The second the elevator doors opened and Peter saw Merchant’s face he knew the news wasn’t good. Merchant was serious and calm, his usual irreverent smirk nowhere to be seen, and judging from the dark circles under his eyes he was tired to the bone.
Peter clenched his fists and tried to suppress the look of fury he knew was settling on his face. By the way Merchant hesitated before stepping out of the elevator, Peter knew that he wasn’t successful.
“Come inside,” he ordered, turning around and leading the way back into the penthouse. Merchant followed, the sound of his boots unusually quiet on the polished stone floor of the foyer. Peter led him into the study and sat down behind his desk, forcing his hands to unclench and taking a deep breath to calm himself down.
Merchant didn’t take the seat facing Peter’s desk, coming to a stop behind it instead. Feet shoulder-width apart, he had his hands clasped behind his back, standing ramrod straight like he was back in boot camp and waiting to face his drill instructor. Under any other circumstance Peter would have found it funny.
“Tell me what you’ve got,” Peter said when he felt like he was in control of his own anger.
“Nothing substantial,” Merchant started, admitting his failure right off the bat. He paused for a second, like he was expecting Peter to say something, but Peter just gestured for him to continue. He already knew that the news wasn’t good. There was no point in dragging it out. Merchant licked his lips before continuing. “The alpha driving the car was named Stan Devlin. He was an independent contractor, mostly specializing in kidnapping and assassination, but we don’t know who hired him yet.”
Peter frowned. “Why not?”
“He was good at his job,” Merchant said, like it pained him to admit it. “We’ve actually used him a few times ourselves.”
Peter blinked. That was the last thing he’d expected to hear.
“Explain,” he commanded.
Merchant took a deep breath, his stiff posture giving way to something more agitated as he crossed his arms defensively.
“A guy like Devlin doesn’t work directly with his clients. Everything is routed through a third party. He probably didn’t even know who the real client was. The whole thing is set up so that whoever hired him is untouchable.” Merchant looked frustrated.
“And do we know the intermediate who arranged Chad’s kidnapping?” he asked.
Merchant shook his head. “No. They communicated with burner phones, and Dawn hasn’t been able to track the origin of any of the recent transfers into his account. The only mistake he made was using an outdated cell phone jammer.”
Peter didn’t like this. When it had seemed like Chad’s kidnapped was incompetent, that was one thing, but that someone who actually knew what they were doing was after Chad… that was terrifying.
Peter wasn’t used to feeling scared.
“Whatdowe know?” he asked, trying to push down the unfamiliar feeling.
“We know how he knew where Chad was going to be, and where he got his picture.” Merchant reached into his pocket and retrieved a folded up piece of paper, stretching his arm out across the desk and handing it to Peter.
Curious, Peter unwrapped the paper. It turned out to be two sheets folded together. The first was a printout of Chad’s Facebook page, specifically a post where Chad and his friend had apparently had an entire conversation on a public post. Chad had relayed everything from his flight number to how he assumed Peter would send a car during the course of the conversation. Peter looked up at Merchant, who didn’t look amused.
“You might want to have a talk with him about privacy settings and the internet,” Merchant said. There was no humor in his voice, and Peter’s brows pulled down in a severe frown.
Sometimes Chad frustrated him. It should be common sense to limit accessibility to your social media to your friends, never mind keeping conversations away from your public pages. Then again, it would probably never occur to Chad that anyone would ever have any interest in that information.
“I’ll talk to him,” he promised, putting the page down on his desk and looking at the next printout. He blinked, simply staring at the page in shock while he tried to figure out how this could have happened. It was a wedding announcement for him and Chad.
“Devlin had both of those in his apartment,” Merchant said when the silence dragged on.
Peter looked up, immediately understanding the implications of what Merchant was saying. If Devlin had worked for Tank Security, there was no way he didn’t know who Peter was. It meant that he’d taken the job knowing full well whose mate he was trying to steal.
Peter was glad he’d killed him. He pictured the way the bullet had sunk into the other man’s skull, reliving the satisfaction.
Except, he really shouldn’t have killed him. Devlin was their only lead, and Peter had made sure he’d never talk. If he’d shot to wound rather than to kill, chances were that they would know by now who had tried to take Chad—and more importantly,why.
“Fuck it!” Peter slammed his fist down on his desk. Merchant jumped, sweat beading on his brow at Peter’s display of temper.
“I’m sorry,” the unusually rattled alpha said, sounding hoarse. Peter snarled, but then pulled himself together with some effort. It wasn’t Merchant’s fault that Peter had fucked up, and Peter had no doubt that Merchant had done everything he could to find the answers Peter was looking for.
“It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have killed him,” Peter said, gritting his teeth at the loaded words. Merchant wisely didn’t say anything. Peter looked up, noticing again just how tired Merchant looked. “Go home and get some rest. You can keep working tomorrow.”
Merchant nodded, looking relieved. Peter watched as he exited the office, his failure no doubt rankling regardless of how much of a roadblock Peter had foolishly put in his path.
