Big Bad Claws - Michele Mills Page 0,3

And all the times her cousin Gerard and the CFO, Roberto, had tried to warn her that something wasn’t quite right. But she’d blown them off because of her blinding loyalty.

And she thought of that bitch who’d betrayed her and was betraying Dad’s legacy. Oh hell, no—Daniela wasn’t getting away with this.

“Stand on the disk,” the assassin ordered.

Lila forced herself to step onto the circle of light. The disk hummed with energy. It was this or death. Her entire body trembled with fear, but there was only one choice if she wanted a chance at survival.

Where would she go?

The assassin paused. “Your stepmother sent this mark out to the entire assassin network, offering a ridiculous amount of currency for your death. One of them will find you. Your only hope is to hide somewhere no one expects.”

Lila blew out a breath. “Okay. Where do you think I should go?”

“Hide for one moon cycle,” the female continued, “until you are legally in charge of the corporation and your fortune. And then come back and give her hell. Make her pay for what she’s done.”

A tremulous smile tugged at Lila’s lips. “I will.”

The female met her gaze. “You can do this.” Then she hit the transport initiation sequence.

“Wait,” Lila gasped. “What are you doing?”

“I set it to random,” the assassin calmly informed her.

“No.” Lila shouted over the noise. She hadn’t expected that. At all. “I might be arrested. They won’t be ready for—”

But it was too late. The room dissolved. In seconds Lila was painlessly disassembled in a scatter of atoms and whisked across the universe to coalesce onto a light disk on an unknown transporter station on the other side of the four sectors.

2

Lila kept her eyes firmly closed and her fists clenched.

This could be anywhere.

She could be on Chronos, or Hurlia, or some obscure sex trafficking space station…anywhere. She might be standing someplace safe, or she could be one step from unrelenting abuse that would only end with the sweet release of death.

Dear gods, her life was a complete fucking mess:

An assassin had broken into her supposedly secure mansion and tried to kill her.

Daniela didn’t love her and in fact wanted her dead.

More assassins were on her trail.

And now she was outside, trying to survive in the great unknown.

Heavy breaths slowly turned into quiet puffs. Having a panic attack while running for her life was the last thing she needed right now. There was no time for anxiety and phobia to rear its ugly head in this life or death situation. And she had no freaking clue where she’d ended up. The transporter hadn’t been coded for a specific destination.

Okay, okay, okay…what places in the four sectors were advanced or wealthy enough to afford transporters? There was only one transporter station on New Earth, but some places had stations in all cities, both big and small. Transporters were also on warships, space stations and colonies. Luxury space liners occasionally had personal transporters. Maybe she’d been sent somewhere urban and populated? But that also meant this transporter could be owned by a crazy-rich individual, or a criminal organization.

Ugh.

She pushed her long hair from her face and opened her eyes. All she saw was a darkened room, similar to the one she’d left behind. Well, at least she’d arrived intact and perfectly fine, and there wasn’t a crowd of peacekeepers ready to rush her off to containment.

That was an improvement.

The assassin’s plan for escape had actually worked?

The disk powered down. Lila gingerly stepped off the platform and glanced around, trying to figure out where the hell she was. An unrecognizable language scrolled across the nearby screens on a display panel. Dammit. This made figuring out where she was ten times harder. Normally, beings sent via transporter were offered a language translation chip, if they needed, in order to smooth out their arrival at their next destination. Obviously, that hadn’t happened in her situation.

Was this a planet, or a space station? There weren’t any windows or portals to let her know. The dimensions weren’t right for a personal-size facility. This had to be a larger, public station, just like the one back home. This meant employees would arrive at opening and find her here, and she’d be busted because transporter travel was strictly regulated in the four sectors. She had to get out of here.

No one back home knew where she was. Even the female who’d sent her didn’t know where she’d ended up. Step one of the plan had worked. Now she