Maris took his hand into both of his. "I don't think so. These last few years, I've been able to live with the only man I've ever loved, and I see him night and day." He gave him a teasing, lopsided grin. "Having sex with him once in a while would have been infinitely better, but I actually don't mind what we have. You own my heart, but I own a part of you no one else does. Not even Zarya."

It was true. Because they'd been through so much, had protected each other and been there when no one else had, they had a bond tighter than marriage and friendship.

And it was eternal. There was never any fear of betrayal or abandonment. Never any doubt about how far the other would go to protect or shelter the other. One call and they would walk through the fires of hell. Side by side.

How many people could say that about their friends and family?

Even now, Maris was with him.

To the bitter end.

Maris winked at him. "Now let's go avenge our lady and teach those bastards their manners."

Reality came crashing down again. So swift and brutal that for a full minute, he couldn't even catch his breath for it.

His soul screamed out again, railing against the gods who'd done this. But he wouldn't cry. Not now. Tears were weak and Zarya didn't deserve his weakness.

Zarya deserved only his utter best.

"I'm going to kill your brother, Maris."

"I know. And while a part of me still loves him, he's not the same brother I grew up with. I truly hate the assassin he's become and I'm so sorry he hurt you."

Darling squeezed his hand, then released it. "For Zarya," he breathed. He stepped to the right so that Maris could go around him and walk to his own fighter.

But Maris didn't move. "Nykyrian asked if you could wait twenty minutes for them to rally and go with us."

Honestly, he didn't want them to. He didn't want to endanger anyone else. Never mind his true friends, and especially not Maris. Unfortunately, he knew they were every bit as obstinate as he was. Nothing would deter them.

And if Maris wasn't with him, he'd never wait.

One is easily overtaken. Two can fight back.

But a group united is hard to destroy. Another adage his father had made him commit to memory.

"Twenty minutes. Then I launch."

Inclining his head, Maris relayed the message through the comlink in his suit. Darling turned to climb aboard his fighter while Maris went to his.

Once he was harnessed into his seat, he glanced over, then froze. It was so strange to watch Maris skillfully strap himself into his cockpit and systematically run the flight checks. While he and Maris had been friends all these years and had fought together in a couple of bar brawls, they'd never gone to war as a team.

Never once.

In his younger days, Maris had fought in the Phrixian Fighter Corps under Kyr's command.

And Darling had only fought with the Sentella and Resistance with Hauk as his usual wingman.

It was always so strange to him how life turned. Usually when you least expected it.

Never had he seen this one coming. And the fact that Maris was fighting with him against the brother he'd once protected...

Yeah, fate was a bitch with a wicked sense of humor.

And today we're all her punch line.

As Darling ran through his own checklist, he tried his best to not think about the first time Zarya had touched him. She'd been right here, in this very ship. If he closed his eyes, he could still see her with him in the darkness of space, feel her mouth on his body as she went down on him. It'd been the first time in his life that sex with someone else had given him pleasure. The first time anyone had made love to him...

I miss you so much...

How could I have let you die? Had he been the man she deserved, she would never have been in this situation. He should have run away with her when he had the chance.

To hell with Arturo and the empire and his duties.

She was the only thing that had really mattered. Why hadn't he taken better care of her?

He should have just grabbed her and run to live on some colony somewhere else. Screw duty. Screw honor. The gods knew, he had enough money even without his inheritance, they could have had an extremely comfortable life together.

For that shortsighted stupidity, he now bled internally.

"You all right?"

Maris's voice and his concern brought him back to what he was doing.

Darling pulled his helmet on so that he could respond. "All right would be a stretch. But I'm operable."

And he wanted League blood. Enough that it washed over and through him until he saw nothing but red...

Firing his engines, he put in his request for launch.

Let the slaughter commence...

Zarya hissed as Ture pried the blood-soaked hair off her face and his fingers brushed against the bruise on her forehead. After they'd dumped her back in the cell with him, he'd pulled her into his arms to hold her like she was a small child.

She hated that he was here because of her. Ture wasn't a soldier. He wasn't a fighter. He was an innocent cook who had no business here. She'd only brought him with her so that the Resistance would trust her again.

And while they didn't interrogate him daily like they did her, they hadn't spared him either. His handsome face was bruised and swelling from his beatings, and she suspected his nose was broken.

Still, he continued to watch over her and protect her as best he could.

"What did they do to you, this time?" he asked, his voice cracking.

Too weak to move, she listened to his heart beating beneath her ear. "They killed me."

His arms stiffened around her. "What?" he asked in disbelief.

She groaned as a sudden pain stabbed her body. "Obviously, they brought me back so that they could continue torturing me. I think I was only dead for a few minutes."

And the machine they'd used to resuscitate her felt like it'd broken every rib in her chest.

But at least she was alive. Pip hadn't been so fortunate. He'd died under their torture about an hour before she had, and when they'd gone to resuscitate him, his body had caught fire.

Panic seized her at the memory. His death had been both gruesome and excruciating. His screams would haunt her forever.

Don't think about it...

Gods, how had Darling stood months of this? Every part of her ached more than she would have thought possible. How could anyone be in this much pain and not die?

But at least she hadn't been raped. Thanks to Safir who'd reminded them that even though she was an outlaw captured in Resistance headquarters, she was still an aristo. As such, by their own laws, they couldn't have her raped while in their custody.

How sad that they had to make what should be common decency a law. And sadder still was that such a law made them better than her Resistance brethren who hadn't been so kind to Darling.

When would the cruelty stop?

Ture winced as he carefully turned her face to survey the latest damage. "You have got to think of your baby, sweetie. Give them something-anything-so that they'll stop this before it's too late."

Tears stung her eyes. She feared that she'd already lost her baby. She'd been spotting earlier, before they'd pulled her out to interrogate her again. But there was nothing she could do now, not unless she told them she was pregnant and that was too big a risk, too. "I can't."

"You mean you won't."

She wouldn't argue that. No matter what, she would never hurt Darling. It didn't matter what they did to her. She would not betray him.

"He'll come for me soon. I know he will," she said with as much conviction as she could muster.

"You're such a fool, Zarya. How can you be so blind after everything you've seen? People just aren't that decent or reliable. They're not. We all want to believe in the magical hero who flies in at the last minute with his army and saves us from our enemies. But it doesn't happen in real life. Ever. People hurt you and they disappoint you, and there's nothing you can do about it. You have to take care of yourself first, and realize that when the rain comes, you're standing in it all alone."

She shook her head, then hissed at the pain it caused her. "You're wrong, Ture. When someone really loves you, they don't give up on you. Ever." And she would never give up on Darling, nor had she stopped looking for Kere-not until she'd found him.

Ture leaned his cheek against her hair in a way that reminded her of how Darling held her. "I used to be like you. And when my life fell apart I saw the ugly truth of people. They don't care about anyone but themselves. There's no such thing as friendship. People only hang around when there's something in it for them."

She frowned at the bitterness in his tone. "What are you getting from my friendship? Other than beaten to a pulp and starved to illness?"

He brushed at her hair. "When we're not imprisoned, you make me laugh. And I missed not having a friend. You keep me from being lonely."

Still, she didn't believe his argument. "And when I called you, you came to me to do something dangerous. Why?"

"Because I'm stupid and loyal, even when I know other people wouldn't be that way for me. I learned a long time ago that I never get out of a relationship what I put into it."

She winced as he struck a bruise on her scalp. "You're not the only one who's loyal and decent, Ture. It's why I won't betray Darling. He wouldn't betray me and I know it. When someone really loves you, they find a way to get to you, even in the darkest night, against all odds. Through the worst nightmares, they are there, holding your hand. They're there to stand with you to the end. I don't just believe that. I know it."

Ture scoffed. "When I was a child, I believed that, too. I did. But my hero spit on me and walked out. I hope for your sake that yours doesn't."

"He won't."

Ture sighed. "But he's not here now..."

"He'll come..."

Ture kissed her forehead. "I hope so, honey. Just once in my life, I'd like to be wrong."

"So what's our plan?" Hauk asked as Darling adjusted his trajectory settings.

The link crackled before Nykyrian answered. "Keep Darling alive."

Darling rolled his eyes at Nykyrian's droll tone. "You two are aware of the fact that I am on this frequency, too, correct?"

"Of course we know, sugar," Jayne said. "It wouldn't be any fun to talk about you if you couldn't hear us. So anyone got some juicy Darling tidbits to share? If we push it, we can probably make his skin match his hair... C'mon, Mari, I know you have to have good dirt."

"I do, but... I'd rather keep it to myself. You never know when you're going to need blackmail material."

Jayne laughed over the link. "You suck."

Darling ignored them and returned to Hauk's original question. "The plan is to get the prisoners out and back to Caronese territory before we get killed."

Syn cleared his throat. "I don't mean to be the kick in the crotch, but you do know that this would have been easier had you given us enough time to pull specs and actually formulate a plan of attack."

Probably, but Darling hadn't been willing to wait. "By then, they could have killed another hostage. Or all of them."

No one argued that.

So Darling continued. "We have cursory plans of the prison's layout. Hauk and I will go in to distract the brunt of their forces, while the rest of you pull out my people."

"Uh, you're not going to make anything explode, are you?" Hauk asked.

Darling snorted. "One of these days, we've got to get you over your fear of explosives."

Except there wouldn't be a future for him. Not after this. Darling had no intention of coming back...

This would be his last fight with his friends.

He didn't want to think about them mourning him. He couldn't afford that.

Not now. This wasn't about love or family. It was about vengeance. Making the people who hurt Zarya pay... a life for a life.

Nothing else mattered.

None of them spoke much as they flew in under the League sensors, courtesy of Nykyrian's knowledge of their security procedures and equipment, Syn's hacking abilities-along with the fact that he, Jayne, Ryn, and Nero were four of the very few who'd escaped League prisons and lived, and the updates that Saf had sent to them. Darling had no idea why Maris's little brother was sticking his neck out for them, but he was grateful that whatever madness had infected Kyr hadn't traveled down to Safir.

Yet.

Once they were safely through the barrier, they docked in an area where the League patrols wouldn't be able to see or sense them. Something that was helped by the fact that there was only seven of them flying in first. They would take down the scanner system and alarms so that the prison wouldn't be able to call for help.

At least not until the Sentella had enough firepower and backup to make the League High Command think twice about attacking them.

The beauty about most League prisons, and this one in particular, was that they were outposts far removed from the bulk of the League's army or any largely populated planet. The thought being that if the inmates became too frisky and took control of it, the League could detonate whatever rock the prison was on and take out every prisoner. Yes, they'd lose a few staffers, too, but the League wasn't really worried about collateral damage of their own people since their prisons were staffed with their more problematic soldiers and older assassins who weren't mentally sound enough to be trusted with regular assignments and normal sentient populations.

The drawback for them on this mission was that the staffers were much crazier and more bloodthirsty than the inmates.

The League also kept their prisons remotely located to discourage escaping. If, by some miracle, a prisoner did make it out, in theory their sentries would be able to catch up to them before the escapees could disappear into a populated zone.