“They’ve got business together, no doubt about that,” Rafe said. “Cruz disappeared into a closed-door meeting with him almost as soon as we arrived. He stayed in there for a couple of hours before LaSalle left the party with his bodyguards.”
“Any idea what was discussed?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, find out. And if we need to put dedicated eyes on Judah LaSalle, we’ll make that happen.” Lucan paused, staring at Rafe for a moment. “Healing that gangbanger in the bar was quick thinking. And now we’ve got this new lead to run down too. If this mission turns up even one additional lead in our hunt for Opus Nostrum’s inner circle, it will be more than we’ve had in months. Good work. We couldn’t do any of this without you.”
Rafe hadn’t been expecting praise. Nor was he prepared for how deeply it impacted him to hear Lucan Thorne express his gratitude, his trust.
He wasn’t worthy of it.
But he would be one day.
He would make sure he redeemed himself in everyone’s eyes, even if it cost him his last breath.
“I’m not going to rest until we’re able to unmask every one of those Opus bastards,” he vowed to the three Order elders.
And he wasn’t going to let anything—or anyone—stand in his way.
His thoughts went back to the leggy brunette with the face of an angel. The woman who had as much coiled power in her as she had attitude. And that was saying a lot.
In truth, she hadn’t been far from his mind all night.
“They’ve got a female running with them,” Rafe said. “They call her Brinks.”
Gideon frowned. “We’re not aware of a woman being part of the gang.”
“Well, she is. And she sure as hell doesn’t want me around. I tried to get information out of her, but she stonewalled me at every turn. She made it clear she doesn’t want me hanging around.”
Chase’s eyes narrowed. “You think she’s on to you?”
Rafe shrugged. “I don’t think so. I think her problem is something personal.”
He wasn’t ready to voice all of his thoughts about her yet, least of all the one that had been haunting him since he clashed with her on the rooftop.
All of his warrior instincts were telling him she wasn’t what she seemed.
All of his Breed instincts were telling him something even more troubling.
She was an immortal. Probably not Atlantean, since members of that race didn’t react to spilled blood the way she had at Asylum. Which only left one other possibility.
And that possibility not only raised a hell of a lot of questions, but put him at a risky disadvantage if he meant to embed himself as one of Cruz’s gang.
In Rafe’s grim silence, Lucan studied him. “Figure the woman out, get her story. Report back with your findings next time we talk.”
“Yes, sir.”
It was a command Rafe intended to pursue with ruthless determination.
And if she continued pushing back on him or impeded his mission, he would take whatever steps necessary to remove her from his path.
~ ~ ~
The tea kettle whistled, the sharp complaint piercing Devony’s daydream as she stood in the kitchen of her brownstone in Boston’s affluent Back Bay.
Although to call her dark thoughts a daydream was far from apt.
She hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours after coming home last night. Every time she closed her eyes, her mind flooded with images of the Breed warrior, Rafe. She couldn’t shake the memory of all his probing questions, or the jab of dread she’d felt when he grabbed for her on the terrace and she saw the flash of confusion in his aquamarine eyes.
That instant flicker of suspicion . . . and dawning realization.
He knew.
He knew she wasn’t human. Whether or not he’d guessed she was Breed or something close to it, she couldn’t be sure.
Devony didn’t stick around to find out. She hadn’t been able to get away from him fast enough. She’d fled the penthouse party for home, and for the rest of the night she worried about what he might say to Fish or the others.
She still worried now, because if he had given Cruz or anyone else a reason to doubt her, it would undo everything.
All her hard work and planning. All the sacrifices she’d made to get even this far.
All the promises she’d made through bitter tears and a seemingly bottomless pain.
Devony steeled herself to the anguish that still had a firm hold on her. Taking the kettle off the heat, she fixed herself a cup of strong tea and carried it through the spacious first floor of the Darkhaven.
The brownstone was hers now, but had been in her family for decades. She had lived in it on her own while attending university in Boston the past two years. Her plans for a career in music were over now, although that was the least thing she missed. She hadn’t stepped foot in her classes in months, but she stayed in the old house because she couldn’t bear to return home to London.
Not after what had happened.
Not until she had upheld her vow to make it right, to make someone pay.
Maybe she wouldn’t even return then.
In the grand, bookshelf-lined study her father’s carved oak desk stood like an immense, unbreakable sentry. Fitting, considering she’d always thought of him in much the same way. Her protector, her champion, her shining knight.
She smiled wistfully, picturing him in the room that was filled with so many of his cherished treasures. His books and collectibles, his chessboard where he used to patiently teach her and her brother about logic and strategy and the patience required to win a war. Across from the big desk hung a painted portrait of her beautiful, dark-haired mother, a piece he’d had commissioned especially for that very spot on his study wall so he could see his beloved mate even when their work kept them apart.
Devony’s gaze sought out another picture, the framed family photograph on the edge of her father’s old desk. It greeted her in this room each morning, a reminder of those better times.
Devony pressed her fingertip to her lips, then touched each of the three smiling Breed faces that surrounded her in the photo. Her handsome, ginger-haired father, Roland Winters. Her daywalker mother, Camilla. And her older brother, Harrison, who’d also been born a daywalker, just like Devony.
They were all the family she’d had. She let her fingers rest on the cold glass that covered them.
“I love you,” she whispered in the emptiness of the room.
Then she slid her hand beneath the edge of the desk and pushed the button that was concealed on the underside.
One of the enormous built-in bookcases opened silently on its hinges. Behind it was a room her father had designed as a security feature of the large home. The hidden space had been constructed during the time not long after the Breed’s existence had been revealed to mankind. Back when wars between the races had been a terrifying new normal.
Daytime raids on Breed households by humans afraid of their night-dwelling neighbors were epidemic. Retaliations were brutal and blood-soaked.
Those wars that followed First Dawn had been mostly extinguished in the twenty years that passed since then, thanks in no small part to the work of the Order. The law enforcement officers of the Joint Urban Security Taskforce Initiative Squad around the world had helped too.