Chapter 45
Nia tried to calm the racing of her heart. Her hands were bound in thick metal much different than her old bonds, and secured to the table in front of her by a short chain. She tested its strength again, pulling. No give, not even a little. Palms clammy, she rolled her fingers into fists.
The two warriors who’d come for her had shoved her on a prison transport, taken her to another ship, and stuck her in this cold cell. No one had stopped them. Leaving Orion, leaving Mace…her panic hadn’t subsided.
She kept her gaze away from the metal cart of crude surgical instruments beside the table. She’d tried to kick it over, but her legs wouldn’t reach, even when she’d pulled so hard the bonds cut into her wrists. A bulkhead of opaque glass stretched in front of her.
She closed her eyes. The look on Mace’s face as she’d been led away would be burned in her memory forever. She’d never seen him look so frightened. Not during any of the dangerous situations they’d been through together. His fear escalated her own. The memory of those bodies in Orion’s theater made her swallow against her dry throat. They’d been labeled traitors too.
Would Commodore Cache order her tortured in front of a crowd? From how Nia had saved Mace’s life and her cooperation with trying to track down the agent, she hadn’t thought Mace’s commanding officer hated her.
But if Cache wanted to publicly torture her, why hadn’t she kept her on Orion?
Nia pulled on the bonds again when the door opened. She straightened. Commander Foley entered, his hair swooped over his forward, his eyes alight with something that made her heart skip a beat.
Not him.Her stomach squeezing tight, she held his gaze and lifted her chin. She wasn’t a coward.
“Euphenia Jannex.” He almost sang her name. “You’ve found yourself in a predicament.”
Her eyes were drawn to a fist-sized container he gripped in his hand. She snapped her gaze back to him, not really wanting to know what it held—not when she could see the cart of tools out of the corner of her eye.
“I’m not sure if you know what kind of trouble you’re in, but I’ll enlighten you. As your arresting officer, it’s my duty to inform you of the charges, the evidence, and the repercussions if you’re found guilty.”
“But I’m innocent until proved guilty, right?”
He smiled a lazy smile. “Not exactly. The law doesn’t work here the same as it does in the CORE.”
“May I receive counsel? Will I be assigned an advocate?”
“Not with the charge of treason.”
How was that fair? She sensed he enjoyed her discomfort and tried her best to keep her face blank.
Setting the container on the edge of the table, Foley pulled out the chair opposite her, the legs scraping against the deck in a grating pitch. Her shoulders hunched, trying to deflect the sound.
He spun the chair around and sat with his legs spread and arms folded over the back. “Let’s start with the penalty. If you’re convicted of treason, you’ll be publicly tortured for days and eventually sent out an airlock if you don’t die from your wounds.”
Stomach twisting, she pulled on the bonds, the metal cutting into her wrists.
“Now that you understand the consequences of your actions, let’s move on to the proof.”
She froze as he reached for the container, opened it, and dumped the contents onto the table. Metal pieces tinkled, bouncing, before settling on the surface. They glinted gold at her, one shard large enough to see the etched vine design of her old locket.
Her breath caught in her throat. How had he gotten it?
“We’ve retraced this item’s power signature all over Orion.”
Swallowing, Nia stared at the pieces, her mind scrambling.
“I can see your confusion, so let me explain.” He set the empty box on the corner of the table and closed the lid with a snick. “When a maintenance crew flushed the system of the Condor you arrived in, they found these.” He gestured to the table. “Even though you’d sent it through reclamation, part of the device still emitted a signature. A nice piece of tech, really. It had gotten through initial scans when arriving on Orion, and didn’t even die properly when reclaimed. Sometimes CORE tech impresses me.”
He grinned, and her heart beat faster. Her mother always liked quality.
“I’d already been looking for the device which had pinged against our security hubs, and had the signature flagged. Lucky the maintenance crew did their due diligence and contacted me.”
He stood and pressed his hands flat on the table. “The movements of the tracker also coincided with the movements of Commander Mace.”
The remaining moisture in her mouth evaporated. Foley leaned closer, hands straddling the gold bits and pieces. She resisted the urge to move away.
“I’m of the belief that you were the one with the device, but if I’m mistaken and it was Commander Mace, I’ll lay the charges against him instead.”
No!Nia stared at the disassembled locket, her eyesight fogging around the edges. Mace would take the blame for her without flinching. To know he would be publicly tortured and executed—her breaths left her in panicked bursts.
“Do you remember a man named Justice?” Her head snapped up and Foley sent her his unfeeling smile. “Lovely fellow. He recognized you. Said you were ruling class. But that couldn’t be. If you were ruling class, you would have been flagged for ransom the second you stepped foot on this station.”
Foley pushed away from the table to walk toward the torture tools. “Justice is dead, by the way. Mace brutally murdered him while he was bound, broke his neck.” Her head snapped to him, and he tipped his head at her. “I also had a lovely chat with the man who processed you on your arrival.”
Lovely chat?Nia swallowed around the rock in her throat. What had Foley done to the man who’d processed her? Was he in a room like this? Beside a cart full of surgical tools?
“Tell me Mace knew.” He stroked the handle of a blade. “Tell me he’s been protecting you.”
She shook her head, all the warmth leaving her body. Chills raced over her skin.
One side of Foley’s mouth quirked upward. “It seems Commander Mace broke a lot of rules to keep your identity secret. Should we add the tracker to the list of charges?”
“It’s mine,” she croaked, her throat feeling like she’d swallowed the pieces of her locket. “If I’m ruling class, you can ransom me. You don’t need to execute anyone.”
“But you’re not ruling class anymore.” He picked a blade from the tray. The hook on the end glinted in the overhead light. She couldn’t look away. “Your ID shows a different lineage entirely, a stolen one.” He stepped closer. “You want to know the funny thing? I couldn’t take proper legal action against you until you were secretly emancipated.”
Nia’s lips parted.
He smiled, his teeth flashing in the light. “As a civilian you can be charged for crimes. As a captive, you only lose rights, especially when the commander invoked the old laws. You were protected then. As a civilian, you are subject to all the rules and regulations the rest of us are.”
There wasn’t anything funny about it at all.
“So.” He leaned a hip against the table and twirled the blade in his hand. “As your arresting officer, I have two choices. I could go through the motions. Take you in front of a jury—and trust me on this one, they’ll convict you. Or,” he stood, “I could reveal your true identity and petition the council you’re better off as a bargaining chip. We could free Tellusian POWs in trade. I have a couple friends who haven’t been shot out a CORE airlock yet.” He shrugged, tossing the blade into the air and catching the handle in his palm. “What do you think I should do?”
“I think you should put that down.” Nia was surprised by the force of her own words.
He circled behind her. She turned her head slightly, not wanting to lose sight of him. Abruptly, he dug his fingers into her hair and jerked her head back. Nia cried out. The cool metal of the blade pricked against her throat.
Above her, Foley’s face filled her vision. He blocked the lights above, his narrow nose cutting his face in half.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” he said, bits of spittle landing on her face. She tried to shrink away, but he held on too tight. “Usually, I get the information I want out of prisoner within the first ten minutes. Just like this. I don’t need any more from you. The rest of the time, I play.” The metal stroked her skin.
Nia refused to cry or beg. “Mace is going to kill you for touching me.”
He tightened his hold on her hair. “He could have as your warder under the old laws, but not when you’re a free civilian.”
He brought the hook to her face. The cold of the metal pressed against the white of her eye.
“He’s my husband,” Nia choked out, hoping it protected her even as a civilian.
His knuckles relaxed against her cheek. Foley backed off the tool, separating it from her eye. “You’re lying.”
She latched onto his doubt. “I was emancipated, but he didn’t divorce me. It’s the old laws. He’s still my husband.”
When he stepped back, his hold on her hair lessened. The relief swelling through her body made her bold. “You should have done your research, asshole.”
He jerked her head, and she cried out. It felt like he’d ripped out a chunk of her hair.
The door slid open, and Mace tumbled in with Cache and Grey. A flurry of movement between the three of them, and a knife shot passed Nia’s head. With a thud and a scream from behind her, the hold on her hair released.
Mace stumbled toward her, his eyes wild, and collapsed with his arms around her waist, face buried between her breasts. With her hands bound to the table, Nia could only close her eyes and lean into him, rub her cheek across his silky black hair.
Grey circled behind her, and Nia turned her head. The knife was lodged through Foley’s eye, the man dead and slumped against the bulkhead.
“Quite a throw,” Grey said. He yanked the knife out. Nia winced at the squelching sound.
“I was aiming for his hand,” Mace muttered, the words muffled against her chest.
Cache released Nia’s bonds. With her hands freed, Nia buried her face in Mace’s throat and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Her fingers came away bloody.
“What the hell are you doing?” she yelled, pulling away. His glazed eyes filled with confusion. He shouldn’t have been able to walk on his own. “You’ve wrecked all the work on your back. You’ve lost too much blood already. What did you give him?” She turned accusing eyes onto Cache. “How is he standing?”
The commodore lifted her hands in surrender. “Nothing. I was going to, but I didn’t want to kill him. He’s been pushing himself like this to get here.” Cache stared at Foley, a disgusted expression twisting her face, and shook her head.
Nia caught Mace’s face between her hands and said, “Mace?”
His glazed eyes partly focused on her. Her breath caught in her throat at the raw emotion swimming there. He kissed her cheeks one at a time, cradling her face.
“I thought I’d lost you.” His hands shook.
Nia pressed her forehead to his. “I’m here, izar. I’m here.”
His embrace wrapped her so tight she couldn’t draw a proper breath. She let him crush her, melting into his chest. Breathing wasn’t so important right now, not when his strength surrounded her.
His grip lessened, and Nia pulled away to look into his icy blue eyes. “Now, get your gorgeous butt to a med bay so I can fix your back.”