CHAPTER 32

Adara

‘B efore you start, just tell me one thing,’ I interrupted her right as she opened her mouth to speak.

‘What?’

‘Is he a threat to the people on this ship?’

The expression on her face did not provide any reassurance.‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly, though I could tell it hurt her to do so. ‘It’s possible.’ The connotations of that answer could very well hinder her mission if I told Xander. What she didn’t realise was that Xan had been blind to all of Markus’s faults for an exceptionally long time, and he wasn’t about to believe me now unless I could provide tangible evidence. He believed Markus his best friend (besides me, of course) and could never figure out why I hated him so much.

So far I had tolerated Markus’ presence. It was either that or lose my best friend over it. Our friendship had been so fragile at the beginning due to my asexuality and his ignorance on the matter, but his bond with Markus had been solid from the start. It was going to be a fight and a half to turn his head and get him to see the man for who he truly was.

But it was a battle that now had hope. Eventually, Artemis would allow me to tell him everything, or at the very least enough to keep him in the loop without revealing the more delicate details even I hadn’t been made privy to yet.

‘I’m not going to say anything unless there is no other way, Arty. I’ll keep telling you until you believe me, but there really isn’t anything I can say right now that people would believe, anyway. You can be open with me,’ I assured her.

She took a steadying breath and then launched into the events of her evening. The more she talked the more I understood that I didn’t understand anything. Who was he working for? Why did they need to recruit from the military?

So many questions, so little answers.

‘So, now you just have to wait for further instructions?’ I needed to clarify.

‘Exactly. There’s nothing more I can do regarding my personal mission, but there is something I wanted to talk to you about regarding the assailant,’ she said, piquing my interest. This was something that had been bothering me since it began. I’d heard some of the women on the crew of The Carina mention a particular man that had been harassing them, but that gossip had died down. Right up until poor Katira and now Ari had been brutalised.

It was possible they were separate perpetrators, but my instincts screamed that they were one in the same. And we still hadn’t gotten any closer to discovering his identity.

‘I’m listening.’

‘The whole situation is becoming a nuisance to my investigation. I have even less freedom than I’d originally planned for because we’re stuck up here under constant watch. I need to get rid of the problem.’

I frowned. ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means I’m going to find the fucker so we can all move on from this mess. I need to focus my whole attention on getting back to Libby, and I can’t do that with him still on the loose. But I’ll need your help.’

I was so down for this. ‘A secret manhunt? Fuck, yeah! Count me in, Arty.’

She grinned at that, her fist bumping against my shoulder. ‘The things you’re into are so weird.’

‘Oh, I know,’ I giggled. ‘But this is gonna be awesome . We’re so bonding over this.’

She shook her head at me, then left me standing alone in the kitchen cackling to myself as I thought of all the fun things I’ve always wanted to do and how I could implement them into this new directive.

She opened the door to allow the men back inside, and their heads bounced between the two of us as they tried to figure out what had gone down. Instead, I let them stew in their ignorance, taking a surprising amount of pleasure from knowing something they didn’t. I still wanted to tell Xander everything because I never liked to keep things from him, but I even got a sick sense of satisfaction from keeping him in the dark.

He’d done it enough to me over the years, I considered this my payback.

‘Did you break her?’ he asked Artemis, though it was amusement and befuddlement coating his tone rather than an accusation.

Arty simply lifted a shoulder, her own mirth shining through. ‘Isn’t she always like this?’

Xander snorted a laugh. ‘You’re not wrong.’

‘Guess we were worried about nothing, huh?’ asked Reece, and Henrik grunted his agreement as he made his way towards the second bedroom, doing his best to ignore the rest of us.

‘I should head back to the other suite,’ Artemis said, and I ran over to give her a quick hug goodnight. Xander, seeing my giddiness after our conversation, shocked me by patting Arty on the back in his own, ‘manly’ version of a goodnight. It felt like a momentous moment, like he’d finally accepted him and given him his seal of approval.

Or, rather, smack of approval. The sound echoed throughout the room. The hit was harder than I considered polite. It must have been one of those ridiculous masculine social tests, like take my physical abuse without complaint and I’ll consider you worthy , or something to that extent. But Artemis didn’t even budge, let alone flinch. She simply walked away leaving the rest of us gaping at the closed door she’d just exited.

‘What…?’

‘Punching bag,’ Reece said, and while his meaning went right over my head, Xander seemed to comprehend the connection.

‘I need to examine that damn punching bag,’ he said, then stalked to the main bedroom while shaking his head in disbelief. I remembered him telling me about Arty destroying one the other day, but there was something here that wasn’t making any sense to me.

‘I’m missing something,’ I stated, waiting for Reece, the only one left in the room, to elaborate.

He didn’t. Instead, he waved goodnight and escaped into his room for the night. And I was left alone.

I followed Xander into the bedroom and stripped down. We had seen each other’s naked bodies enough times over the years, even more so in recent weeks, that it didn’t faze either one of us. What did seem to faze him, however, was when I wore one of his oversized shirts to bed. That did something to his teeny male brain that I couldn’t begin to understand, but I kept wearing them because they were comfortable and smelled like him. He would just have to deal.

When we climbed into bed, I immediately drifted to his side as he pulled me close and we wrapped our arms around one another. He was hard, and when I brushed against his length with my leg as I threw it over his body he jerked his hips away with a hiss.

‘Sorry, did I hurt you?’ I asked, concerned with his reaction. I usually ignored his erections because I knew he couldn’t control it, but I did try to avoid touching it. More so for his sake than mine. I was indifferent, but that didn’t mean he had to be, too.

‘No, but my balls will definitely be blue tonight,’ he tried to tease through a strained voice.

I sighed. ‘I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that you can go out and find someone to fuck. I really don’t mind. You need the release and I… I can’t give you that.’

He kissed the top of my head, burying his nose in my hair and inhaling deeply. ‘Don’t worry about me, my love. My hand does the trick just fine.’

‘If you say so…’

He chuckled. ‘If I really need to find a warm body, I’ll let you know. I promise I’m not torturing myself. I just enjoy having you in my bed.’

I smiled against his chest. ‘Okay.’

He snuggled me in closer and I rubbed my cheek against his bare chest, loving the feel of the hair there tickling the sensitive skin on my face. ‘Goodnight, baby. I love you.’

‘Love you, too.’

???

I was itching and eager to talk to Artemis because last night’s discussion did not end with a plan in place. Instead, we’d both gone to bed ready to hunt a rapist but no set starting point. I had already been combing through the ship’s security footage on my holo-tab at Alex’s behest, but so far there was nothing. Beyond the footage from the first attack, if I hadn’t seen the state the bastard had left Ari in too then I never would have known something had gone down.

The footage was a blank slate. Cadets and officers came and went, there was nothing unusual to be found, and I was not only at a loss but a complete standstill. But with Artemis on the case as well, maybe she’d see something I’d missed. It was doubtful. I was the most observant person on The Carina, and I absorbed everything I witnessed like a sponge. If I’d missed something, it would have been practically impossible for anyone else to pick up on it.

No, there was another explanation. Someone had tampered with the footage. Before or after the crime was committed, I couldn’t tell, but it was somewhere to start with Artemis. Unless she had more information to help us. I needed to bring it up with her.

I was excited about Arty taking charge in the investigation by conducting her own, and I was desperate to tell Xander. I didn’t, though. Somehow I managed to hold my tongue, the looming cloud of disaster if he ever found out about the secrets I was keeping holding my tongue. He would go into a real tizzy when he discovered Arty wasn’t who she claimed to be. His first instinct would be to assume she was an enemy spy, probably sent by The Program.

Honestly, the list of secret illegal organisations was growing by the day, and I was starting to get concerned we would never stamp them all out before another one popped up. We were in for a rough few solars at this rate.

It hadn’t escaped my calculations that if we didn’t shut them down soon, we would be heading for an intergalactic war. There was no way our neighbouring unions wouldn’t retaliate if they ever discovered what was going on right beneath our noses. We were safe for the time being until then, but if we didn’t eliminate the threats soon we would find ourselves with enemies on every side. It would be an all-out massacre of the entire Intergalactic Union.

Xander understood this, which was why he was fighting so hard to be heard. The only reason I could think of that they sidelined him and assigned a new captain the mission was because one or more of the higher-ranking government officials were in on it and were covering their asses. Which meant I could only conclude that our politicians were even more corrupt than people assumed, or they were aware of another threat that boosted The Programs illegal experiments into a more useful category in which we were turning a blind eye for our own benefit.

Neither option was appealing .

Unable to catch Artemis alone before the cadets needed to report to combat training, I ended up bumping into Jorna on my way down. We used to be semi-friends before she lost her team and earned the promotion to first lieutenant, her friendship with Alex forcing us together more often than not. It wasn’t as if I didn’t like her, but she always seemed more interested in other people than me. I wondered how she was faring these days. I was aware of her budding relationship with Markus ( gag) , but I didn’t know their dynamics.

Was it just sex? Did she love him? Why Markus?

‘Hey,’ I grabbed her attention. Her eyes had grazed over me as if she hadn’t seen me, but they snapped back when I spoke. They were dull and empty, and I fought back the urge to flinch under their scrutiny. It was as if she had lost any internal light right alongside her team, and it gave the impression of soullessness.

It was creepy.

‘Adara,’ she greeted. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m good. How are you? I heard you and Markus got together.’

The light that had previously been absent suddenly flickered in her gaze. It was faint, but definitely there. A shy smile tilted up the corners of her lips. For as long as I’d known her she had jumped from one bed to another, never willing to settle down. She had gone celibate as far as I was aware after the incident, but the idea that she was healing and finally coming out of her shell filled me with hope. Not so much for me, but because she and Xander had once been close. At one point they had been frequent bed-buddies, and I’d thought they would end up together one day.

I was glad that hadn’t come to pass, but I knew he cared about her and wanted her to get better.

‘Yeah, he’s been pretty amazing,’ she said, her voice tinged with a hint of girlish delight.

‘That’s good,’ I said, unable to provide a better response. I didn’t want her anywhere near Markus, especially with the new information I had about him. He might have been bringing her out of her funk, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to completely destroy her again. That was the only direction I could see this heading.

But I couldn’t warn her. Not without proof, and not without shoving Artemis directly into the line of fire.

When we parted ways, I felt nothing but a sense of guilt and unease over the situation. Markus had successfully embedded himself into the lives of so many good people, and none of them could see him for the monster he truly was...

Wait.

He was the only monster I knew was on board The Carina. And he had a connection to both the assault victims… Surely not. Surely the culprit wasn’t under my nose this entire time.

But it made sense. Before he became a part of The Carina’s crew he was the personal chef for the Christiansons at their private residence. He had travelled with them wherever they went and was a member of their full-time staff. He lived with them for almost five solars.

Katira Christianson was the first victim, followed by her roommate who happened to be her best friend? And come to think of it, the talk of harassment amongst the female crew members only started around the time Xander took him on as the ship’s head chef…

Holy shit.

I knew who the unsub was.. .