“That was then. This is now.”Right, baby?
Tess glanced at her arm, clearly looking at the ignition numbers. Ice-cold panic pierced my chest.
“She’s about to take off. Fuck,” Solan muttered. “Never trust a rebel.”
My pulse went haywire. “Just give her a minute. Then you can get the hell out of here and help Maya.”
Tess bent down. I lost sight of her below the clear panel and stopped breathing. Was she setting coordinates?
She straightened, and I braced for the engine to fire up. For my heart to shatter. For my life to be over. The highest-earning bounty hunter in the galaxy brought in for the biggest bounty ever offered. The irony was almost poetic.
Tess stood and moved toward the back of the cruiser. Relief hit me like an asteroid. She wasn’t leaving.
I breathed again. I breathed until I didn’t feel broken.
“Huh.” Solan grunted in surprise. Then his brow furrowed. “She wouldn’t do something bad? Something to hurt Maya?”
“You mean something scheming, untrustworthy, and unprincipled?” My blistering tone hopefully scathed both of them to the bone.
“You’re no better than we are,” Raquel snapped.
Solan was smart enough not to agree with that.
Tess’s tall form flitted across the open central area of the cruiser and then disappeared again. “The woman in there is the most compassionate person you’ll ever meet. She would never hurt a child, and she’s going to save yours.”
“How?” Raquel asked.
“How doesn’t matter.” I hit her with a rock-hard stare. “Just don’t ever forget what she’s doing for you.”
“She’s doing it for you, not us.” Solan slanted me a curious look. “So why were you so worried?”
Worried? I was fucking terrified.My back stiffened. “I wasn’t.”
“Sure you were.” Raquel—helpful, as always.
Solan offered up his thoughts when I didn’t answer. “You need her more than she needs you. It’s obvious.”
“What are you talking about?” I balled my hands into fists behind me. For the last year and a half, all I’d wanted was for these two to leave me alone, but they kept showing up, uninvited. Tracking me. Calling me with offers to work together. Messing up my hunts. Ambushing me and stealing my targets. To top it all off, now they were giving opinions about my love life? My jaw flexed.
“You dumped everything for her.” Solan’s dark eyes were a little too perceptive and penetrating. “Why? Her bounty was your docks back. The prize money would’ve finished off the sum you needed, and Scarabin White would’ve been obligated to take your offer. She was your life back—everything you’d been working towardforever.”
Did he think I hadn’t agonized over the decision? That it hadn’t been hell? My own personal nightmare?
“Because he’s stupid,” Raquel said in disgust.
I clamped down on the burning urge to crank my forehead into the Wicked Witch of the Galaxy’s nose. “You just know, don’t you? You meet someone, and that’s it. There’s life before them, and there’s life after.” I shrugged as best I could with my hands cinched behind my back. Tess once told me it was do or die. She’d been talking about other stuff, missions probably, but her words had hit home. I’d understood the consequences. “I made a choice. I chose her. I don’t regret it.”
Raquel heaved a sigh that made me wonder if a small part of her actually did care about my well-being. “You screwed yourself out of everything.”
I disagreed entirely. “I got what I wanted most.”
That shut them both up.Finally.
Tess appeared again at the front of the cruiser, her dark hair swinging as she moved around the confined space and wiggled into her cropped leather jacket. It would cover any bruises or needle marks but would also leave her suffocated and sweating.
“Didn’t you guys know?” I asked, watching Tess through the window. She gathered what she needed and turned to the door. “When you met. Love at first sight or something?”
Raquel’s snort was telling.
