Page 73 of Auctioned to the Convicts
“It’s not like I have a choice. They don’t have much of a life here to begin with. They’d have even less without the credits to buy what little extras they can. Or worse, die from an inability to pay. You know what Dresden thinks of them. I think he worries more about the loss of mice from Sersie’s lab.”
“The mice cost more.”
Ren slung the bag of food he picked up from the commissary over his shoulder. He didn’t want to talk about Dresden. The manager was worse than some of the Level 5s on Narkos.
“How long can you keep floating inventory, hoping Osta won’t catch on?”
“Been doing it for six years now. Osta’s a pain in the neck, but he’s not the brightest.”
“You only have two years left, Vaughn.”
“Yeah, right.”
Vaughn was right not to believe him. Especially after all the years Dresden had tacked onto Ren’s term. Ren wanted to give Vaughn some hope, and he suspected this sudden desire to help Vaughn was Hannah’s doing. Fucking unit. . . She believed in making them a family and damn her, but he could finally see some of the benefits of having another to talk to. He understood Vaughn better after just three weeks of living in the same house with the man compared to the eight years they’d known each other as solitaries.
“You have Hannah now. Maybe you should reprioritize.”
“I don’t trust myself with her.”
Ren stopped. “You’d hurt her?”
“Not intentionally. Not physically. I mean. Hell, Ren, I can’t talk about this.”
An explosion sounded in the distance. “What the fuck was—” A second explosion tore through the jungle.
They both ran, neither speaking the obvious. Their house lay in the direction of those explosions.
They heard the shouts and curses before they broke through the dense jungle growth to the sight of Ky’Li ramming into a miner Ren didn’t recognize. The force sent the man crashing into a tree. The miner bounced back swinging, clipping Ky’Li in the jaw. Fists went flying.
Vaughn grabbed Ren’s shoulder, drawing his attention away from Ky’Li and the miner. The area looked like a bomb, or rather, two had gone off. Two five-foot-wide craters occupied the space where several succla trees had stood. In fact, those trees now lay splintered and scorched, parallel to the electric fence that remained intact.
Vaughn bent over to inspect a pool of blood on the ground, alongside drag marks. Ky’Li slammed into a tree and went down hard. He lay on the ground, sprawled out and not moving. The intruder charged at Ren and Vaughn. Ren grabbed Vaughn by the back of his shirt and slammed his palm against the lock.
As Ren and Vaughn made it inside, Ky’Li blindsided the miner and threw him against a tree. The miner grabbed what looked like a rail from a crude wooden ladder and swung at Ky’Li who jumped back, narrowly missing getting hit in the head.
A moan drew Ren’s attention. “There,” he pointed to legs poking out from the crawlspace beneath the house. He and Vaughn pulled a bloody Sersie out.
“Find Hannah,” Vaughn ordered as he started checking Sersie’s injuries.
Ren raced inside, slamming the door open. He didn’t see or hear her. Panic surged through Ren as he searched the house for her. He threw open every door and searched every room. She wasn’t there. They’d taken her!
As Ren raced outside, Ky’Li palmed the security lock to enter. Besides his heavy breathing, Ky’Li didn’t appear to be injured. The gate opened for him. His eyes assessed the area, focusing on Sersie and Vaughn for a brief second.
“I’ll secure the area,” he said as he went around back.
It didn’t appear as if the house and perimeter had been breached. Where the fuck was Hannah then? Ren returned inside and began opening cabinets, dumping the contents of every space in which she could have hidden.
“Hannah?” he called. No answer. He took several deep breaths. This was not the time to panic. Suddenly, he remembered one new spot he’d created in the storage room when the others had come to live in his house.
Ren yanked the bottom storage drawer open. Inside, Hannah laid curled up and shaking. He pulled her out of the cramped space.
She screamed as she punched and kicked. The sting of nails gouging his right cheek made him jerk, but he didn’t let go of her as she tried to flee. He hated overpowering her, but he needed to get control of her before she hurt herself or worse ran off and made it outside the gate.
Ren locked his arms around her as he pulled her into his lap on the floor. “Shh,” he said softly, trying to calm her. “You’re safe, Hannah. It’s me. Ren.”
“R-Ren?” her tiny voice squeaked. She stopped flailing.
The terror he felt in her shaking body gutted him. “I won’t hurt you, Princess. Never.”
