Page 28 of Caught By Menace

“Well, they do the bidding of the central government and they don’t officially exist so—”

He shook his head and interrupted her. “No, I meantwhywere you held?”

“Oh.” She figured a watered-down version of the truth was in her best interest. She didn’t know Menace well enough to really and truly trust him with all the sordid details of her life. He said the past was in the past, right? “I was suspected of smuggling.”

“Smuggling?” He laughed. “You?”

Naya bristled at his insinuation that she was some stupid, helpless little thing. “You don’t know me, Menace. You don’t what I’m capable of or what I did to survive.”

His eyes narrowed. “So it was true?”

“Of course it was true. I was helping smuggle people off the planet and moving medicine and other contraband around Connor’s Run and the nearby towns from the age of ten.”

His jaw dropped. “Ten?”

“I had to eat. My parents were gone. My brother was totally useless. It was the only way I could make money to keep us alive. I was quick. I was smart. It was good work for me.”

“Good work?” He spluttered and sat forward, slamming the orange down on the table. “You were engaging in criminal activities, Naya.”

“Yeah, Menace, I know. I was there, remember?”

“You’re lucky you were a child when you were doing these things.”

“Why? Because you’d turn me in for being a criminal?”

He looked aghast at the very thought. “I would never—”

She put up her hand. “Spare me. I’ve heard that line before and both times it ended with me getting royally fucked over by someone.”

That time he didn’t correct her blue language. Voice laced with irritation, he declared, “You should never have been put in that situation. Someone should have been looking out for you.”

She scoffed. “And who would that be? My dead father? My loser brother?”

“What about your mother?”

She stiffened. “What about her?”

“Where was she during all of this?”

“Far away from me,” Naya said and rose from her chair. She gathered together their dirty dishes. “I was six when she left with a sky trader from Jesco.”

“She left you behind?”

Naya blinked rapidly to force away the tears threatening to spill. “I should have wised up then and realized she was just going to be the first.”

“Your brother?”

She took his empty glass. “He hopped a transport ship to the colonies six years ago.”

“But you would have been just a teenager then,” he said in obvious confusion.

She felt his stare boring into her back as she carried the armload of dishes into the kitchen. “What can I say, Menace? I guess I’m just not the kind of girl people want to fight for.”

“Put the dishes down right now and come here.”

His angry tone shocked her. She complied instantly and slid the dirty dishes onto the closest countertop. When she spun to face Menace, he’d risen from his chair. The stony expression on his face struck fear in her chest. Swallowing hard, she made her way back to him.

Menace snatched her by the waist and dragged her close. He reached back and turned his chair around before sitting. He hauled her onto his lap and forced her to straddle his thighs. Those skilled fingers that had shown her so much pleasure cupped the back of her head and tangled in her hair. The pain in his pale eyes stunned her. “Naya,” he said with force, “you are worth fighting for.”

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