Not the Man She Thought by Paige Tyler

they opened fire on us.
He settlers didn’t stand a chance. We were only able to grab a few things and
get them on the transport before we had to get the hell out of there. The Feds
weren’t interested in talking, just killing.”
    Laken stood frozen at the bottom of the stairs, her blood
going cold. “Federation? Why would the Federation be shooting at you?”
    Rade swung around to glare at her. “Get back to your cabin.”
    Laken ignored him as realization dawned on her. She turned
her gaze on Dev. “That code I helped you decipher was Federation, wasn’t it?
That’s why it was so complicated.”
    The dark-haired woman flushed, her hands stilling in the act
of unbuttoning Jorn’s shirt. “Laken—”
    Laken cut her off before she could finish. “You used me. I
trusted you, and you used me. You figured that since I went to a Federation
university it would be easier for me to break their code. Tampering with
Federation security codes could put me in prison for the rest of my life, but
you didn’t care about that, did you? Why should you? You’re nothing but a
common criminal.”   She shook her
head. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it until now. You said you were
independents, but you’re nothing but a ship full of pirates.”
    “That’s enough,” Rade ordered.
    She whirled around to glare at him, but before she could say
anything, he turned his attention to Dev and Vance.
    “Get Jorn up to the med-bay, and make sure there’s no one on
our tail,” Rade told them.
    Supporting Jorn between them, Dev and Vance slowly did as he
commanded. When Keir and Finn started to unload the boxes off the transport,
Rade told them to leave it. “You can do that later,” he said. “Get up to the
bridge and make sure Kam has everything under control.”
    The men hesitated, but then gave Rade a nod and went
upstairs.
    Rade looked at the older man. “Go check on Jorn for me, will
you, Kellen? I’m going to have a few words with our passenger.”
       Kellen’s
gaze went from Rade to her before going back to the captain. After a moment, he
gave Rade a nod, then headed for the steps.
    Laken swallowed hard as she watched the old man go, angry
tears stinging her eyes. She’d known something was off about the crew from the
beginning. She should have trusted her instincts. She was on a ship full of
pirates who made their living stealing from the Federation. The same Federation
her father helped run.
       She
pinned Rade with a hard look. “I’m not interested in anything you have to say.”
       “That’s
too damn bad, because you’re going to listen.” He regarded her coldly. “You can
say whatever the hell you want about me, but you haven’t earned the right to
pass judgment on my crew. Maybe after you’ve lived in the real world a little
while, you might learn that things aren’t always so black and white.”
    Damn him. The bastard was trying to turn this around on her
and make it look like he was the injured party in all of this. “Don’t get
sanctimonious on me. You and your crew make a living violating Federation laws.
That’s piracy, so what I said was the truth. They’re criminals, and so are
you.”
    The muscle on the side of his jaw flexed, a sign of just how
angry he was, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t back down, despite learning
what he really was. Maybe because she knew what he really was. He was a pirate
who stole from the Federation, and that made him the worst kind of criminal. It
was her duty as the daughter of a Federation merchant to stand up to scum like
him.
    “In fact,” she continued, “you’re worse than they are. You
make your money off their sweat and blood and you don’t even give a damn. Tell
me, did you throw Jorn in the transport and come back her right after he got
shot, or did you make him wait while you grabbed a few more boxes of stolen
goods first?”
    Rade didn’t answer, but she could tell from the hard glint
in his eyes that he was furious. More furious