The gate queue was fairly light, so the estimated wait time was only twenty minutes. I undocked from the station and moved away from trafficked space so we’d be ready to jump when we got the coordinates.
With Aurora’s von Hasenberg seal, we’d be able to jump in close to Earth. We’d be on the ground in about an hour. I started working on my game face. I had to play this just right or Father would ignore my wishes.
I sent Catarina a message, asking her to meet me in the primary hangar. I also asked her to bring new clothes for me and Ferdinand. I needed information before I made a move, and I needed to look like the daughter of a High House, not a merc.
Ian moved to my side and touched my shoulder. “We need to discuss how to deal with Albrecht,” he said quietly. “Can we talk in your quarters?”
I nodded. “Ferdinand, keep an eye on things, please. I’ll be back in a few.”
“Take the time you need,” he said. “I’ll watch your ship.”
I led Ian next door to my quarters. He smiled at the cyan walls in the sitting room. “It suits you,” he said. I settled on the sofa and patted the spot next to me. He sat, then picked me up and tucked me sideways across his lap with his left arm providing a backrest. I rested my head on his shoulder and took a deep breath of the warm, clean scent of him.
“What will you tell Albrecht?” Ian asked.
“I will tell him we’re together. I’ve done my duty for the House once. I won’t do it again, which will likely derail his plans. Worst case, he’ll disown me.”
“That’s a pretty fucking bad case,” Ian said. “You can’t—”
I shushed him. “I can do whatever I want. But I doubt it will come to that because Father knows how valuable my skills are. If he loses me, he loses my information. I would prefer to stay in the House because I need to keep an eye on Catarina, but I’m willing to give it up if it comes to that. You need to decide where the line is for you.”
Ian thought about it for several long moments. I didn’t rush him, though I dearly wanted to. He needed to decide what he was willing to risk to be with me because the last thing I wanted was for him to be unhappy.
“My job is important, not only to me, but to the rest of the squad,” he said quietly. “As director of security, I have access to information that keeps them safe.”
I fought hard not to tense up but I must not have been entirely successful because he ran a soothing hand down my side.
“That said, I think you could get most if not all of the information I rely on from your own network. If Albrecht bans you from the House, I will go with you.”
“Ian, you don’t have—”
“It’s my choice,” he said firmly. “I choose you. If it comes down to it, we’ll go to APD Zero and annoy the hell out of Loch.”
My smile had to be blinding, but I didn’t care—he chose me. Hope and happiness blazed bright. Father didn’t stand a chance against the two of us.
I pulled Ian’s head down to mine and lost myself in a scorching kiss full of promises.
After we returned to the flight deck, the time both flew and crawled. The three of us got our story straight with what we planned to tell Father. We decided to stick to the basics: Silva took Ferdinand. I had a contact with information who only dealt in person. Ian tracked me down, but then we had to stick together due to timing. We rescued Ferdinand after Silva sold him to MineCorp.
By the time we’d worked out all of the details and all of the things to avoid, Aurora was nearly on the ground. A few minutes later, we touched down in House von Hasenberg’s primary hangar. The message was clear—I wasn’t slinking home defeated, I was returning in a blaze of glory.
The cameras showed Catarina waiting in the wings with a large bag. So were a squad of House soldiers.
“I’ll deal with them,” Ian said quietly. “You change.”
Ferdinand and I met Cat in the cargo bay and she ran to Ferdinand. She didn’t wait for an invitation, she slammed into him and squeezed him tight. “I’m so happy you’re okay!”
“I’m happy to see you, too, Cat,” he said in his computer-generated voice.
She stepped back, shocked. “What happened?”
“Silva,” he said.
Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t question him further. “I brought clothes.”
We changed in the cargo bay. Cat had brought Ferdinand a charcoal suit with a white shirt. She’d brought me a deep sapphire sheath dress and strappy black heels. The dress was one of my mourning dresses, nearly black.
While we were getting dressed, Cat talked. “I’ve been working with Marta Stevens to track down a couple of leads. We didn’t use the rest of the security team because she feared we had a high-level leak, but Marta is good. We did not expect both lines of inquiry to lead to the same person.”
“Who was it?” Ferdinand and I asked at the same time.
“Pierre, Hannah’s husband. He sang like a bird when Marta brought him in for questioning.”
I froze in the middle of twisting my hair up. “What? He’s a bastard, but he’s married to a High House. Why would he risk it?”
“He’s deep in gambling debt, like destroy-his-family’s-House deep. He’s burned through all of the money he got from the marriage and Hannah refuses to give him more. He had to take a loan from one of his mother’s companies to hire Silva. It’s unclear if she knew what the money was for. We’re digging into it.”
I pinned my hair in place, trying to understand his motivation. “What does he get if Ferdinand dies? Who holds his markers?”
“It’s more what Hannah gets. She becomes heir, which puts her—and by extension, him—in charge of the vast resources of House von Hasenberg. House James has quietly been buying his markers through a series of shell companies. They have ties with Rockhurst, but they haven’t declared war, and we haven’t been able to find evidence that they’re working together. Yet.”
“What does House James want?” Ferdinand asked.
“Mineral rights in Antlia.”
I snorted. “Good luck getting that one past Father. I’m sure he was just going to let Pierre sign away the very mineral we’re going to war to claim.”
Ferdinand shook his head. “Mineral rights agreements don’t need Father’s signature. As named heir, I can sign them. Hannah’s husband could sign them and they would be legal if she were the named heir.”
“Really?” I paused. “Wait, if I didn’t know that, how did he?”
“Someone’s feeding him information. Maybe House James, maybe someone else. We haven’t had time to track it down,” Cat said.
I used the handheld cosmetics kit I had to apply light makeup. “Why attack me?” I finally asked.
“He knew you dealt in information and Silva needed cover. That dinner party that Hannah mentioned on the night of the attack? It was in the building across from House Chan. Pierre left a door unlocked for the shooter and sent the message when you appeared. We wouldn’t have known any of that yet except he confessed. He thinks by cooperating and giving up his allies, he’ll be exonerated.”
Cat continued, “When the attack failed, Pierre seemingly panicked and tried to discredit you. That’s ultimately how we found him. That and he was paying one of Ferdinand’s bodyguards to send him Ferdinand’s schedule.”