Page 91 of Owned By Two

“That was when you wereworkingtogether. Unless you didn’t notice, this is not a working relationship we’re asking for. We’re asking for a favor.”

He shook his head. “We’re asking for a service. It’s very different.”

I realized then that, although Uhti might have had contact with criminals, he sure didn’t have the sense on how to deal with them.

It must have been Lizzy’s father who had issued orders on how to handle the criminals and it was merely Uhti’s responsibility to act as the intermediary between them.

And that meant—

“Wait,” I said. “Have you ever actually met him in person before?”

“No.”

“So why are we meeting him in person now?” I said. “Why take all this risk?”

Uhti tapped on his pocket where the tablet was concealed. “Because I didn’t want to upload this onto any database where anyone could see it.”

I let out a sigh and realized I was going to have to learn to live with Uhti’s trusting nature.

Iwas going to have to be the adult in the room and that was never a good thing.

“How about weapons?” I said.

“Oh, they’ll have plenty of them for sure,” he said.

“And us?”

He just looked at me flatly.

Of course we won’t be allowed to take any weapons.

“So, we’re going into a criminal’s den where he and his men are armed to the teeth while we saunter in there with nothing but our wits to protect us?”

Uhti grinned. “Pretty much.”

If wits were going to be our defense, I realized with dawning horror that we were going to have to rely on mine as Uhti clearly had no idea about the danger we were about to walk into.

“Let’s go,” he said.

We climbed from the shuttle and walked across a small well-appointed park with alien kids playing.

No matter where in the galaxy you went, which species you interacted with, the kid's play areas were almost identical in appearance.

I supposed a child’s need to play and interact with other kids was a universal concept.

Their screams of joy made my stomach churn, completely at odds with where we were and the danger we were about to undergo.

We approached a small set of stairs that led into a basement-level apartment.

I remained at the top of the steps keeping lookout as I didn’t want anyone to get the drop on us from above.

Although, unarmed as I was, I really didn’t know why I bothered.

Uhti knocked on the door and it was immediately answered.

Uhti spoke in a hushed whisper and I couldn’t identify the words he said.

There was a pause and then the door shunted open.

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