Page 52 of Radiant Exception
Vaughn had sought to guard his heart by refusing to have sex with me before I was willing to make some sort of commitment, and theirony was that when I realized I was ready for that commitment, it wasmyheart that wound up broken.
I wasn’t sure if there was anything I could do to fix the situation. I didn’t know if Vaughn would believe me if I explained what happened. And even if he did, would it sour his relationship with Cassidy? Did I care?
I was furious with Cassidy, but there was a small part of me that understood. If he’d harbored feelings for me for just as long, only to serendipitously find me years after we’d been separated, I could understand why he would be willing to put everything on the line just to determine if there was a chance of something happening. Maybe he still knew me well enough to see through the initial facade of my fake marriage, giving him the courage to take his shot.
But he’d missed his chance. I wanted Vaughn, and no one else would do.
And I realized then, this was worth fighting for—Vaughn was worth fighting for.
I’d give him some space, but hewouldhear me out, I’d make sure of it. I wouldn’t rest until I knew that I had done everything I could to make this right.
Because I was pretty sure I’d fallen for Vaughn, despite my best efforts.
And I wasn’t ready to let him go.
My comm sounded angrily in my pocket, using the high-pitched emergency alert notification chime, which was a final warning from the bridge to get to my station before landing.
With one last deep breath, I braced myself against the wall behind me to stand, but stumbled when the wall panel clicked out of place. A common occurrence, as all the paneling could be removed for emergency situations, but when I turned to click it back into its fastening, I noticed something odd behind the material.
After looking down the hall to confirm I was alone, I pulled back the pane and felt my heart drop.
Stacked neatly in a column spanning the entire height of the space were bricks of Elysian pills. Their deep blue color was unmistakable.
While I’d never tried the hyper-addictive substance myself, I’d been around it enough to know what I was looking at. Images of Xavier flooded my mind. I still didn’t know if his overdose had been at his own hand or a convenient cover-up, but the cause of death was definitive.
I took a hard swallow and replaced the panel cover, clicking it into place with trembling hands.
Again, I glanced down the hallway. I was still alone, and the one camera I knew existed was at the far end of the corridor. Because of the direction in which I’d opened the compartment, anyone watching wouldn’t have seen what was inside.
My mind was reeling as I staggered back into my office and pulled up the necessary system gauges to monitor while we were arriving at port and shutting the ship down to dock.
While keeping an eye on the readouts, I called Vaughn continuously.
Every single one went unanswered.
This was bad.
We thought theRadiantwas harboring a Meridian operative, and based on the vanishing encrypted coding, that information was flowing through the ship’s communications systems and out to their network. It honestly hadn’t occurred to me that the ship would be used for transportation of their goddamned drugs as well.
An astonished laugh bubbled up from me as I finally realized that the panel was what had been wrong with the schematics. The breaker box where I’d pulled the extra circuit from to fix the engine was on the wrong side. But in its place was the hidden compartment.
“Son of a bitch.” I slammed my palm down on my desk.
It had been right under my nose, and I hadn’t been able to find the aberration.
After what felt like ages, the ship was finally docked at port.
I raced out of engineering, heading straight for the cargo bay, as I was hoping to head Vaughn off on his way down from the bridge.
But when I got there, only Jordan and Ethan were in the expansive space, overseeing the payload transfer.
“Where’s Vaughn?” I called out to them.
Both heads whipped to me.
Jordan raised an eyebrow, perhaps already sensing something was amiss between us, but then returned her attention to the machines moving palettes back and forth.
“He left already,” Ethan finally answered me.
