Free Kissing Steel by Laurann Dohner

read.”
    He looked back at her. “Don’t look away from my eyes and tell me again, this time the
    truth, why you went after the Star .”
    She was surprised that he could tell when she was lying, but he could. “Okay, it’s not
    my job to go into deep space to recover ships but I volunteered for this mission. The
    bonus, if I recovered the Star as lead investigator and recovery agent, was going to be
    huge.”
    He nodded. “The truth. Did you know cyborgs had it?”
    “No.”
    He blinked. “Did you know that there was a chance you’d run into cyborgs out
    here?”
    “I had no idea I’d run into your kind. I thought you were all gone.”
    He frowned. “She’s lying about thinking that we were all dead. She didn’t expect to
    run into us though.” His hold on her tightened slightly, painfully. “Stop lying to me. You
    don’t want to piss me off.”
    Tears filled her eyes. “Okay.”
    “Why the lie? You knew we existed still.”
    38

    Kissing Steel – Laurann Dohner
    She hesitated. “My parents were both military. My father was a guard at the
    detention facilities for ten years. He was harmed in the line of duty and forced behind a
    desk with a leg disability. My mother…”
    He glared at her. “What about your mother? What does she have to do with cyborgs
    and knowing we survived?”
    She blinked back more tears. Pain gripped her chest but it wasn’t from the tight hold
    the man had on her. “My mother shot my father to release the last five prisoners held
    where he worked. She was a cyborg sympathizer. She thought my father was at home that
    night but he’d been called in to cover a shift after she left for the detention center. He was
    a direct guard of a cyborg and when she came face-to-face with him, he tried to talk her
    into not freeing them, believing cyborgs were dangerous.” Her voice lowered. “She shot
    him in the leg to disable him so he wouldn’t die and she escaped with all five prisoners.
    Once she was off Earth she sent a message to her sister, my aunt, and for years she would
    contact me through my aunt to tell me she loved me but she believed in her cause.”
    Rena would have wiped her tears but she had her arms pinned to her sides so they
    just fell down her cheeks untended. “She abandoned me to my father, so yes, I knew you
    survived and existed. She left her two-year-old daughter and her husband to free five
    cyborgs.”
    He blinked, no emotion showing on his features as they stared at each other. “You
    must hate cyborgs for the loss of your mother.”
    She hesitated. “No. I don’t. I did when I was a kid because my father hated cyborgs
    and blamed them for the loss of his wife, but my aunt was a sympathizer and explained
    the truth to me. Cyborgs were victims and my mother did what she thought was right,
    risking her happiness to do what she believed in. I respect that.”
    Something softened in the man’s gaze. “She’s telling the truth.” His hold on her
    eased slightly. “Tell me about what was done to the detained cyborgs.”
    “Each was implanted with a chip when they processed them into the detention
    centers. The chip can send out a current to their brain to knock them out and disable any
    other chips, forcing them to stay down for ten minutes, and then rebooting them. My
    father told me the code words, making me remember them as a kid.”
    “Why would he do that?”
    She hesitated. “I think he was afraid my mother would send a cyborg after me to
    kidnap me from Earth. He knew she was with those five men she freed so he figured
    she’d send a cyborg to take me to her. He wanted me to be able to defend myself by
    being able to say the words to knock him out so I could run to safety by the time he
    woke.”
    Gene frowned. “Did one ever come after you?”
    She shook her head. “No. Never.”
    He blinked a few times. “Are you planning on killing any cyborgs?”
    “No.” She frowned at him. “I’m not a killer.”
    He turned his head, meeting