His fingers skimmed over the controls of his vambrace, acknowledging the request and calling Elec to him. He couldn’t leave Nia on her own when she’d already gained the attention of the enforcers on duty.
Mace spent the next minutes staring at his ward. She kept her eyes closed, her expression content as she upturned her face to the artificial light like someone starved for vitamin D. He should tell her he was leaving, but she looked too peaceful to disturb.
When Elec arrived, Mace stood and gave him a nod. And with one last glance at his ward, he left.
Chapter twenty
Twowarriors,Cache’spersonalguards, flanked the door to her quarters. Mace touched his vambrace, signaling he’d arrived, and her door slid open a second later. He stepped into her personal domain.
The front room of her vast quarters was all business. A circular holotable occupied the center portion, terminals and monitors lining the bulkheads of the oblong space. Cache stared out oval portholes, hands clasped behind her back.
The door slid shut behind him. “You wanted to see me, sir,” he said when she still hadn’t turned around to acknowledge his presence.
“Yes.” Her voice was quiet, so unlike her. He walked around the holotable to stand beside her and stare at the too-familiar view of the minefield.
Cache turned slightly, tipping her head at him, meeting his eyes with her hard emerald ones. “I think we have a problem.”
He cocked his eyebrow at her. She returned her gaze to the view, stars twinkling beyond the mines.
“It started with an error in judgment,” she began. “My error. I own it. I placed a new team in a bad position. That last mission…” She hesitated a moment, then met his eyes again. “It changed you, didn’t it?”
Had it? A near-death experience wasn’t new. He straightened his shoulders. “I don’t think so, sir.”
She squared off with him, the tail of black hair flicking over her shoulder. “For fuck’s sake, Mace, drop the ‘sir.’ We’re having a conversation here.”
“Are we?”
She fisted her hands. If she needed to hit him to get rid of her anger, he’d allow it—not because she was his commanding officer, or even because she was Cache, a friend since they were tyros.
He’d take the hit because he deserved it for everything he’d done to Nia.
She stepped forward, almost toe-to-toe with him. “You took a blasted captive,” she said between clenched teeth.
“Yes.”
“You attacked a fellow officer without any desire to take his post.”
“Did that too,” he admitted, and he would do it again. He felt like he hadn’t fucked up Foley enough, really.
She stepped back, shaking her head. “You know procedures.”
“Then charge me.”
She let out a long breath. “Fuck, you piss me off.”
“I know.”
When he saw the glint her eye, he realized he’d gone too far. He waited for her next jab, wondering if it would be verbal or physical.
“Taking a captive, shoving them with others of their kind, and reaping the benefits is one thing, but using the old laws to imprison her in your quarters?”
Ah.So that was where all of this was coming from. He thought she would have found out before now from all the whispers.
“What the hell is going on, Mace?” she asked, the volume in her tone rising. “Why would you do that?”
He couldn’t tell her the truth. Cache hated the CORE too much, the ruling class especially. She might not ransom Nia if he pleaded with her, but he couldn’t take that chance.
He remained silent.
