Nathan grunted. “Do you have many Atlantean friends?”
Gates stared, unspeaking for a long moment. “If you have questions about Cass, maybe you should ask him, not me.”
“I would,” Nathan said. “But unfortunately, someone took his head last night.”
Gates’s mouth moved soundlessly. He swallowed then. “Wha—what are you saying?”
“Cassian Gray is dead. He was attacked and killed outside La Notte.”
“Dead.” Gates’s face went white. “He worried that he’d risked too much. Stayed in the city too long. He was fearful when I saw him the other day. That didn’t seem like Cass.”
There was shock in the Breed male’s voice, and true grief as well. He’d lost a friend, and it took him a moment to process what he’d just heard.
Then a new shock seemed to overtake him. There was an even greater hush to the Darkhaven vampire’s voice. “Ah, Christ … Jordana. I must see Jordana right away. Cass made me promise, should this day ever come …”
Nathan exchanged a look with Sterling Chase. “What about Jordana?”
“Where is she?” Gates asked, a franticness creeping into his voice. “Dammit, I have to get out of here.” Gates rose, his muscles tensing as if he were about to bolt for the door. “I have to talk to Jordana right now. I need to make sure she’s safe.”
Chase stepped in, scowling as he faced Gates. “What the hell does any of this have to do with her?”
The Darkhaven male turned a troubled look on them. “My God,” he breathed. “You really had no idea, did you? My friendship with Cass, the business partnership. It was all about her. Jordana is Cassian Gray’s child.”
23
JORDANA STOOD IN THE CENTER OF THE MUSEUM LOBBY, PARALYZED, watching in a state of numbed detachment—of staggering, surreal shock—as her father was taken away and the exhibit party abruptly ended, all of her guests scattering in the Order’s wake.
There were whispers and curious, pitying glances as people hurried out. A few murmured reassurances that it must be some kind of mistake, just a terrible misunderstanding that Martin Gates could have somehow run afoul of Lucan Thorne and his warriors.
Jordana wanted to believe that.
She wanted to believe Nathan would come back any moment and tell her it was a joke or a bad dream—anything to alleviate the ragged hurt inside her.
A hurt that told her this was no mistake.
Her father hadn’t acted like an innocent man. He’d fought and fumed with a desperation that had made Jordana’s heart quake as she watched Nathan take him away.
Jordana had never seen him like that before, so terrified and combative. As though he knew he had something awful to hide.
As for Nathan … the hurt Jordana felt tonight was all the worse when she thought of him.
Had she been wrong to get so close to him?
Could her father have been the reason Nathan had shown any interest in her?
Nathan told her from the start that he wasn’t the kind of man she might have wanted him to be. He’d told her that as recently as last night.
By his own description, once locked on a target, he pursued, he conquered. Then he moved on, never looking back.
Oh, God.
Jordana felt physically ill. Had he used her to buy the Order necessary time or opportunity to go after her father?
Was that all she’d been to Nathan—a means to an end?
He hadn’t pretended to be anything other than what he said he was: a warrior, a Hunter. Jordana had fallen in love with him anyway.
Last night she thought she’d seen a different side of him. A tender side, as though he’d let down some of his armor and shown her the wounded, noble man behind the forbidding wall of impenetrable stone and cold, cutting steel he reserved for the rest of the world.
At the party tonight, and during their stolen passion in her office, Jordana had felt as if she were seeing Nathan in a way no one else ever had. He’d made her feel special, as though she meant something to him.
As though he might even have loved her too.
Had it all been a facade meant to lull her into trusting him further?
Could he and the Order have been plotting to spring some kind of trap for her father with her as the unwitting bait?
It staggered her to think so.
Her heart wanted to reject the idea outright, but doubt ran like oil in her veins.
“How are you doing, sweetie?” Carys’s heels clicked lightly on the marble as she came out to the lobby, turning off the museum lights behind her as she approached. “Everyone’s gone now, and I’ve closed up. Come on, let’s get you home.”
“No.” Jordana numbly shook her head. “No, I don’t want to go home. I want to see my father. I want to see Nathan. I need to know if what happened tonight was his plan all along.”
Carys’s brows pinched in a mild frown. “Jordana, you have to know Nathan would never—”
“I don’t know anything anymore,” she replied hotly, hurting so badly she thought her chest might crack open. “I need my father to tell me what he’s done. I need Nathan to tell me that he hasn’t been using me, playing me as part of his mission for the Order. I need to know if the two men I care most about in this world have been lying to me this whole time.”
When Carys reached out with a touch meant to soothe, Jordana wrenched away from her. “I’m going there now. I can’t stand by another minute without knowing the truth.”
“Jordana, wait.”
Ignoring her friend’s plea, she started across the lobby, heading for the exit at a brisk pace.