely why she and Emerson had been locked away while the rest of the Separatists moved more freely.
If she attempted to explain she was here with wanted fugitives—essentially trying to turn in the Separatists—she doubted anyone would believe her.
Mihail and the others had the paperwork.
They knew exactly what to say, in the right language.
Her gut told her the Aggregate’s real goal in places like this was to move any Level Zero traveler through quickly and quietly, then keep them contained on their own planets or moons.
She had absolutely no rights here, and no leverage against the Voíríans who’d kidnapped her.
She resisted the urge to bolt as they marched into the room, where too many people already knew her name.
Some sat, others stood, all waiting to be processed.
Something about the area felt wrong already, and the formal questioning hadn’t even begun—if she was to be the first.
Nikos was there, jaw rigid, one hand resting near the weapon at his hip. Another Voírían stood half a step behind him, still as concrete, tattooed arms folded over his chest.
And Mihail—
Mihail was at the center of it all like he belonged there more than anyone else.
One sleeve was burned through near the forearm, where Audrey’s fire had caught him earlier.
He wore the damage carelessly, as if it were an insult rather than an injury.
His black eyes slid to her once as she entered, then away again.
He was already bored by her presence because he knew exactly where she was and who held her.
That should have been the worst thing in the room.
It wasn’t.
Alex stood at the opposite end of the table in a black fitted suit with an Aggregate seal pinned at the breast. His hair was combed back.
His posture was flawless. A thin tablet glowed in one hand.
The assured, careful way he held himself made him look exactly what he now was—educated, official, impossible to reach.
Audrey forgot how to breathe.
Alex looked up as they forced her closer to the center, where everyone stood. His face changed—not much, not enough for anyone else to notice, but enough for her to see the shock, guilt, and something harder to name shining in his eyes.
But before she could even truly clock his emotions, they faded under polish. “I’m advising on a Level Zero custody dispute and conferring with my clients in private, which is my right under inter-Aggregate transit law. You need to leave.”
Any hope drained from her face. This wasn’t a rescue from her friend.
It was a custody battle.
Alex wasn’t here as Alex, her friend, anymore—he was here as one more player in a fight over who got to claim her.
The officer stood his ground. “We’ve been ordered to stay with this one at all times while she’s out of the holding cells.”
Alex displayed his tablet, presenting a photo and credentials onscreen. “I’m an inter-Aggregate attorney. Under bylaw 32B12, you must allow me to meet privately with my clients, including detainees.” He fixed a hard glare on the officer holding Audrey. “Let her go.”
The officer immediately loosened his grip on Audrey, nodded curtly to Alex, and exited the room with the remaining enforcers.
Alex pivoted back to Mihail when the door snapped closed.
“I’m telling you for the last time,” Alex said, voice curt and even, “the Senator will not tolerate this. Cary Simas’s sister was removed from a protected Level Zero jurisdiction under sedation and moved through restricted transit like contraband. ”
Audrey felt dizzy. Cary. Senator. Jurisdiction. The words struck her like thrown stones, one after another, too fast to catch.
Mihail smiled without warmth. “Then your Senator can be disappointed.”
“Disappointed?” Alex’s facade broke a little. “Ryker spent years building the Senator’s trust for the Separatists. He would have your head for this.”
“Outside support can be rebuilt. A gold triad cannot.”
“You’re jeopardizing years of cover, supply movement, and legal shielding because you can’t control your own people.”
Nikos stiffened, but Mihail only cocked his head. “I control exactly what matters.”
“The hell you do.” Alex slapped the tablet flat onto the table. Text flashed across the black surface too quickly for Audrey to understand. “Your route was flagged before I arrived. You’re standing in an Aggregate checkpoint arguing over custody of a woman tied to three active investigations.”
Mihail ground his teeth, but he didn’t reply.
“Release her into my custody if you want to preserve the alliance,” Alex demanded.
He didn’t look at Audrey when he said it. He was watching Mihail—measuring the reaction.
Mihail didn’t look worried. He looked like a man determined to deliver something. There was an intent smoldering beneath his composure, as if he carried a promise that had to be fulfilled at any cost. The certainty in his eyes said he would not leave without it.
“Then your crew takes this”—Alex pointed at the badge on his tablet—“and uses it to open every door two floors down before escaping by cargo pod.”
“Forget the alliance,” Mihail replied, sounding more bored than angry. He picked up the tablet and threw it forcefully across the room despite his calm. “We aren’t leaving until we have a Simas in our custody.”
The way Mihail said her name made her insides crawl—he spoke it not as a warning or threat, but as if naming a prize too valuable to surrender.
Audrey stayed very still. She wasn’t part of the conversation.
She was the subject of it.
No one had told her Alex worked for a Senator. No one had told her Cary’s name could be said out loud in a room like this and make men with guns go quiet.
No one had told her anything.
Everyone in this room knew more than she did.
She was a pawn again.
Fury worked its way up through her, spreading through her body like fire. How dare Alex keep any of this from her?