Jax gave his mother a wary look. “Are you sure?”

“Solani do not cower” was his mother’s reply, to which Jax held his hands up in surrender.

Cullen and Redbeard, their heads bent together, nodded in agreement before Redbeard said, “We’ll keep flying interferrence for those eyesore dreadnoughts. Give you some time to find the heart.”

“I can outfit weapons for anyone who needs them,” a shop owner added.

“I can lend a few ships.”

“Some men,” the Red Dawn leader added, nodding seriously toward Talle.

Not a single one of them again brought up Di or any grudges against him. Voices chimed in from across the video feeds, offering food and shelter and warm beds and help. They were the voices of a resistance. He glanced to the head of the table, where Siege sat quietly, a hand propping her head up, her fingers masking the edges of a grin curling across her lips. Her hair flickered blue at the scalp, trailing to bright golden ends. As if she had expected no less. Her eyes lifted to his, and then to the door at the far end of the meeting space.

The doors kicked open.

“These are all very fine ideas—or,” drawled a distinctly Erosian voice above the idle chatter, “we could just go get the heart.”

Di knew that voice, but Jax was the first to turn to their uninvited guest.

Robb

The hardest part of walking into this meeting wasn’t kidnapping his brother and hauling him to the ass end of nowhere, or seeing all the debts Siege had called in and realizing that this was either the beginning of the end or the beginning of something new. No, the hardest part was was facing Jax. Well, that and getting past Lenda, who stood quite helpless in the doorway behind him.

“I tried,” Lenda told Siege, who waved her hand, and Lenda closed the doors behind him again.

He didn’t know whether he could—should—look at Jax. He didn’t know the correct protocol. Should he bow? Curtsy? All he seemed to be doing was standing there after his bravado had faded, at a loss for what to say.

If anything was right enough to say.

Jax looked so achingly elegant, while he had flounced in here in a dirty travel cloak that still smelled like sweat and snow, his hair in wild curls. He opened his mouth to say something—anything—

“Hello, friends,” his brother greeted them instead in his smooth, oily drawl. He tried to shift away from Robb, but he held firm to the cords. “I see you started the party without us.”

Jax pushed himself to his feet, his violet-eyed gaze looking from Robb to his brother and back again. Erik really did look the worse for wear. The black eye Robb had given him was purple and swollen, and his black evening coat was crumpled and disheveled, ascot untied.

But instead of asking about the state of Erik Valerio, Jax asked, “How do you know where the heart is?”