The act stopped the wheels in her head from spinning out of control with the possibilities of either of the men being more than human.
Chapter Eighteen
Rurik watched the home across the street as darkness blanketed the area. Several of the home’s windows were open enough for a man Rurik’s size to easily fit through. It took all of him not to run over and close the windows before securing their locks and possibly installing bars to keep out intruders.
The van from the phone company was back, though it was now parked in front of Liberty’s house. Earlier in the day, it had been farther down the street and had then appeared outside the diner while they’d been eating. It had bothered him then and continued to do so now.
For the past hour he’d been watching the van, letting his imagination run wild with conspiracy theories. The saddest thing was knowing just how many conspiracies were rooted in truth.
Sometimes the government perpetuated rumors and leaked footage or videos, focusing on the internet spots that theorists tended to frequent. The more the conspiracy junkies latched on to what others would see as crazy, the more likely the rest of the world was to think the information was nothing more than the talk of tabloids.
The age-old sleight of hand trick worked well unless the government wasn’t the one doing the releasing of information. Then it was simply mass pandemonium with conspiracy theorists shouting from every platform they could and the government running around like a chicken with its head cut off.
Such had been the case with the recent info dump on the internet about the Immortal Ops Program and its affiliates. The testing that had led to their creation, as well as The Corporation’s Asia Project, had been released to the public.
While Rurik didn’t know a ton about the internet, or what the hell a blog actually was, he knew enough to know the techs at PSI had their hands full trying to contain the mess.
Wasn’t exactly working out for them or anything.
He had to wonder if The Corporation was behind the major data leak. They didn’t seem entirely opposed to the idea of humans knowing supernaturals were real. If they were against it, they had a funny way of showing as much, especially since they’d been known to launch attacks in the view of the public.
That was only one of the reasons Rurik found he couldn’t stop watching the van across the street. A piece of him worried that The Corporation was behind the van being in the vicinity of Liberty so much.
As Rurik continued to watch the house, he realized the movement he’d caught was nothing more than a curtain blowing—no doubt caused by one of the many fans he could see from his vantage point.
The safehouse lacked anything in the way of centralized air but had a number of small window air conditioning units. He wasn’t a fan of them even though he preferred cold weather, especially considering where he’d been born and raised.
Rurik glanced over at the unit he’d removed from the very window he was standing before. It was sitting off in the far corner of the bedroom now.
When he’d gotten back from eating with Liberty, Rurik had tasked Bill with helping him set up surveillance equipment.
Within two short minutes of having Bill lend a hand, Rurik had chased the man off, unable to deal with his endless storytelling combined with his nonstop questions about every bit of gear they’d brought. It hadn’t helped any that Bill continued to point out how wrong it was to spy on Liberty since they’d become fast friends with her.
Rurik knew as much.
He didn’t want to carry out the task, but it was his mission. And it was hardly the first time in his life he’d been forced to go against his better judgment. Though he’d thought those days were long behind him—left in Russia, along with his sordid past.
There was a lot he’d change if given the opportunity. Had he stood up against those in charge back then, he’d not be here now. He’d be dead but with a clear conscience.
Pavel came to mind once more, and Rurik gave up trying to figure out why the man had plagued his thoughts all day. It wasn’t as though he went through his daily life paying any mind to the man at all, let alone fixate on him or think he smelled him.
Something was off.
Rurik couldn’t put his finger on it though. All he knew was that Pavel had gone from an afterthought to someone he couldn’t get out of his head.
Their past was littered with issues. The last time he’d thought of Pavel this much had been twenty years ago today—when he’d smelled the man’s scent on Little Paw, near the wounds on her face.
His nostrils flared thinking back on it all.
If he ever did come face-to-face with his old friend, he’d rip his fucking face off and see how he liked it. Then he’d snap the man’s neck.
He growled.
He took a few deep breaths to get hold of himself before he inadvertently did something like shift forms then and there. The bedroom was decent sized but nowhere near big enough to accommodate an extra-large brown bear.
There were still a couple of hours before midnight, meaning today was still his birthday. While it was a day that he normally gave little in the way of thought to, he couldn’t help but view meeting Liberty as the best gift ever. His day with her had started shakily but ended perfectly. Well, almost perfectly.
It would have been better if Bill and Gus wouldn’t have done their version of matchmaking and chaperoning.
He adjusted the parabolic microphone. It looked like something out of an old science fiction movie rather than a top-end piece of technology issued by a clandestine government agency.
Since Rurik had been forced to sit through more
