"No, I didn't," Dante replied, not rising to his bait at all. "I've been next door, sitting with Tess while she's recovering."
"Tess is in the infirmary?" Recalling the Breedmate's delicate last few weeks of pregnancy, Chase immediately felt like a first-class ass**le. "Ah, Christ, man. I didn't know."
"How could you know? You weren't here."
Chase exhaled a short sigh and nodded in acknowledgment. He couldn't say he didn't deserve this cold reception. After all, he'd done just about everything he could lately to make sure he was persona non grata with the Order. Especially where Dante was concerned. "So, how is she doing? Everything all right with her?"
"Yeah. Tess is fine." Dante gave a faint incline of his head. "So is the baby. He's resting next door with her."
Tess gave birth already? The news flash hit Chase with double barrels. He couldn't hold back his surprise, or the regret that slapped him to realize he'd been absent for the event Dante and Tess had been looking forward to for many long months. Hell, he'd been pretty damned eager about the whole thing himself. He'd even wondered on more than one occasion if Dante had been thinking about asking him to be godfather to his son, an honor Chase was hardly worthy of, but one he would have accepted with humbled pride at one time.
A million years ago.
And now a million miles out of his reach.
That's what it all felt like to him, looking at the other warrior's grave, disappointed expression as he approached the bed where Chase was shackled. "Well, congratulations, Dante. To you and Tess both," he said. "When did the baby come?"
"Yesterday morning, a few minutes before noon."
Chase guessed, "So, what is that, December tenth?"
"Seventeenth," Dante replied, his look going even more grim than before. "Shit, Harvard. How bad is it for you now? I mean seriously. Don't bullshit me."
"Bad," Chase admitted. His throat was parched, voice little better than a rough growl.
"But I can handle it. I'd handle it a lot better if I wasn't strapped down to this damned bed like a criminal." He lifted his fisted hands as far as the steel manacles would allow. Which wasn't much at all.
"Not gonna happen," Dante said soberly.
Chase grunted. "Doctor's orders?"
"Lucan's orders. It took some convincing for him to even let Niko and Renata bring you inside after Mira found you. Didn't help matters that your face has been plastered all over the news as some kind of goddamn nutjob domestic terrorist." Dante exhaled a curse. "What'd you do, pose for pictures before you lost your mind and started shooting up the senator's Christmas party last night?"
"What are you talking about?"
"They've ID'd you, man. There was an eyewitness who provided your description to law enforcement and the freaking Secret Service. Whoever saw you nailed your face down to the last pore and whisker. They've been running the artist's sketch on every network and cable channel ever since."
"Shit," Chase muttered, remembering the laser-intense stare of the senator's attractive assistant when she'd spotted him up in the gallery of the ballroom. "It couldn't be helped, Dante. And it doesn't matter that I've been made. Dragos was there. He was trying to get close to the senator and the vice president. He's targeted both of them."
Dante went quiet, studying him as if he wasn't sure Chase could be believed. "You saw Dragos at the senator's party? You're sure of this?"
"Goddamn right, I'm sure. I watched the senator introduce him to the vice president in the middle of a ballroom full of humans. When I saw them walking off to a private meeting, I saw my shot and I took it."
Dante raked his hand through his dark hair. "You saw Dragos, and you didn't call it in to us? The Order should have been the ones to handle the situation. What the hell were you thinking?"
"One thing I wasn't thinking about was stopping to make a phone call," Chase argued. "I didn't know Dragos was going to be there. I didn't know I was going to be just a few yards away from him - close enough to put a bullet in the son of a bitch and take him down. All I had was a hunch, and I acted on it."
"Jesus, Harvard. This is not good news."
"Are you listening to me?" Chase shouted, anger spiking, adding fuel to the flame of his already tightening blood hunger. "I'm telling you I shot Dragos last night. I saw a bullet hit him dead-on and take him to the floor. For f**k's sake, maybe you should be thanking me instead of crucifying me for not following protocol. I'm telling you there's a damn good chance I killed the bastard."
"Dragos isn't dead," Dante replied soberly. "No one was killed last night. There were reports of a few injuries, but none of them was deemed life-threatening. If Dragos was there, if you shot him like you say you did, then he was able to get up and walk away."
Chase listened, his temples banging with rising fury. "I need to get out of here. I found him once, I can find him again. I can fix this - "
"No, Harvard, you can't. And you're not going anywhere. There's too much at stake for us right now. Lucan wants your ass planted right where it is until he says otherwise."
Chase couldn't bite back his snarl. He was pissed that Dragos had escaped and pissed that Lucan, Dante, or anyone else thought they could hold him against his will. He was getting the message loud and clear that he was no longer part of the Order, and he'd be damned if that meant they could keep him from going after Dragos on his own. He wanted Dragos taken out as much as any of the warriors.
And he had another, equally pressing reason to want to be let loose from his captivity in the compound.