Tommy was agitated. He shifted in his seat, his eyes hard on the screen in front of him. I hadn’t been out of the room that long, so I couldn’t imagine what could have set him off so completely in such a short period of time.

I cleared my throat, but he didn’t turn to look at me. Keith and Clay did, however. It was Clay who finally spoke. “Tommy wants to blow up The Rochambeau.”

“I…” Truthfully, I had no idea what the hell they were talking about. “What’s a Rochambeau?”

My oldest fiancé turned to look at me. “My ship.”

I pointed at the ceiling because it seemed as good a place as anywhere else. “Is that the name of this ship? You want to blow it up?”

“No.” Tommy pounded on the console before he stood. “My ship. My original ship. The first one I ever built. made specifically for me when I led my father’s battalion. When I was General Sandler. That was my ship, and now my cousin is piloting it. I want it gone. My ship is out there leading the fleet of smaller ships. They’re all right there, lined up to start moving to Mars Station on command.”

Sometimes it was better to say nothing at all. Or at least to pause. I had learned this at the Sisterhood. So, I waited. The room was so quiet I could hear every buzz the machines around us made. Finally, he spoke again. “I don’t want to go back to that life. I don’t want to be General Sandler. I don’t want people to run when they see me coming.” He still hadn’t looked at any of us. “I would leave again exactly the same way. I like to think…” His voice trailed off.

The time I touched his arm. I wanted to hear whatever he was going to say. “You like to think…?”

He squeezed my hand without moving any part of his body except his own hand. We were linked when he finally spoke again. Sometimes that was all people needed, the touch of another person to tell them they weren’t alone in the world. “I like to think I wasn’t as damaged as I probably was. I was pretty evil and getting worse.”

“You weren’t.” Keith leaned back in his chair. “You’re remembering yourself wrong.”

“You weren’t on Rochambeau with me. You don’t know what I did. What decisions General Sandler made. Do you suppose there is room for redemption? Somewhere in the universe? Room for I’m sorry?”

I pressed my forehead to his back. Tommy and Quinn. Two sides of the same coin. They’d never see it that way because they railed against fate in two different ways. Still… it was there. “That’s what I was doing at the Sisterhood. I was being redeemed.”

Tommy snorted. “Fuck that. You didn’t do anything you had to be redeemed from. I don’t know, honey. Maybe I want to blow it up because I want to erase it from the universe.”

“Or maybe it’s nothing so dramatic.” Keith spun in his chair. “It’s your ship. You always hated Cousin Holden. He’s an idiot. And he has your favorite toy.” He pointed at the screen. “Kablooey. I’d be all for it. I’m not really concerned with who is good and who is not good. We’re all just people. This place in time is hard. It’s a rough, difficult, no-good-choices-in-existence time. You were a soldier on the wrong side, and none of us knew that. And that’s how it goes. Who is around to judge any of us? I don’t want you to blow it up and neither does Clay because then we’re going to lose our subterfuge. You blow up the biggest ship in their fleet, and they’re going to find us. I can only move us out of phase so far before they see us. Blow them up and they’re going to get a good look.”

Clay laughed. “I say we need to get to Mars Station. Blow up Rochambeau later.” He shrugged. “Or don’t.”

Quinn walked forward and pressed a button on the console. The other three jumped at him, and though I wasn’t sure what was going on, I instinctually I darted backwards out of their way. What was happening?

“Hey?” I called out a second before Quinn successfully pushed whatever button he’d aimed for. Bright light illuminated the viewscreen for a second.

Tommy seemed to collapse a bit, gripping the back of his chair. Keith shook his head but didn’t look away, and Clay stood up straighter.

“Someone want to tell me what’s going on?” I needed a response from one of them.

Quinn shrugged. “Made statistical sense to blow them up. They’d have blown us up. Cousin Holden was an idiot but smart enough to push his own button. Hurry us through, Keith. Don’t give them time to respond. You don’t have to be good or bad, Tommy. I’ll be the worst of all of us, always. That’s my job.”

He scooted around me and out of the room.

“Did he—”

I never got to finish my question; Keith must have known what I wanted to ask. “He blew up the Rochambeau. I’m going to have to move us very fast. Go strap in.”

Tommy still hadn’t looked up. If he didn’t need to buckle himself in, I’d be fine, too. Clay exited without a word. I guessed he was going to go speak to Quinn, but I couldn’t be sure. Right then, it was the oldest brother who held my attention.

“Are you okay?”

He nodded before he made eye contact with me. “My younger brother just blew up our cousin without a second thought. That’s fine. I mean, it isn’t but it is. Everyone else on that ship is dead, too. They’d have killed us. That’s war.” He looked up. “And there’s no room for sentiment in my life. I know that. I just temporarily forgot.”

The ship jerked forward, and Tommy grabbed me, hauling me against him. “I’ll never let you fall, Paloma.”

Hours later I still didn’t know exactly how to make sense of what had happened. Keith had moved us around the explosion before any of other ships noticed. We’d likely get to Mars Station with no more issues as long as we continued to phase out of sight, as Keith described it. I sat in my bed and tried to go over the scene quietly.

Tommy’d had an emotional crisis. Clay had wanted me to talk him out of blowing up his ship. I probably would have. I knew there would be a body count before the end of this mess, if this mess ever ended. But I would have encouraged them to try to find another way. I wasn’t made for war, even if I really didn’t have a choice one way or another.

Quinn had taken the choice from Tommy. He’d walked up and pressed a button and, with his DNA authorizing the command, blown up the ship with his cousin on it. And who was this Cousin Holden? I’d thought that Garrison had banned all family from Sandler space.

Quinn had done it without blinking. His brothers had seen it happening, but they’d been too late, and I hadn’t known he would do it at all. Tommy had hardly shown any emotional reaction. Surely he must have had some kind of strong reaction to his brother usurping his decision-making ability and blowing up The Rochambeau. He’d hardly uttered a word before he’d returned to helping Keith get them through the mess of the explosion.

I rubbed my face. I loved these four guys completely. It even felt like the universe—and hell, even thinking that word made me shudder for memories of the ways the Sisters had used it to justify anything and everything they did—had picked them out for me. The guys were brilliant and very intense. We were still new to each other. I didn’t know how to negotiate my way through all of the ways they interacted yet.

I knew how hard Quinn loved us all. Tommy’s feelings were no less strong. Keith and Clay were the same as well. They’d all do anything for each other. I knew that. But dread had settled in my stomach. Why had Quinn been so cold when he’d hit that button and afterwards? Why had Tommy been so silent in his response?

What was going to happen next?

“Paloma.” Keith poked his head into my room. “Need you in the control room. Mars Station is signaling us. You’re probably the best one to answer.”

He was right. I nodded as I got off the bed and approached him. He grabbed my arm when I would have passed by. Looking up at him, I could see his kind eyes held a worried gaze. “Are you okay?”

“Are you?”

He exhaled on a long sigh. “I know that what happened before must seem... off. I can talk about it with you. Not now. But later, if you want.”

“Sounds good.” I needed someone to explain to me the dynamics of what was about to become my family, although more pressing was getting us to Mars Station safely so I could step off this shuttle and actually think about things somewhere that wasn’t completely theirs.

I knew that sounded insane or maybe plain ungrateful. They were the men I loved. But I needed some space—of the distance kind, not the travelling-through-in-a-ship variety—and I needed it now.

Too much had happened in too little a time.

Keith walked next to me as I made the short distance to the control room. “Are you having a panic attack?”

I’d thought I was doing a good job of hiding it. “Yes.”

“That’s what I thought.” He stopped my walking with a gentle tug, and soon I was between his body and the wall. I should have felt stifled, but instead the closeness stopped my racing heart. “I know this is a lot to take and Quinn just showed the worst side of himself like it was no big deal at all. Tommy isn’t coping all that well, and as per our usual roles, I’m monitoring Quinn while Clay pretends the whole thing didn’t happen. Please don’t get scared of us, my love. You make us better. You really do. This is a low. We’ll pull it together.”

I breathed in the clean scent of Keith’s soap and let his words move over me. When I could think, I touched his chin gently. “You guys are nothing if not scary intense. You don’t have to pull anything together. We all are who we are, right? It’s been a long few days. Maybe what we need is sleep.”

He kissed my cheek lightly. “Maybe what we need is to get married. There are things I want to do with you, Paloma. Things I dream about in the middle of the night that wake me up hard, wanting, and desperate for your body against mine. I swear that making love to me will be a great way to handle… tension.”

“I…” This close to Keith, I’d promise him anything. Heat travelled through my body. “I need to respond to Mars Station.”

He exhaled. “Yes you do. Love you, sweetheart.”

Keith stepped back, but the heat he’d woken up in my body did not dissipate. He might be right. But how could I reconcile feeling like I need to put a wide gap between them and myself with wanting them each deep inside of me over and over again.

I was still contemplating this problem when I stormed into the control room and pressed down on the comm. Tommy raised his eyebrows at me in question. I didn’t blame him. It might have behooved me to listen to the message before I responded to it.

Keith rocked back on his feet and shook his head. He was obviously not going to tell Tommy anything. Or maybe he would. What did I know?

I had to say something. “Hello, ah, yes. This is Paloma Delacroix. I used to live on Mars Station and…”

“Paloma?” I knew the voice on the other line. It was Melissa Alexander herself. They must really not have enough staff if she was working comms. “It’s Melissa, darling.”

I couldn’t help but smile. She’d been kind to me when I lived on the station. I was her daughter’s best friend. I think she had seen how cold my father was and the ways I’d been used in political maneuverings. In turn, she’d made sure I could always join them in their family suites and made me feel at home.

“Hi, Melissa. I’m on this ship. Can you let us dock? Is there something specific I’m supposed to say?”

I heard laughter on the other side. “I’m not concerned with protocol at the moment. Yes, land. But please tell whomever is controlling that ship of yours that we will come on to inspect for weapons before you are allowed to disembark onto the station. Docking Bay Four. Melissa, out.”

“Well, that was easy.” Tommy whirled around in his chair. “She sounded chipper to hear your voice.”

Clay stood in the doorway. “Her daughter’s missing. It’s probably nice to hear the voice of someone connected to her.”

“Right.” My heart panged thinking of Diana. I hoped she was okay. “Um, we’re all going to have to talk about what happened.” I really needed to cut to the chase. “The ship got destroyed. Okay. That happened. What took place during and after is of concern to me. Not this minute. Later. All together. Okay?”

Tommy chewed on his bottom lip. “You don’t think that some things are maybe better off not analyzed too much?”

“Maybe when we all know each other longer. For now, I’m going to want to talk.”

I hoped I was clear enough.

I didn’t know the men who boarded the ship to search it. Weapons had to be locked up on the station; they couldn’t even stay on the ship. This was clearly not the McQueen brothers first go at getting onto a space station. There were hidey-holes all over the ship where they stashed weapons they didn’t have on their manifest and tablets they didn’t want downloaded into Mars’ computer. When all was said and done, the guards found nothing the McQueens didn’t want them to find.

Tommy, Quinn, Keith, and Clay seemed like really clean-cut space travelers who were bringing me back to where I’d grown up. No one would know that the four missing heirs of the Sandler Cartel were about to board Mars Station.

The first thing that hit me when I stepped off the shuttle was the smell. I hadn’t anticipated it, but the oil, the herbs burning in the distance, the tapped-in oxygen—it was all home to me. I took two deep breaths, and my knees nearly buckled.

Clay pulled me into his arms and didn’t move when the tears started. I heard conversation around me. Quinn didn’t know why I was crying, and the others seemed to want it to stop. But Clay didn’t let go or make any moves to hush me up.

Finally, the tears stopped. I let go of his shirt. I must have been digging my hands through the material without even realizing it. He’d likely be bruised from my fingernails. I was spent. So much had happened. And I was finally home.

Even if my family no longer lived here and never would again. “Sorry.”

Clay kissed my forehead. “It would have been weird if you hadn’t reacted. You’ve been through trauma. A lot of it.” He put his arm around me. “We’ve been given rooms and orders from the people in charge to come see them at our earliest convenience.”

“Well, shit,” a voice called from the doorway, and we all turned to look. Ari Bennett leaned against the doorframe of the docking bay. “I never get invited to see Melissa Alexander and her peeps. Must need to be a hot girl or something to get an audience with the lady and her husbands.”

Clay snorted, and the others made similar noises. Tommy ran ahead and embraced Ari. They were obviously as close as I’d thought they would be.

Ari was tall with blondish-brownish hair he kept back in a ponytail. He was handsome, except, to me, he didn’t hold a candle to the McQueens. He was a psychiatrist although these days he didn’t practice that particular medicine except in secret. For almost the entire length of time I’d been gone, he’d been on Mars Station working as a primary care physician in the hopes of making a connection with the Alexander family and bringing them into the fold with the McQueens. He was their first cousin on their mother’s side.

Once when I’d had a freak out, Tommy had set me up to speak to him remotely. I liked him a lot—despite the constant flirting, which I supposed was just something he did with all women. I actually wondered if it somehow distanced him from people, kept them from really seeing him past the outside show.

Outside of the McQueens, I didn’t know if anyone really knew Ari.

I walked to him slowly, and he opened his arms like we were old friends and should share a hug. Maybe my being his cousins’ fiancée meant that I was now in the hug-zone. In any case, I wasn’t going to turn down the hug. To do so would turn the whole experience into a thing I didn’t need to deal with right then.

It was a quick hug, and then I was back in Clay’s embrace. “It’s nice to officially meet you.”

Meeting new people hadn’t used to stress me out. I’d been very good as a conversationalist when I lived here. Things had really changed. Should I have said something else?

He nodded. “You too. The whole station is abuzz with you returning. If it wouldn’t have been completely against protocol, I think Melissa, Nolan, and Wes would have all been here to greet you themselves. As it is, I checked the manifest and you’re all on one of the good hallways. Three rooms, connecting, usually reserved for delegates of import. My rooms aren’t so nice.”

A thought dawned on me. “Floor eight?”

“Yes.”

I nodded. I might lose it again. I had to keep it together better than this. “Those are my old rooms. My family’s suite from before.”

“Are you going to cry again?” Quinn winced as he asked the question. I didn’t know if that was because he realized he shouldn’t ask it or if the idea of my crying made him wince. In any case, Ari punched him in the shoulder, and the next thing I knew we were all laughing.

This was happening. I was back on Mars Station. The place was no longer secure, and we might have brought hell on our backs. But we were here.

* * *

We needed to go see Melissa, Nolan, and Wes as soon as possible. Ari had let us know that Melissa’s other husbands and one of Diana’s brothers had gone through the black hole after her. They had the bare minimum crew with them to run the station, which didn’t bode well against the fleet I had seen hidden and on its way here. I couldn’t imagine the station under attack without C.J. or Geoff here to handle things with the others.

I chewed on my nail. The last time I’d been here I’d lived such a life of complete la-la nothingness that I’d let an idiot take my virginity and I hadn’t even been smart about not getting caught. My parents had been so humiliated by the ordeal they’d left and moved to Earth where they had managed to successfully marry off my sister to three very wealthy water barons. My Dad finally had the life he thought he should have since he’d produced not one but two females for the galaxy. It just hadn’t come as a result of me.

We sat around a round table in the common room that was attached to the three bedrooms in my former home, now guest quarters. My mother used to sew in the chair where Quinn sat drinking some water. He had been conspicuously silent since we’d arrived.

Tommy finally spoke. “I think we need to acknowledge some things.” He looked at all of us, including Ari. “We may not get a warm welcome.”

He was wrong. “They love me.”

“Yes, they do. But the second they realize who we are, that might change. We might have taken you from the Sisterhood and brainwashed you for all they know. You might be a spy. They’re not going to like that Ari was here under pretenses they weren’t aware of. There is every chance that we are all spending the night in jail.”

Ari rubbed his eyes. “Without Cooper here to talk sense into the crew, it’s possible. Nolan doesn’t play around. He’ll rush into danger to protect everyone else and make snap decisions.” Ari wasn’t wrong. Nolan had always been nice to me, but then again I’d never before given him reason not to be. Ari continued speaking. “Wes is business-like in how he deals with stress. Do this and then that. He follows a path. If Sandler equals evil to him and Nolan is on the same page, then we’re in big trouble. I still think this was worth the risk.”

Clay nodded. “Nothing gets better if we don’t start to work together. Small groups against Dad aren’t going to win. And since Earth doesn’t seem to want to get involved…”

“Maybe they need a tragedy to get their attention,” Quinn interrupted.

“Don’t cause a tragedy, Quinn. This is about getting back on track not losing it again. Not even in desperation do you play the game of your father.” Ari spoke directly to Quinn. “Don’t let him make you someone you’re not. Logical doesn’t mean cold.”

Quinn nodded and looked away. “I need to win. That’s all there is to it. I did this. I have to beat it.”

I touched his shoulder. “You have won. He didn’t destroy you. You’re here. You’re with us. We’re going to get married. You won. You beat him. Whatever we do now, it matters—but not in terms of whether or not you have won.”

I hoped I made sense. Ari raised his eyebrows and nodded once to me. “So then, do we do this? We go to Melissa and we tell her. Everything. And we see what happens. You up for it, darling?” He winked at me, and I rolled my eyes, which made his smile broader.

“Stop flirting with my fiancée.” Tommy stood. “Paloma, you’re with one of us this whole time unless we get dragged away to jail. This place is safe, relatively, but we can’t be certain that Garrison doesn’t have spies here. He can’t have too many or there would be bombs already under the floorboards and he wouldn’t be getting ready for a frontal attack. Still, I don’t want to risk being seen until we’ve done what we have to do.”

Keith held out his hand, and I took it. “Assuming we don’t get arrested, who wants to get married tomorrow?”

Quinn raised his hand. I smiled. A lot of the claustrophobia that had plagued me on the shuttle had fled. “I’m not saying no. If we don’t get arrested, we’ll see about tomorrow.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Tommy kissed my cheek before he walked out into the hallway. I was home, but I wasn’t sure what kind of welcome this would turn out to be.