“Nikolai’s already been in contact with headquarters,” Rafe informed him. “He and Gideon are trying to trace the bullet casing you retrieved from the Darkhaven attack to the samples we took from our raid on Fineas Riordan’s place in Dublin last week.”
“They’ll be a match,” Aric said. Every instinct he had told him there was little doubt on that score. “There’s no telling how much of that shit he’d been able to push out to other Opus members before we destroyed his stockpiles. Now, we have to worry that Opus could be putting this kind of firepower into the hands of rebels and hate groups who’ve been itching for the chance to start wiping us out.”
He and Rafe were in the hallway just outside the mansion’s kitchen. The aromas of fresh fruits, baked goods, and coffee wafted out, along with the sounds of female voices. Kaya’s among them.
Rafe detoured without explanation--not that Aric had to guess what drew the warrior into the room. Siobhan sat beside Renata at the counter of the kitchen island, a dainty teacup clutched in her hands. The instant she saw Aric’s friend, her pretty face lit up with an adoring smile.
“Hey, beautiful.” Rafe walked up to her and pressed an intimate kiss below her ear.
Oh, yeah. He was doomed, all right.
As for Aric, he wasn’t sure what to think when his gaze collided with Kaya’s. Still dressed for her run, she stood on the opposite side of the island from Siobhan and Renata, eating an apple. She set down the fruit, looking uncomfortable as he followed Rafe into the kitchen.
“I was just about to go down and find you.”
Her eyes flicked away from him as she spoke. Aric didn’t have her ability to read minds, but he didn’t need it in order to tell that she was avoiding him for some reason. He’d gotten the same sense earlier, but now everything about her body language and anxious gaze said he was just about the last person she wanted to talk to.
Before she had left the command center, he’d been willing to dismiss her withdrawn demeanor as merely aftershocks of the horror they’d encountered at the Darkhaven crime scene. Now, though, he wondered if there was something more he wasn’t seeing.
Maybe her run had given her time enough to regret letting him make love to her.
Hell, he probably ought to regret it, too, but that wasn’t the feeling he had when he looked at her. After reassuring himself for most of the morning that one taste of Kaya’s sweet body would be enough to sate him for the duration of his time in Montreal, he stood there now, riveted to the sight of her flushed cheeks and the pulse that ticked in a frantic rhythm at the base of her throat.
Renata glanced between them, her gaze shrewdly curious. “Are you two making much progress on the photos from the wedding?”
“As of now, we’ve got them narrowed down to a few hundred potentials,” Aric replied. “Assuming we can find Mercier’s Opus contact among the crowds of attendees in the images, all we’ll need to do is run a comparison against the guest list and we’ll have our man.”
“Unless the bastard wasn’t invited,” Rafe said, his fingers toying with a tendril of Siobhan’s strawberry-blonde hair.
“The wedding and reception were locked down as tight as a presidential visit,” Kaya interjected. “No one got through the gate without a thorough security check.”
Aric gave her an ironic look. “Not unless they had someone like Gideon to construct a reasonable cover for them, that is.”
Renata nodded. “And infiltrating an event like that wouldn’t be the boldest thing Opus has ever done. Their loyalists could be anywhere.”
“Even among the security detail at the Rousseau estate,” Rafe pointed out. He glanced at Kaya. “For all we know, that guard who confronted you and shot Aric could have been allegiant to Opus--or working as an operative. That could explain why he said he thought he knew you. The Order’s only been aware of Opus Nostrum for a few weeks, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been studying us for far longer. Maybe they have more intel on the Order and our members than we realize.”
“Maybe,” she answered quietly, giving him a faint shrug.
Renata let out a curse. “It’s one thing for the bastards to come after us. What happened at that Darkhaven today has crossed a hard red line. If it turns out that Opus is putting ultraviolet rounds and weaponry into the hands of rebels or other hate-mongers, then we need to unleash hell on all of them.”
Siobhan glanced up at Rafe. “UV weapons? Oh, my God. What happened today?”
“Something terrible,” he answered gently. “But Opus and the rest of the animals who did it are going to pay--with a lot of blood and death if the Order has anything to say about it.”
As he spoke, Mira strode into the kitchen with Kellan, both of their faces lit with excitement.
“We just got a positive ID on our shredded delivery guy over in Pointe-Claire.” She held up a tablet displaying the face of the human corpse they’d found in the Darkhaven foyer this morning. “Rahul Gales. Or, ‘Repo,’ as he’s more commonly known to both law enforcement and the scumbags he runs with on a regular basis.”
Mira set the device down on the island countertop for everyone to see. Aric scrolled through the collection of mugshots, rap sheets, and other reports documenting a life of poverty, larceny, drug abuse, and assorted hate crimes.
“Do we know anything else about him?”
Kellan nodded. “Last week, Gales got picked up by JUSTIS for selling narcotics down in Dorval. The guy who bailed him out, Angus Mackie, is a real piece of work too. Most of his underlings call him ‘Big Mack.’ He owns a seedy bar in Dorval, a known hangout for gangs and other criminals.”
“Right,” Mira said. “Mackie’s only been in Montreal for the last decade, but he’s got a long record too.”
She touched
