Blood boiling, Karr forced himself to stand tall as he glared up at his older brother’s face.
“What the hell do you want, Cade?” Karr asked.
They could have been twins, the Kingston brothers, if Cade weren’t thirteen years his elder. They shared the same hazel eyes. The same curly hair, strong jaw and lean build.
But where Cade was tall and strong, the picture of a captain, Karr was short and scrappy. The smallest on their crew, by far.
And the two could not have been more different on the inside.
Cade was all plot and plan, control and command.
Karr lived moment to moment, like space trash, tumbling head over heels, unsure of where he was going or if he’d ever make it there.
“I want to protect you,” Cade said, his tone every bit like a disappointed father. “I can’t do that if you’re intent on throwing yourself into a pod that hasn’t worked for over thirty years.”
“Thirty years is generous,” Karr said. “I can fix it.”
But even as he spoke the words, he began to doubt them.
“You could,” Cade said, inclining his head at the pod behind Karr, “if you had a year’s worth of time, and thousands of creds’ worth of parts that we don’t have on this ship.” He placed a hand on Karr’s shoulder. “This is ridiculous. You can’t just run away.”
Karr barked out a laugh. “Isn’t that what we’re best at?”
That damnedthrob-throb-throbreturned, which quickly reminded him that his dear brother before him was the one who’d ordered Karr knocked out, bound up, and placed in a locked room aboard theStarfall.Conveniently, just in time to leave Beta Earth and Karr’s dreams of freedom behind. “Let me go back.”
Cade stooped to pick up the old, rusty wrench. One of the few belongings left from their father besides Karr’s ring. “We aren’t free to choose our destinations. You know that.” He turned the wrench around, grease marring his evenly trimmed fingernails. “Youalsoknow we have a mech drone you can use. It would make it easier to fix this junker up.”
Karr took the wrench from Cade’s hand. “I prefer to use my hands.Just as I prefernotbeing kidnapped by my own flesh and blood.”
“It was that or allow Jeb to handle you.” Cade rapped the side of the pod with his knuckles. A bit of metal flaked away. “You were reckless. I did what I had to do.”
“And you enjoyed it,” Karr spat.
Cade worked his jaw back and forth in the very same way Karr did when he was trying to hold back a curse. But Cade had self-control. Karr had a mouth like a bottle rocket.
“Blood is stronger than fear,” Cade said softly. A classic captain’s line. “You’ve taken that to heart, and you’ve always had my back, even when you’d rather stab a knife in it.”
“Screwdriver,” Karr said. Cade raised a brow. “I’d choose a screwdriver instead of a knife.”
Cade ignored that sentiment. “We have an opportunity before us, Karr. One that will award us the prize of our lives. Play our cards right, and we can go back to Beta. But not in a pod. We’ll take theStarfall.Hell, we can buy Jeb as our personal pet, and makehimdo the smuggling for a change.”
“You,” Karr said as he looked into Cade’s eyes, “have gone mad. We’re never going to get away from this life. I’ve known it since the day Jeb plucked us out of the system. And if we’d been truly convicted by the ITC?” He dropped the wrench on the ground, wincing at the clatter. “We’d both be spending the rest of our lives behind bars. And he’dstillbe free.”
The truth hung between them.
Bare naked and ugly.
Cade sighed. “We’ve had a change in employment.”
Karr’s neck cricked from whirling it so fast.
The brothers were prisoners to the black market; prisoners to Jeb and the illegal empire he’d built, selling drugs and smuggling goods to wealthy collectors galaxy-wide. They’d never be free of this life until they simply took a stand. But even then, Jeb would find a way to get back at them.
Cade removed something from his jacket pocket and held it out. At first glance, it was simply a dull hunk of jagged black rock. “Thisis our freedom. And it’s not going to Jeb.”
“You’re going to double-cross him,” Karr realized. “You wantusto double-cross him. “Withwho?”
“Friedrich Geisinger.”
