“Sorry. It was broken when I was taken.”

“Figures.” Darling cleared the assassins, then nodded to Maris.

They started moving again.

Slowly, they made their way down the hall until they met up with Nemesis who was helping a large group of prisoners get to safety.

Zarya’s panic welled up inside her as she remembered what had happened the last time Nemesis had been in a room with her.

He’d tossed her to Jayne.

“Is everyone out?” Darling asked the legendary killer.

Nemesis nodded. “The last group is coming down behind you.”

Zarya gaped in disbelief. Even with the distortion added to disguise his voice, she recognized Nykyrian’s syntax and tone.

Now there was a billion credits worth of knowledge. His was the most guarded identity of any Sentella member.

Now she understood why.

Just as her group joined theirs and she saw some of the people who’d been kidnapped with her, the walls around them flickered.

Kyr’s face flashed, then enlarged to the size of the walls that worked as a transmission monitor.

Talk about creepy. She felt like she’d stumbled into a horror story.

And Kyr was furious over the attack. “Do you know who I am?”

Nykyrian snorted derisively. “We know. We just don’t give a shit.”

Curling his lip, Kyr raked him with a repugnant glare. “You have breached the sanctity of one of our prisons. Have you any idea the sentence you’ve brought down on your heads?”

Now it was Darling’s turn to scoff. “Add it to the other twelve dozen death sentences we carry.”

A tic started in Kyr’s jaw. “I don’t think you truly understand the magnitude of what you’re doing. Return my prisoners to their cells or—”

“Fuck. You,” Darling snarled, punctuating each word.

Kyr’s nostrils flared while he did an amazing job of keeping his temper under control. “Those prisoners do not belong to you. They are League property. You have absolutely no right to them.”

Before anyone realized what he was doing, Darling snatched his helmet off and threw it to the ground so hard, it bounced three feet high.

Kyr held the same shocked expression Zarya was pretty sure they all held. Every gerent and Resistance worker around her was rendered speechless and spellbound by Kere’s real identity.

Fearless, Darling went straight up to the wall on the right and leveled a killing glare at Kyr. “The hell you say. They are my people, not yours. You sent your army into my territory and took not just my citizens, but my consort. How dare you!”

Kyr gave Zarya a look that said she hadn’t bathed in a month or more. “She’s not your consort.”

Darling shook his head in denial. “She wears my ring and was officially bound to me when we were children—something sanctified and approved by your predecessor.”

Zarya gasped at his unexpected disclosure. Was any of that true? She was desperate to know, but didn’t dare interrupt them.

“By all laws,” Darling continued, “she is my consort. And five minutes after I get her home, she will officially be my wife.”