“Thank the gods you’re here. I’ve been running arou-“

Without flinching or breaking his stride, Caillen jerked his blaster out and fired point blank range into his sister’s shoulder, cutting her words off before she wasted his time.

Not to kill her. Just to shut her up before she made things worse for both of them.

Gasping, she crumpled toward the street.

In one smooth move that caused his light-armored coat to flare out around his feet, he caught her against him and lifted her into his arms, then groaned under her weight. “Damn, Kase, quit working out so much and lay off the frigs.” Even though she was six inches shorter, she outweighed him by about twenty pounds and he carried less than two percent body fat on a lean six foot four frame. His muscles screamed out as he heard the Enforcers moving in.

This was getting bad.

He glared down at her unconscious body. “I ought to hand your dumb ass over to them. You better be glad I love you.” Or she’d be rotting in prison for her latest stunt. It was what she deserved after her award winning act of rabid stupidity.

Sighing, he moved fast to stash her behind a dumpster and covered her with his long, black Armstitch coat. On top of that, he added enough trash to keep the Enforcers from seeing her. Yeah, she’d bitch-slap him later for the stench, but it would keep her safe and right now that was all that mattered to him.

Besides the urge to wring her neck until she turned blue.

A beep from his wrist alerted him that his hacked paperwork for her ship and cargo had gone through. Kasen’s IDs were removed from everything and his were registered in her place.

I’m a flaming idiot. By doing all of this, he’d just put his neck in a noose and he knew it.

What the hell? Who wants to live forever?

For the record, the answer was him. But he definitely was going to cut his life short if he kept bailing out Kasen.

Pulling his blasters out, he set them to stun and went to do what he did best.

Survive and escape.

“Drop your weapon!” an Enforcer shouted from his left.

Yeah, right. Caillen opened fire as he dodged into a vacant alley. Their return fire and the holes it left in the walls, street, and trash around him let him know fast their blasters weren’t set for stun.

They were trying to kill him.