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Rann shook his head. The combination of Layla and Jex was enough to fry anyone’s brain. The cyborg could handle armed resistance and medical emergencies; he would have to manage Layla’s enthusiasm for himself.

Another crash sounded from deeper in the ship. Rann turned toward it, shoulders tightening beneath his combat gear. B had gone that way. With an unknown number of guards between them and far too much time already lost…

Following the sounds, Rann set off down the corridor to find his female.

I loved him. And you fucking killed him.

The words rolled around in Blythe’s head as she looked at Joe. Her finger rested against the trigger, the gun steady in her hand. James had sold her to cover a debt, and somehow that made her Joe’s to sell on. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

He’d killed Rann.

Joe’s mouth moved, but she couldn’t be bothered to work out what he was saying. There was nothing… absolutely nothing he could say that would make her lower the gun.

He’d killed the man she loved and now she was going to kill him.

Then that thought slammed into her with the force of a thousand shuttles.

She loved Rann.

Well. Fuck.

Her chest tightened so hard she almost bent around it. She couldn’t love him. They’d known each other for days. Days, for Christ’s sake, and he’d spent a good portion of those lying to her. She didn’t know who he really was and where he came from. Didn’t know who’d put those scars on him, or how much of what he’d told her was actually true.

She knew better than this.

Except she knew how carefully those big hands could touch her. Knew the sound of his voice when things went wrong. Knew he’d followed her out onto the hull and risked his own life to save hers when things had gone sideways.

And that grin. Oh my god, that grin… she’d wanted to wipe it off his face the first time she’d seen it. But now she’d have given anything to see it every damn morning for the rest of her life.

But she wouldn’t. Because he was dead. Because Joe had killed him.

She loved him, and she’d figured it out too late.

Her eyes burned and she blinked hard, refusing to let the tears blur Joe into something she couldn’t aim at. Narrowing her eyes, she lifted the gun.

“Contrary to popular belief, I’m actually really hard to kill,” a familiar voice said from behind her.

The breath caught in her throat and she tried to whirl around and keep the gun trained on Joe at the same time.

Rann leaned in the doorway.

For a second she couldn’t make the sight fit inside her head. That impossibly charming grin and those broad shoulders filling the opening. He was alive. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.

He wore a different EVA suit, one that actually fit him. Dark and close-fitting, it was armored and made him look way more dangerous than he ever had in those ridiculous coveralls. And the gun in his hands…

Holy shit. That wasn’t a charter pilot’s weapon.

His eyes were steady on her. Blue and green, and warm in a way that made her knees start to shake.

Flicking a glance at Joe, he arched an eyebrow. “You done with that, or are you keeping it as a security blanket?”

A ragged laugh escaped her, tears running down her cheeks that she couldn’t stop. “I thought you were dead. I thought he’d killed you.”

He winked. “As I said, kinda hard to kill. And more dangerous assholes than this have been trying to for years.”

Pushing away from the doorway, he strode toward her.

Other people crowded in behind him. Big people, armed, their weapons shifting toward Joe as they spread through the room. Stevie moved at the edge of her vision, but Blythe barely registered any of it.