by Adrian, Lara
Rafe grunted. “Where’d he go, anyway? Looked like he had serious business to take care of with someone.”
“Did it?”
When she didn’t respond any more than that, he decided to take a different tack. Exhaling a sigh, he turned his head to look out at the city lights competing with the stars and moon overhead. “This view must cost some bank, eh? What’d Fish say the guy’s name was who owns the place?”
No one had mentioned the penthouse owner’s name to him, and unfortunately the cagey brunette staring holes in his skull wasn’t even tempted to take the bait. He glanced at her and was met with a narrowed stare.
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“What can I say? I’m naturally curious.”
And if he had to use his Breed powers to trance the woman in order to get those answers, he wasn’t above stooping to do that right here and now.
Earlier tonight at the tavern, he’d considered her attractive. Now, with only a few feet to separate them in the secluded corner of the moonlit terrace, he realized just how inadequate the term was in describing her.
Her face was lovely, creamy skin accentuating a delicate bone structure and lips the color of a dark, dusky rose. Her warm bourbon-hued eyes were too large for her face and infinitely expressive—even when Rafe was certain she was doing her best to shut him out.
All of that beauty was framed by a mane of thick, rich brown waves that tumbled over her shoulders and down her rigid spine. The glossy strands gleamed like silk under the starlight, a mesmerizing contrast against the studded black leather of her biker’s jacket.
The woman herself was a study in contrasts, right down to her voice, which was measured and sophisticated, a sexy purr that stroked over his senses more than he cared to admit.
When she let the silence lengthen between them, he stepped closer and took a seat on the bench. “I’m Rafe, by the way.”
“I know who you are.” She tilted her head and studied him. “I heard one of the Order warriors call you that back at Asylum.”
He gave her a grim nod. “What about you? Is Brinks your last name or something?”
“Just a name.”
It wasn’t exactly an answer, and she obviously wasn’t in the mood for sharing.
He didn’t know what he’d done to trigger her animosity—aside from having been born Breed. Her comments back at Asylum left no question that she wasn’t going to make it easy for him to establish any kind of footing in Cruz’s gang.
If he thought he was going to win her over with a few smiles and some small talk, he’d apparently overestimated his charm. Or underestimated her instant dislike for him.
He was in uncharted territory now. Blessed with a combination of his mother’s golden looks and his father’s bulk and swagger, Rafe was accustomed to having the undivided attention of any female he wanted.
Not this one.
And damn if that didn’t make him all the more determined to find out why.
“So, you and Cruz. You together?”
“As in a couple? No.” She denied it so fast it might as well have been a scoff. “Why? Do you assume because I’m female I must be sleeping with him? Or maybe you think they’re all sharing me?”
An instant, uninvited image of her being passed between those four rough men filled his mind before he could stop it. He had no right to feel the spike of aggression, of protectiveness, that swept through him on the heels of that unwelcome possibility.
He shook his head, if only to dislodge the vision. “Just trying to understand the situation.”
And yeah, he wanted to know why a beautiful, clearly intelligent woman like her was wasting time hanging around a criminal element like Cruz and his pals. If not out of personal involvement, then what brought her to them?
What made her protective of Cruz and his criminal endeavors when Rafe wasn’t sure she even liked the man?
Or was it her own secrets she was trying to protect?
The whole reason he was there was to find out if the gang had a connection to Opus Nostrum, and, if so, who was at the other end of the string. That meant no one could be above suspicion. For all he knew, he might be looking at that connection right now.
As if sensing his increased scrutiny of her, she glanced away from him and didn’t look back. “I’m not with Cruz or anyone else. I don’t mix business with pleasure.”
Rafe grunted. “Smart policy. So, what kind of business are we talking about?”
“We aren’t. You’re the only one who keeps talking.”
“Must be lucrative,” he pressed. “Maybe there’s room for me in there somewhere.”
“There’s not.”
Something resembling fear flashed across her face in the instant she swung her head around to look at him. But she tamped it down just as quickly, shuttering her expression.
Rafe believed she wasn’t involved with Cruz or any of the other men in his gang, but he wasn’t buying for a second that her defensiveness had anything to do with loyalty to them. Her reaction right now was personal.
And so was her desperation to get away from him and his questions.
Because she was hiding something.
Lying about something.
Hell, right now he wasn’t sure he could believe anything that was coming out of her pretty mouth.
That didn’t mean he was ready to accept that fact and walk away. Far from it.
Sensing her secrecy only made him want to peel her apart layer by layer until he was satisfied he had the answers he needed. Whether he did that by charm, force, or some other means to his advantage, he damn well didn’t care. All that mattered was his mission.
Until he had a name or a face that would lead him to Opus Nostrum’s inner circle, everything else was just a matter of clearing obstacles.
Even if they were beautiful ones like her.
Hell, especially then.
She swung her legs off the bench and abruptly stood up. “This conversation is over. You want to know anything about Cruz or his business, ask him yourself.”
She started to walk away. Using preternatural speed, Rafe moved off the bench and planted himself in front of her before she had taken her next breath.
She sucked in the gulp of air on a gasp, her big eyes going even wider as he blocked her path. He needed honest answers and he didn’t have the patience to risk waiting for them.
Which meant he was going to have to trance her and take the truth from her.
He reached for her arm and she flinched out of his hold on a curse. “Get out of my way.”
Her voice was a low, dangerous growl. And she was strong. His fingers had clasped nothing but pure, lean muscle in that brief moment of contact. There was more power in her than he would ever have imagined possible in a human.
Unless . . .
Rafe reeled back from her, scowling. “What the fuck?”
“Heeey, man!” Fish’s drunken greeting announced him as he approached their tension-wrought corner of the terrace. “There you two are. I’ve been looking all over for you, Rafe.”
He had a pair of giggling women under his arms, and a bottle of beer sloshing precariously in his hand. His shirt was still torn and stained from the gunshot he’d survived, but his companions didn’t seem to mind.
“Here, I brought something for ya.” Fish shoved one of the women at him.
As soon as Rafe’s attention was diverted, Brinks ducked away, as slippery as a ghost.
Biting off a tight curse under his breath, he watched her vanish into the crowd.
He wasn’t going to find her again tonight. She would make certain of that now.
But she couldn’t avoid him forever.
He wasn’t going anywhere. Not until he’d unraveled all of Cruz’s secrets . . . and hers.
“Come on, man.” Fish clapped him on the back. “These chicks have never partied with one of the Breed before.”
“Is that right?” Rafe grinned, totally disinterested. “Then let’s go back insi
de so I can show them what they’ve been missing.”
CHAPTER 4
Sunrise came early, especially considering he only made it home to his shitty rental in Southie a couple of minutes before the first rays began to break through the dark.
Rafe pushed open the door of the dumpy studio apartment and stepped inside. “Home, crap home.”
The unit on ground level of the old triple-decker boasted few windows, all of them covered in state-of-the-art ultraviolet-blocking shades. It was one of the first improvements he made his first night in the place.
The other upgrade he’d added was just as essential.
Bypassing the fold-down Murphy bed in the living room, Rafe walked into the kitchen where a cabinet with a false facade concealed a computer workstation. He stared blearily into the retina scanner, then waited for a moment as the device launched an encrypted, highly secured connection to the Order’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Gideon’s face filled the screen. Sharp blue eyes shaded by similarly tinted, round glasses stared back at Rafe from under the spiky crown of the Breed male’s short blond hair. “Christ, about time you reported in. You look like roadkill, by the way.”
Rafe grunted at the warrior who was also his godfather. “Good morning to you, too.”
As Gideon’s fingers clattered over a keyboard on the other end, Rafe’s screen split to accommodate the other two Order elders who were looped in on the call.
Lucan Thorne’s expression was grim, his black hair accentuating the harsh angles of the Gen One’s face. In the other video window, Sterling Chase looked equally sober. Both the Order’s leader and the Boston commander peered at Rafe like disapproving fathers.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Chase demanded.
Lucan seemed equally pissed off. “This debriefing was supposed to happen more than four hours ago, son.”
Rafe reeled back at the undue reprimands. “If I hadn’t still been in the field and undercover until now, it would have. Sirs.”
What the hell? It wasn’t like any of the Order’s chiefs to lay into a warrior for simply doing his job. Rafe knew he had some ground to make up after the way he’d screwed up in Montreal, but this kind of micromanagement was ridiculous.
“All due respect, but if any of you feel you can’t trust me to undertake this mission, you should’ve said so up front.”
Chase bit off a curse. “That’s not it, Rafe.”
“You sure? Then what the fuck is it . . . sir?”
Lucan lowered his chin, a wry glimmer seeping into his stormy gray gaze. “You’ve got your father’s blood running through your veins, no doubt about that.”
But his deep voice was oddly sober.
And Rafe still didn’t know what this was about.
“We’re dealing with a . . . situation on our end,” Lucan said. “It has nothing to do with you or your mission, and, frankly, until we get our arms around it I want to keep it contained.”
Rafe wasn’t going to press. Judging from the look of gravity in the Order leader’s eyes, whatever it was had not only him concerned but the other two males as well.
Chase cleared his throat. “Now that you’re here, Rafe, tell us how things went last night. I understand Eli and Jax walked in cold on the operation at Asylum. Shitty timing. Sorry about that.”
Rafe shrugged. “Under the circumstances, I can’t say I was happy to see them. But it actually couldn’t have worked out better.”
He explained what had happened, and how he’d gained crucial credibility with the leader, Cruz, and the others by healing the wounded gang member.
“They invited me with them to this place.” He typed in the address of the building where the party was held, and an area map came up on their displays with the high-rise highlighted.
A moment later, Gideon had scoured the internet and assembled a full dossier on the owner, which displayed onscreen. “Judah LaSalle. Age thirty-two. Single. Sole heir to a French billionaire industrialist. No less than a dozen residences around the world, not counting a megayacht he purchased last year from a Saudi prince for a cool two-hundred million.”
Lucan’s brow furrowed. “This guy Cruz has interesting taste in friends.”
“Or is it the other way around?” Chase asked.
Those were questions Rafe had been asking himself all night. “Cruz and the others like expensive toys too. They’ve got a few hundred grand tied up in their vehicles and that’s only the start, based on what I was able to get out of a couple of them last night after the drinks had been flowing for a few hours. Hopefully, I’ll have the chance to squeeze them for something more substantial soon. I told Fish, the guy I healed, that money’s been tight since the Order gave me the ax and I’m looking for something to do. We’ll see if they take the bait.”
“What about LaSalle?” Lucan asked. “Any reason to think he might be part of Cruz’s band of merry men?”
“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.