I blot my eyes on a piece of tissue paper in front of the bathroom mirror, then I give myself a stern look. “Don’t be an idiot, Kaya.”

Sebastian isn’t cheating on me. He’s not my boyfriend. He’s not my anything.

Well, that’s not entirely true. He’s my job.

Get it together and get back out there.

That’s my grandmother’s voice. She’s halfway across the galaxy, planning a wedding that’s never going to happen, yet somehow she’s still in my head. Telling me what to do.

This time, she just happens to be right.

I use another tissue from the bathroom counter to blot moisture from my forehead, then I stand up straight and assess the damage.

There is none.

Even if my tears had actually fallen, they wouldn’t have smudged the shellac painted onto my face by Margie and her team. I’m rarely on camera, but I’m always on, and my makeup has to look perfect so I can interact with both corporate sponsors and Universal Authority executives.

And because a lady’s makeup should always look perfect.

I’m supposed to give the guests—like Yelena Aslanov—whatever they want. Make them happy. I’ve comped suites at the Resort. Flyover dinner tours of the planet. Outrageously expensive bottles of alcohol. I once organized a private fashion show of her own clothing for an executive who’d just been on a multi-planet shopping spree, using female inmates rounded up from in-processing.

But Yelena…

My teeth grind at the thought of her flawless, plastic face and those bouncy, lifelike implants, of which I had an unimpeded view for a second in that office window. Right before Sebastian planted himself face first between her thighs.

Focus. He’s work. Nothing more. Not unless I want to get arrested and spend the rest of my life here with him. As a prisoner, not as an employee.

I screw on my business smile—a lady always smiles!—straighten my dress, and march out of the bathroom, drawing strength from the steady click of my heels. I’ve always loved the sound of stilettos on a hard floor. They announce my presence in advance of my arrival, and the pace sets expectations. You know from the moment you hear me enter the room that I expect things to be professional and efficient.

That’s what I hate about the viewing room. The energy field floor absorbs sound in an eerie way. But what’s even weirder is the way it feels. Like you’re walking on air. I swear, you can’t feel the floor beneath your feet. You just have to trust that you’re not stepping out over a big hole in the bottom of the yacht, doomed to plunge to your death. And trust is not my strong suit.

But the rest of the yacht has proper floors, and I feel better—more in control—just walking down the—

A familiar figure crosses the hallway intersection in front of me wearing nothing but tight black athletic pants and shoes.

Sebastian.

Alone.

Crap!

In the second it takes my shocked, disjoined thoughts to form a coherent picture, he’s gone, running down a curved hallway that traces a circle around the center of the mostly-round ship.

Inside that circle are the mechanical room, the engine room, and other equipment rooms that make up the guts of the ship. What the hell is he doing?

“Sebastian!” I hiss as I take off after him, while a series of terrifying outcomes to this unfolding disaster tumble through my mind, like boots left in the dryer. I wasn’t supposed to leave his side. I’m going to be fired for leaving him alone with Yelena, guards or no guards.

No, I’m going to be arrested for abandoning my duties. But I couldn’t stay and watch him touch her. I couldn’t.

“Sebastian, stop!” I whisper-shout, my heels click-clacking in a chaotic rhythm as I chase him. “You’re going to get me—”

My mouth snaps shut as I realize that the ramifications of this stretch well beyond my own fate. An inmate is free. In the bowels of a ship full of CEOs and Universal Authority executives. His guards are nowhere to be seen. The civilian I left him with is equally absent.

This is an escape attempt. And my dereliction of duty let it happen.

“Sebastian!” I yelp as my ankle folds beneath me—four-inch heels were not designed for running!—and finally he spins, marching backward now that he’s facing me.

“Kaya, go upstairs.” There’s a warning in his stern gaze. “Go as high as you can get on the ship and stay there. Buckle in.”

“What? Why?” Oh, no. Nooooo. He’s going to try to crash the yacht. “Where are the guards? Whatever you’ve done, it’s not too late. You’re worth a lot of money to UA. They’ll forgive this if you go back to the party right now!”

I’m not sure that’s actually true, if the guards are dead, but we can deal with that once he’s…back in custody. Or what counts as “in custody” at a flying cocktail party.

Maybe no one needs to know about this, if I can talk some sense into him. The guards will be fired for letting this happen, if they report it. Which means they might not report it. Maybe this could be our little secret.

Though I’m not sure what to do about Yelena.

“Kaya. Go!” Sebastian whispers. Then he turns and starts running again.

I run after him, though I know damn well I should get on my com and call this in, because Sebastian’s not a normal convict. The murder that got him sent here was of a death row inmate, in defense of his sister, and he did that just to get sentenced to the arena, so he could protect her. He’s not dangerous. I mean, beyond killing the men up against him on the sand, but we make him do that.

What I mean is that he’s reasonable. He wouldn’t hurt anyone who isn’t also trying to hurt him, either for profit or survival. I can’t believe he will actually crash this yacht.

I still have hope that I can talk some sense into him—until I lose him at the next turn, thanks to these stupid heels. With no other choice, I stop long enough to unbuckle the adorable little straps and abandon my expensive shoes in the shiny metal hallway. Then I race after Sebastian in my bare feet, hoping I’m going the right direction.

I pass all the closed, unmarked doors, because Sebastian is looking for something specific. Like…the control room. Or the bridge. But those are both on the top floor, and there’s no way he’ll make it that far without being seen. Without getting shot.

The first marked door in this hallway is a supply room. I throw it open and scan the inside for Sebastian. The supplies have obviously been rifled through, but he’s already come and gone.

The next door is labeled “Mechanical,” but it’s locked. However, across the hall from that is the electrical room, identified with an official-looking plate set into the wall next to the door. The lock panel, where an authorized user would place his or her hand in order to open the door, has been smashed.

Crap!

I slide the door open manually and step inside. Sebastian turns away from a wall panel full of switches, still holding the hammer he obviously used to smash the lock panel. And somehow, between here and the hallway where I last saw him, he’s found and reclaimed his prison-issued backpack.

I glance into the hall to make sure we’re still alone, then I slide the door closed behind me. “Sebastian, you can’t do this.”

“Go upstairs, Kaya. I’m not kidding. It’s not safe down here.”

“The only thing dangerous down here is you. You need to give me the hammer and pray it’s not too late for us to rejoin the party.” Though surely that ship’s sailed. “Where are the guards? Please tell me you didn’t hurt them?” I don’t really care about Yelena, beyond her ability to expose his escape attempt.

“They’re unconscious, but breathing.”

“Why bother to keep them alive, if you’re going to kill the rest of us?” I have to keep him talking. He’s not a bad guy. I just have to make him remember that.

Sebastian rolls his eyes and gestures at the ship around us with the hammer. “This thing isn’t just going to fall out of the sky. It’ll coast for a while, and the pilots will have time to pick a safe landing site and do a controlled descent. By then, they’ll have done an infrared sweep and evacuated everyone to the top floor. Your precious executives will be fine, and they’ll have the story of a fucking lifetime to tell on the feeds. So go upstairs, buckle in, and wait for your damn rescue.”

The first true bolt of fear streaks through me. He’s really going to do this. And he’s thought it through. How long has he been planning this?

“You need to get out of here, Kaya, before they think you’re in on this.”

“It’s too late for that! I chased you instead of reporting you!” My shoes abandoned in the hall are evidence of that! As is any security footage that caught us.

“Why?” His hand is on a heavy-looking switch inside the huge panel, evidently ready to flip it, but he’s looking at me as if my answer might change his mind. Or at least delay the inevitable. “Why haven’t you turned me in?”

“I’m trying to save your life! You’re not going to just walk away from the crash, Sebastian. If anyone dies on this thing, they’re going to shoot you!”

He rolls beautiful blue eyes at me. “You don’t give a shit about me. You’re trying to protect your job. Is that really all I am to you, Kaya? A job?”

“I—” Before he stuck his face between Yelena’s thighs, I might have actually called us friends. In my dreams—literally—we’re more like super-close friends with explosive benefits. But in reality, we are nothing but coworkers with a really odd power dynamic.

He outweighs me by a hundred pounds and could lift me over his head without breaking a sweat. But I could get him executed with a single word. From one moment to the next, I have no idea which of us has the upper hand. I know there’s a spark between us, and while I don’t think he’d hurt me on purpose—at least, I didn’t think so, before Yelena—I can’t blame him for leveraging that spark to his own advantage.

He is on death row.

“If you’re just going to stand there, do me a favor and punch that button.” Sebastian nods at something to my right, and I turn to see a large red alarm button on the wall. There are buttons just like it all over the yacht. One press will initiate emergency proceedings every UA employee is trained in. If Sebastian’s really going to crash the ship, pressing that button will save lives.

But I’d rather talk him out of this, and if I press the button, it’ll be too late for that.

“Sebastian—”

“Push the button, Kaya.”

“No. You don’t have to do this. It’s not too late. We can—”

“I didn’t come here to sit in the bullpen for the next nineteen weeks. I came here to protect my sister, and I can only do that from zone three. Which, according to you, we’re now flying directly over.” Sebastian pulls the lever. The lights overhead flicker, and in the strobe-like flashes, I see him lurch toward me.

“No! What did you do?” I demand, scuttling out of his way as total darkness descends upon the electrical room.

“I cut power to the ship.” Something smacks the wall at my back, and I realize he’s looking for the red button. “They still have emergency power. That’ll be enough to let the pilots coast toward the ground for a bit of a rough landing. So when the lights come back on, you need to go upstairs.” He smacks the wall again, and a red strobe flashes from the ceiling, accompanied by a bleating alarm.

Then the ship begins to descend.

No!

Sebastian meets my gaze, his face painted red by the emergency strobe. “I’m sorry, Kaya. I don’t have any other choice.”

Lights flicker overhead, then flare to life. Not the bright regular lights, but a dimmer set of yellowish emergency panels that only add to the sense of chaos from the flashing red strobe.

Footsteps pound past us in the hallway, as the partiers abandon the viewing room for higher ground, the click of dozens of sets of heels almost swallowed by the clomp of men’s shoes and guards’ boots. I could just slip out the door and join them. I could just let Sebastian go.

But the only way to save my job—to preserve my own freedom—is to stop him from escaping.

Then, suddenly, the ship stops descending and begins a slow, steady rise.

“What the hell?” Sebastian turns back to the panel on the wall, as if it’s somehow betrayed him. “They’re supposed to try to land. You can’t get back into orbit on emergency power, can you?”

I have no idea. But if there’s any way for the pilots to avoid setting a ship full of wealthy executives down on the surface of a prison planet, they’re going to give it a shot.

“No!” Sebastian shouts. Then he lifts the hammer and swings it at the panel once, twice, three times.

I scream as sparks fly through the room. The lights die again and the ship begins to dip. Sebastian lurches toward the door, lit only by the red strobe.

He slides the door open and takes off into the now-empty hallway, headed in the opposite direction of the crowd, because he doesn’t want to get higher. He wants to get off the ship.

After a moment of hesitation, I follow him, my steps distressingly quiet but merciful fast without my heels. “Sebastian!” I shout as I follow him down the curved hallway that follows the shape of the ship, and before long, we pass my shoes, which have been kicked several feet from where I left them by the crowd. “Stop! Please!”

“Go upstairs, Kaya!” he shouts without turning.

Where is he going? How the hell does he plan to get off the ship?

Seconds later, he turns left into the empty viewing room. Oh my god. He’s going to try to force the passenger ramp open, with the ship still in motion!

I race into the viewing room after him and have just an instant to process the fact that my bare left foot is falling through the floor before a hand grabs my arm. I scream, my left leg dangling over the crimson treetops highlighted in the dark by lights on the bottom of the ship. Because the energy field floor is gone.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my—

“I’ve got you,” Sebastian says, and I look up to see that it’s his hand clamped around my wrist, but it doesn’t feel like he has me. My momentum has carried me over the ring of solid floor he’s standing on, and my center of gravity—otherwise known as my butt—is jutting over open space. The toes of my right foot grip the rim of metal floor, but they’re slick with terrified sweat and I’m slipping.

I’m going to fall right out of the ship!

“Hold still!” Sebastian shouts as air rushes around us from the open floor, roaring in my ears, competing with the alarm still blaring through the ship.

“Pullmeup, pullmeup, pullmeup!” I yell up at him as I swing my other arm forward, grasping for his wrist. For something—anything—to hold on to.

“Just a minute.” But instead of pulling me up, Sebastian reaches back with his free hand and grabs the tether he’s knotted around a cocktail table bolted to the floor. He ties the other end around his waist, then he wraps the slack around his arm several times.

“What are you doing?” I shout. “Just pull me up!”

“Sorry!” He’s practically yelling in my face, but I can hardly hear him over the alarm and the rush of air. “This elevator only goes down.”

“What?” I demand as he glances past me, and I look back to see that we’re about to descend past the edge of the woods, heading steadily toward an overgrown field only barely visible in the fading moonlight.

“Hold on tight!” Sebastian takes a step toward the edge of the floor, and I scream as my right foot loses purchase. I’m dangling over the forest now, clinging to his arm, my legs flailing helplessly. “Kaya!” Sebastian captures my gaze as firmly as he’s holding my arm. “You have to be still. I am not going to drop you.”

But I’m not flailing on purpose. My brain wasn’t consulted in my legs’ panic. “Pull me up!”

And finally, he pulls me up onto the rim with him.

I exhale and try to scuttle back from the edge, but he holds me pinned against him, my toes inches from oblivion.

“Kaya, the ship’s going down, and we won’t survive the impact from the lower level, but there’s no time to make it upstairs.” He wraps my arms around his neck, then he lifts me and tucks my legs around his waist. “So shut up, be still, and hold on tight!”

Before I can object, Sebastian lowers us over the rim of the floor until he’s hanging from the open bottom of the yacht, clutching the rope in both hands while I cling to him. Screaming my head off.

I bury my face against his neck and try not to have a stroke while he lowers us hand over hand, until we’re at the end of the tether still tied around his waist. When his arm wraps around me, clamping me even tighter against him, I look up to see him holding a small knife against the tether, just over his head.

“Hold on tight!” he shouts. And before I can truly process what he’s obviously about to do, he slices through the tether in one quick stroke.

I scream again as we plummet toward the trees in the dark, and the yacht sails past over our heads. Leaves rustle as they grab at me. Sebastian grunts when we crash through a branch, his body absorbing the impact. Another grunt and another splintered branch, then we slam to an abrupt stop in a sturdy forked limb, Sebastian seated, with me on his lap.

My mouth snaps shut, cutting off my scream, and for a second, neither of us moves. I can hardly see, with most of the moonlight blocked by the foliage.

“Are you okay?” Sebastian whispers in the sudden, overwhelming quiet, as if speaking at full volume might somehow break the branch beneath us and send us hurtling toward the ground.

“I bit my tongue.” There’s blood in my mouth, and I want to spit it out, but a lady never spits, Kaya! So I swallow the coppery taste.

Sebastian laughs. I risk moving my head enough that I can look at the shadows that comprise his face, baffled. “We made it off the ship alive!”

“You sound like you weren’t sure of that. Why would you throw me off a space yacht if you weren’t sure we’d survive?”

He shrugs, and the branch beneath us groans as he shifts into a more comfortable position. “I had no other choice. And I didn’t throw you. I carefully lowered you.”

“Then you cut the rope! We could have landed anywhere!”

“But we landed here.”

“I don’t want to be here!” On his lap, high up in a tree. In the middle of the night. On the surface of a prison planet!

“I’m sure what you mean to say is ‘Thank you for saving my life, Sebastian.’”

“You don’t get credit for that, when you’re the one who crashed the ship in the first place!”

“I told you to go upstairs. Repeatedly.” He shrugs, and I cling tighter to him as the branch beneath us groans. “You’re here because you can’t follow orders.”

“You’re not supposed to be giving me orders! I’m in charge of you.”

Sebastian drops a kiss on my nose. “Look around, Kaya. Circumstances have changed.”

From behind me, the roar of ripping metal echoes through the forest, and the tree trembles beneath us. Startled, I cling tighter to Sebastian as the impact of the yacht seems to go on forever.

Then, that eerie quiet descends again.

God, please let them all be okay.

Sebastian lifts me off his lap and sets me on the branch he’s sitting on, close enough to the trunk that I can grab it. Though when I realize that my skirt has bunched up around mid-thigh, from when my legs were wrapped around him, I relinquish my hold with one hand so I can tug it back into place.

He laughs again, as if my modesty is totally out of place during a…prison break? Is that what this is? I mean, technically he’s still in prison. As am I. But we are not where we’re supposed to be.

I clamp my arms around the trunk again, and the bark is rough against my skin, but we’re every bit of thirty feet off the ground. I am not letting go.

“What are you doing?” I squeal as his shadowy form stands, and the forked limb creaks again.

“Climbing down.” He squeezes the handle of his knife and folds the blade into it, then he reaches back to slide it into a side pocket of his backpack. “You’re welcome to join me.”

“I’m welcome to…?” A decidedly ladylike growl of frustration claws its way up my throat. “You are such a…”

“A what?” Sebastian’s grin is half-amusement, half-challenge. “There’s no need to keep those naughty words bottled up down here, Kaya. Your bosses aren’t watching.”

“Will you just…? I mean, I have no idea how to get down from here.” Or what I’m going to do once I’m on the ground. Barefoot in the jungle, on the surface of a planet full of violent criminals.

In a skirt.

“Just follow me. Put your feet where I put mine.” Sebastian begins to climb down from the tree, and I follow, doing my best to imitate his handholds, flinching when the bark bites into my bare feet. After a few minutes of careful descent, we stand side-by-side on the lowest branch, about seven feet from a patch of ground illuminated by moonlight shining through a gap in the foliage. My palms feel raw and swollen, and my feet are all scratched up. Fortunately, my tongue seems to have stopped bleeding.

“Okay, I’m going to jump down first, then I’ll catch you.”

I want to tell him I don’t need his help. That it’s his fault I’m in this ridiculous position, and he’s done quite enough. But I’m well aware that on my own, I’m as good as dead here. Assuming none of the other prisoners find me, in which case, I’m in even worse trouble.

I saw what happened to Sylvie in the bullpen. No other zone has such a dense concentration of murderers and rapists, but even one psycho is more than I could fend off on my own. I’m not a warrior, like Sebastian and his sister. My strong suits—negotiation, placation, people-pleasing—won’t do me one whit of good out here, where people have to fight and steal just to acquire the basic necessities.

Sebastian thumps to the ground, and his pack jostles against his bare back. Then he looks up at me and lifts his arms. “Jump.”

But…I can’t.

He rolls his eyes at me. “Kaya, I kept you from falling through the floor of the blimp. You know damn well I can catch you.”

“Yes, but…” I don’t have to explain myself to him. He doesn’t need to know how hard it is for me to put my safety in someone else’s hands, when I have any other choice.

Have I mentioned that trust is not in my wheelhouse?

Instead of jumping, I carefully lower myself until I’m sitting on the limb, trying not to think about the fact that my skirt is riding up again, and he can probably see all the way up my thighs. And he’s definitely looking. Once I’m seated, I turn over with my stomach against the branch, my legs dangling, and again I can practically feel Sebastian looking up my skirt. But from this position, my feet are closer to the ground, and the drop feels less dangerous.

“Step back,” I order.

“I’ll catch you,” he insists. “Just let go.”

“No. Step back, Sebastian.”

“Fine.” His footsteps shuffle in the bed of dead leaves beneath me.

I edge lower on the branch, scraping my stomach against the bark as my blouse rides up, and before I can let go, I feel Sebastian’s hands on my bare thighs. They’re warm, and slightly rough, and huge.

How have I never noticed that his hands are so big? They each wrap halfway around one of my thighs.

I ignore the way my heart seems to be trying to beat its way out of my body through my throat, then I suck in a deep breath and let go of the branch.

Sebastian lowers me until the fronts of my thighs brush his chest, then he adjusts his hold to my waist and lets me slide down his body. For one heart-stopping moment, his nose is pressed right between my breasts.

I swear to god, he inhales.

Then I’m on the ground, my bare toes curling in crunchy, dry leaves, and Sebastian’s arm is still around my back, pressing me to him. I should shove him off. And I will. In just…one…second.

But before I can make myself follow through, he lets me go and steps back on his own. “There. You’re on the ground, all in one piece.”

“Which is a miracle, considering that I was practically thrown from a moving space yacht. Speaking of which…” I turn in the direction the ship went down. “We better get going. I’m sure help’s already on the way.”

But Sebastian grabs my arm. “Kaya, I’m not going to the wreckage, and neither are you. I’m getting my sister off this fucking planet, and you’re the only leverage I have.”

I jerk my arm from his grasp. “What the hell does that mean?”

“That means that as of this moment, you are my hostage.”