“Understood and agreed,” Chase replied. He hesitated for a moment, then pointedly cleared his throat. “There was a witness … not on scene at the time of the killing, but someone who saw Cass—spoke to him—within hours of his murder.”
Lucan frowned. “You didn’t mention that a witness had been identified in the team’s reports.”
Another pause, and Chase’s mouth flattened. “Because she wasn’t included in any of the field reports that Nathan or his team filed. Rafe came to me a short while ago and personally informed me about the female. She’s a Breedmate from one of the Back Bay Darkhavens. Actually, she’s Carys’s best friend and roommate as well.”
Hunter cocked his head, eyes narrowed on Chase. “You’re saying Nathan overlooked a key detail of his investigation? He doesn’t make mistakes. That’s impossible.”
“No,” the Boston commander said carefully. “I’m saying Nathan deliberately omitted a key detail of his investigation when he sent in his report this morning.”
Lucan practically snarled his response. “Why the hell would he do something that stupid?”
Chase’s look said it all.
“Ah, Christ.” Lucan ran a hand over his jaw and barked out a humorless laugh. “He’s f**king her?”
“Nathan didn’t report back to base from patrol until just before sunrise,” Chase explained. “I don’t suppose he was out taking a long stroll.”
Lucan shot a hard look at Hunter. “You and Corinne don’t know anything about this?”
The former assassin who’d taken Nathan’s mother as his mate some twenty years ago gave a shake of his head, looking every bit as displeased as Lucan was. “Nathan is our son, but he came to us as a man, even at his young age. He keeps his private life private. That wall has been in place for a very long time. That said, Nathan would never allow his physical urges to overrule his duty. Or his training.”
“I suspect this could be something more than just a physical urge,” Chase interjected. “He’s distracted. Maybe even a bit obsessed. He thinks he’s keeping a lid on it, but the only one he’s fooling is himself.” Tegan chuckled darkly. “He’s hardly the first of us to fit that description.”
“No, he’s not,” Chase agreed. “But if he doesn’t watch his step, he’s going to leave me no choice but to pull him off the mission.”
“Chase is right,” Lucan said. “This shit is too critical. We need every team working as a unit—no exceptions. If Nathan can’t get on board with that, then we regroup and keep moving without him.” Lucan glanced back at Chase on the video screen. “What else do we know about this witness?”
“Her name is Jordana Gates. Her father, Martin Gates, is one of Boston’s most prominent residents. Gates is unmated. He adopted Jordana as an infant.”
Lucan grunted. “Not a typical arrangement, for a single Breed male to take in a Breedmate as his child.”
“Not typical, but not unheard of,” Chase said. “My family has been friendly with Martin Gates since his arrival in Boston from Vancouver a few years before First Dawn. His reputation over those twenty-plus years has been spotless. He made his fortune in the stock market and investments in fine art. As for taking in an orphaned infant to raise on his own, I’ve personally heard Gates say more than once that without blood heirs or family to look after, he felt it a shame to have acquired so much and have no one to share it with. The man is as charitable as he is wealthy. And Martin Gates is very, very wealthy.”
“And Jordana?” Lucan asked.
“A nice girl,” Chase said. “A bright, beautiful woman. She could probably have her pick of any man in the city, Breed or human. For some time, there were rumors that she was involved with a vampire named Elliott Bentley-Squire, Martin Gates’s prominent, longtime attorney and friend. To hear Bentley-Squire talk, it was only a matter of time before they would be mated. Back Bay society rags have been speculating on the match for years.”
“Nothing like dragging a high-profile civilian into the middle of covert Order business,” Lucan muttered under his breath. He crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t know what Nathan thinks he’s doing with this female, or what his intentions might be where she’s concerned. So long as she’s a potential intelligence source, I don’t give a damn about any of that. Our mission is all that matters. We f**k that up, people die, wars happen.”
Lucan glanced to Hunter, who met his comment with a concurring nod. The former assassin’s tone was steady, coolly logical. “Nathan pledged himself in duty to the Order. If he can’t uphold that promise, he will expect nothing less than to have it taken from him.”
“Yeah, that ought to go over well,” Gideon remarked, furiously sifting through what looked to be thousands of digital files and sweeping them off the screen one after another. He slowed after a moment and raked his fingers through the short blond spikes of his hair.
“Holy shit.” He glanced at Lucan and the other warriors over the rims of his ever-present pale blue glasses. “My packet sniffer just encountered a remote back door on one of La Notte’s commerce account firewalls.”
Lucan, along with Chase on video and the other warriors seated in the room, all stared at Gideon in questioning silence.
A grin spread over the vampire hacker’s face. “I found a way in. Once I machete through a few more layers of tangled security and subterfuge, I’ll have all of Cassian Gray’s secrets cracked open like a walnut.”