“I was with your father in the Naustlic System, about to pick them up, when I got another message. One from Ahiga. It didn’t give much away, except your location. There was no good reason for you to be on Abaddon.” His glow started again, and he gave a long sigh. “I got in my ship—it’s faster than your father’s fleet—with your father following shortly after. I planned to get as close as I could to Abaddon, contact Ahiga, and assess how much force to use when taking you back home. But when I was making my last jump, Declan finally called me. Only it was to tell me that you were there mining on Apollyon and very, very sick. I don’t understand at all what happened, and he won’t tell me.” He leaned forward. “Why were you mining?”

I didn’t want to break Declan’s trust or cause any more problems, but I also didn’t understand the secrecy. I wasn’t sure how to answer Lorne without getting into the whole nasty story. “None of that matters anymore.” It wasn’t a lie. I was alive and safe. Hopefully, soon I’d be far away from SpaceTech.

His lips pressed tightly together as he watched me. After a long moment, he shook his head. “You’re wrong. It matters very much to me.” He tapped the fork. “Will you eat now?”

“Okay.” I took it and stabbed a bite of meat. I still wasn’t sure if it was chicken, but it tasted like it. I moaned at the perfectly spiced, tender bite, and Lorne grinned. This time it was a real one. It transformed his face from handsome to devastating.

“Good?” Lorne asked.

He had to be joking. “This might be the best thing I’ve had in a long time. Like since—”

“Prison?”

I took another bite before speaking. “Thankfully, I wasn’t in prison for long, but the food on Abaddon wasn’t much better.” I wanted to leave it at that, but something about the look in his eyes told me that he wasn’t going to let this go.

I took a few more bites to see if he’d say something else, but he didn’t. Distraction was my only option. “There are a few things you should know before we decide to do anything else.”

“I’m listening.”