“My brother knows I’m in this building, but it’ll take him a few days before he realizes that he sent IAF to the wrong apartment. Or maybe he’ll never realize his mistake. I don’t know if we’ll be that lucky, but either way, I know now exactly how closely I’m being watched. And that this building is also being watched.”

I didn’t like that. Not at all. “We should leave. Right now.”

“No. I can’t risk moving you. You’re the pawn my brother needs to draw the Aunare into a war.”

It wasn’t safe to stay, and it wasn’t safe to leave. I wasn’t sure what that left us with. “So what are we going to do? We can’t just wait for him to find us. We have to leave.”

“That’s exactly what he wants. You run now, and he’ll know. AI will be searching for anything out of the ordinary on their surveillance cameras. Any coming and going that’s not routine will stand out, and you can’t afford to stand out. Especially not now. The spaceport gala is in three days, and this city is going to be a madhouse with over five thousand SpaceTech officials already arriving from all over the galaxy. After that, everyone will leave, including my brother. I’ll make sure of that. Once he’s gone, it’ll be much easier to sneak you out of here. He’ll be in cryo for his trip back to VegaFive, and the STPF here is lazy. They’ll have been working nonstop for days, and won’t care anymore. They’ll be ready for a break. Without him on their asses, they’ll drop their search.”

“So four days?” Mom asked.

“Hopefully four. Five max. I’ll be keeping an eye on both of you, but I won’t make contact. Not unless I have to. I just can’t mess this up. There’s too much at risk.”

Mom put her arm around my shoulders. “We’ll wait a little longer. A few days won’t matter to us.”

“Thank you for being understanding. Keep doing your normal routine until I come back. Go to work. See friends. Whatever it is you normally do, do that. Don’t deviate too much, because AI will be looking for irregularities in traffic.” He moved away from the door, stepping closer to me. “I wish things were different but… Just be ready. Because when I come back, it’ll be time for us to run.” He took another step closer. “I won’t leave you a second longer than I have to.”

“Okay.” After everything Declan had told me, I trusted him. Maybe more than I should. So, when he said we’d leave as soon as we could, I believed him. “We’ll be here.”