Page 88 of Owned By Two

One was already beginning to mumble under his breath and slowly —veryslowly — began to push himself up into a sitting position, each time failing and collapsing back down again.

My heart was in my throat as I saw whowasn’tthere.

Theone personwho was missing…

I spun on Uhti. “Where is she?” I growled.

“They took her,” he said, massaging the palm of his hand from where he had slapped me.

Ordinarily, I might have been pissed that he’d struck me, but this wasn’t the time for petty squabbles.

“They?Who arethey?”

“I don’t know. The pilots on the freighter scanned the ship — it was an M1 Xiac Class-2 Fighter — but it came back with nothing. The ship was decommissioned years ago.”

“Someone took her?” I said. “Who would want her?”

Uhti shrugged. “That’s what we have to find out.”

I suddenly realized who I was talking to and grew suspicious. “What areyoudoing here? You were supposed to be gone.” I squared up to him and jabbed a finger at him. “I betyoudid this!Youwanted her for yourself! Now you’re going to make me go on a wild fzziw chase trying to find her. All so you can be with her! Well, it won’t work!”

“What are you talking about?” Uhti said. “Listen to yourself! I was on the shuttle heading away when I saw another ship Beam you. I didn’t know what they were doing so I rushed over to find out. I thought something might happen to Lizzy… and I was right! If I wanted to be with her, I would have had someone kidnapyounot her!”

He got up in my face, his nostrils flaring, losing the cool that I had thought of as his signature.

He’d always come across as calculating and methodical.

But now I saw the red-hot rage that had infiltrated my system reflected back at me.

And I knew then he was telling the truth.

He was as pissed as I was that someone had dared to take Lizzy away.

This time, it wasmethat raised my hands and calmed the situation. “All right, fine. But we need to stay calm. If we turn on each other, we’ll never find Lizzy.”

The anger was slow to leave Uhti’s face, but it did…

Gradually.

Then he said, “We need to figure out who took her. And who that ship belongs to.”

“You just said you ran a scan and it came back empty.”

He nodded. “Yes. But there are other lists for decommissioned ships like this.”

I frowned at him. “Where?”

Uhti rolled his eyes. “This ship didn’t get decommissioned and then magically appear in someone else’s stock. Someone took possession of it and sold it to a third party. There’s a middleman. If I learned anything from James, it is that there isalwaysa middleman.”

“Who?” I said.

“The black market. Nothing goes illegally from one owner to another without it passing through their system. If anyone knows who that ship belongs to, it’s them.”

I shook my head. “What good does that do us? I don’t know anyone involved with the black market! Do you?”

I fully expected him to deny it, but he met my eye directly.

“You don’t do huge business deals like James was capable of without sometimes getting a little… outside help,” he said.

---