There was a group of men and women behind him who watched with an apathy that was sickening.
The man kicked his father over and held him in place with one foot planted solidly against his father’s bleeding chest. He angled the blaster at his heart. “You’re a crafty bastard. I’ll give you that. Spent six years of my life trying to find you. Now tell me what you did with our package.”
“I don’t know. It got away from me… It-it vanished. I didn’t get the money for it. Someone else took it. I swear to you. Please… I have little girls who—”
The man killed him.
Caillen clapped his hand over his mouth to keep from screaming out as pain racked him.
His father was dead.
Dead.
Just like his mother.
Tears fell down his face as he wished he was big enough to go out there and kill the ones who’d taken his father from him. But he knew he couldn’t fight them. He was just a kid. And if he tried, his sisters would be alone without a man to watch over them.
“Protect my girls for me…”
He’d promised his dad and he wasn’t about to let him down.
“That was stupid.” A woman moved forward to glare at the man as he holstered his weapon and wiped the blood on his shoes against his father’s pants. The others withdrew, leaving just the two of them to spit on his father’s remains. “You should have made sure he wasn’t lying before you killed him.”
“I doubt he has the money. You saw his ship. He doesn’t live like someone who stole ten million credits.”
She sighed. “That wasn’t the most important part of this and you know it. If—”
“Even if the package escaped him, it won’t last long on the street. Trust me. We eat our young out here. I doubt it’s even around now. Garbage always burns.”
A clap of thunder sounded an instant before the rain that had been threatening to fall all day poured down over them. The man and woman ran off toward the street to seek shelter.
Caillen didn’t move. Not for a long time as he sat there, staring at his father’s lifeless body while the rain pelted it and made the ground run red from his blood.
What were he and his sisters going to do now? They were just kids…
He tightened his grip on the wallet. I will do what Dad said. Even though he didn’t understand the reasons behind his orders. It was to protect his sisters. That was good enough for him. He just hoped Shahara never found out that he’d used money to bribe a doctor ’cause she’d be really mad at the waste when they had so little.
He sniffed back his tears. I’m the man of the house. There was no one else…
“I’ll keep them safe, Daddy.”
His only question though was who would watch after him?
1
Twenty-two Years Later
“Thank the gods you’re here. I’ve been running arou—”
Without flinching or breaking his stride as he walked down a filthy, dark alley, Caillen jerked his blaster out and fired straight into his sister’s shoulder, cutting her words off before she wasted his time.
Not to kill her or hurt her. Just to shut her up before she made things worse for both of them.
Right now, he didn’t have time to listen to her bullshit. He was here to save her life.
And hopefully his too.
Gasping, she crumpled toward the trash-laden street. In one smooth move that caused his light-armored brown coat to flare out around his feet, he caught her against him and lifted her into his arms. He groaned under her weight. “Damn, Kase, quit working out so much and lay off the frigs. I’ve carried men who weighed less.” Not that he made a habit out of carrying men, but still…
Even though she was six inches shorter, she outweighed him by a good twenty pounds and he carried less than two percent body fat on a lean six-foot-four frame. His muscles screamed out in protest of his heroics as he heard the Enforcers moving in.
This was getting bad.
He glared down at her unconscious body while her brown hair spilled over his sleeve. Her plain features were so peaceful in spite of the hell she’d unleashed that it really made him want to hurt her.
But he couldn’t do that.
Blood was blood.
Sighing, he moved fast to stash her behind a Dumpster and to cover her with his coat. On top of that, he added enough trash to keep the Enforcers from seeing her. Yeah, she’d bitch-slap him later for the stench… and the headache his stun blast would leave her with but it would keep her safe and right now that was all that mattered to him.
Well, there was the urge he had to wring her neck until she turned blue—that mattered to him too, but that could wait.
A beep from his wrist alerted him that his hacked paperwork for her ship and cargo had gone through. Kasen’s IDs were removed from everything and his were registered in her place.
I’m a fucking idiot. By doing all of this, he’d just put his neck in a noose and he knew it.