“I’m looking, but I’m not seeing anything. Either they haven’t reported it, or the Valovian police force is better at keeping secrets than the FHP. And based on what I’ve seen before, they’re not.”

“Did you get the authorities involved?” I asked Torran.

There was the tiniest crack in his calm facade, and his glare became even fiercer. “No. This is a family matter.”

“Who assessed the crime scene?” I asked, my limited patience running dangerously thin.

“I did,” he replied.

“And? Did you find any leads?”

“Yes.”

When he didn’t say anything else, my patience snapped. “So you expect me to agree to help you find an unknown item stolen by an unknown thief over a week ago with nothing more than your word that this isn’t just an elaborate plot to lure me and my crew to our deaths in Valovian space?”

He stiffened and his glare turned icy. “I already offered you safe passage and agreed to explain after the contract is signed.”

“So you said.” I blew out a frustrated breath. I didn’t like going into a contract blind, but with half of the money up front, I would make a tidy profit even if the task was as impossible as I feared.

I knew what I had to do, but I still didn’t like it. Working with the enemy felt like betrayal, and bitterness filled me. I tried to think of it as relieving a Valovian general of as much of his money as possible.

It didn’t help.

Before I could change my mind, I spoke. “Double the price and deliver a signed guarantee of safe passage, and I’ll give you four standard weeks of my crew’s best effort. If we haven’t recovered the item or the thief by then, I keep the first half of the payment and we go our separate ways—after you’ve escorted us to safe territory. You and your team will be allowed on my ship, but you must respect my crew and follow my orders. Rifle through anyone’s head without permission and I’ll dump you into space. Do we have a deal?”

Torran’s expression remained frustratingly blank. I would have better luck reading a painting. My patience was shot, but I had stubbornness in spades. I stared him down.

Finally, after an age, he said, “Give me twelve weeks and I’ll give you two-fifty.”

I laughed in his face. A Valovian squad on my ship for three months? No thanks. “Eight weeks, three hundred thousand credits. That’s my final offer. Take it or leave it.”