Ivy slid her hand up to his heavily muscled shoulder and squeezed. “We are going to do something. We’re going to call John and let him know what’s happening. He’ll tell Zarina and she’ll figure out a way to stop this.”
Landon looked doubtful as he shoved his phone back in his pocket. Ivy didn’t blame him. While the Russian doctor Zarina Sokolov had single-handedly done more to stop the DCO’s secret hybrid research than anyone, this was a tall task to ask.
“She might be able to stop it for now,” Landon agreed. “But like you just said, it’s hard to keep Jayson from doing something he really wants to do. If we stop him this time, what’s to keep him from going back to Dick next time, or the one after that? How do we protect him from himself?”
Even though Jayson’s injury wasn’t Landon’s fault, he blamed himself anyway. He’d sent his friend on the mission that had ended with Jayson getting blown up and ultimately chaptered out of the army. But while Landon wanted to help his friend so badly it hurt, it seemed that every time he tried, it usually resulted in Jayson getting pissed off.
“We can’t,” she said softly. “The only person who has any chance of doing that is Layla.”
“If he’ll even listen to her,” Landon muttered. “It doesn’t sound like things are going too well between them right now.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Ivy’s heart went out to Layla. Her sister had fallen really hard for Jayson. She didn’t even want to think how badly Layla would be crushed if the two of them broke up. “We just have to hope they can make it work, for both their sakes.”
Landon picked up his binoculars and went back to watching Thorn’s place. She and Landon had been immersed in the former senator’s world ever since getting back from Tajikistan two months ago, looking for evidence that would tie him to all the illegal crap that had been going down at the DCO for years, especially with the hybrid program. Unfortunately, they hadn’t found anything in his offices or the dozens of research facilities they’d slipped into over the past few weeks.
The only other place left for them to check was Thorn’s home. Normally, breaking into a private residence wouldn’t be a big deal for her and Landon. B and E was their area of expertise. Unfortunately, getting info on the layout of Thorn’s place had turned out to be harder than they’d thought. They didn’t want to walk in there and set off an alarm on a security system they didn’t even know was there.
“I guess John was right about Thorn’s new hybrid serum being further along than we’d guessed,” Landon said, not taking his eyes off the house.
Ivy frowned as she scanned the roofline. The tile-and-slate roof was seriously steep, and she wasn’t crazy about the idea of traversing it. Hopefully they’d be able to find a better way in.
“Did you really doubt it?” she asked. “If that mysterious shifter Adam told John that Thorn and his new collection of mad scientists got their hands on samples from those hybrids we went up against in Tajikistan, I’m sure they did. That would have given them a big head start.”
A muscle in Landon’s jaw flexed. If he were a shifter, he probably would have growled. They’d been so sure that all the research from Tajikistan—with the exception of the intel they’d collected for John and the one nearly feral female hybrid they’d brought back and put into Zarina’s care—was gone. Powell and Moore must have managed to get Thorn blood samples from those totally badass hybrids over there without anyone knowing it.
“Yeah, well, I get the feeling John knows a lot more than he’s telling us,” Landon muttered.
Ivy didn’t disagree. John had been working closely with Adam and his crew of hidden shifters to find hard evidence on Thorn. Even with Adam around to watch out for John, Ivy wasn’t comfortable with the idea of the director of the DCO putting himself at risk. Thorn wasn’t the kind of man you wanted to mess with.
Movement out of the corner of her eye suddenly caught her attention. She snapped her head around just in time to see someone moving quickly across the rooftop. The person was too lithe and graceful to be anything other than a woman.
“Someone’s on the roof,” she said. “Just to the left of the big chimney.”
Landon turned his binoculars in that direction, immediately locking on the woman as she ran straight up the steep roof without disturbing a tile, then scurried along the top ridge. In less than ten seconds, she’d made it all the way across the mansion and was sliding down the slate toward one of the third-floor windows, through which she promptly disappeared.
“I’ll be damned,” Landon whispered. “I think Thorn is about to get robbed by a shifter.”
Ivy didn’t argue about the shifter part. Even from a distance, the woman’s grace and confidence made it obvious. Ivy wasn’t sure she was a criminal though. “Do you think Adam sent her?”
Landon didn’t take his gaze off the house. “Maybe, but wouldn’t he have told John? Think we should move in for a closer look?”
“No. Let’s watch and see what happens. If she’s one of Adam’s shifters, we’ll get a report on what she finds. If she’s really a thief trying to rob Thorn, we’ll get a chance to see how good his security actually is.”
Ivy only hoped they didn’t shoot first and ask questions later.
* * *
Dreya Clark couldn’t believe how easy it had been to get into the Thorn mansion. After sneaking past perimeter security, cameras, motion and thermal sensors, and the occasional guard, breaking into the house itself had been a joke. Then again, people usually didn’t bother with security alarms anywhere but the first floor. Not that she was complaining. She liked when rich people made it easy for her to steal things. It made taking them that much sweeter, like she was only doing what these rich snobs were begging her to do.
She slipped through the third-floor window and landed lightly on the dark hardwood floor, then stood there, checking the place out with her nose. She immediately pinpointed the location of Thorn and three security guards. They were all on the first floor. Good. Even though that rich bastard had an office downstairs, she was more interested in the private study up here.
She ran down the hallway in that direction, her soft-soled shoes soundless on the floor. Letting herself into the room, she quietly closed the door behind her. As she caught sight of historic Georgetown and the White House just beyond through the big picture window, she had to admit that the view was spectacular.
The room was dark, but her freaky eyes let her see as clearly as if the lights were on. Dreya would have loved to pull an old book off the shelf that covered one wall and curl up in one of the comfy-looking chairs, but she wasn’t there for that. She was there to steal something. Even so, she couldn’t help running her gloved fingers along each book as she made her way past the bookcase. Man, it would have been nice to swipe some of them. Unfortunately, none of her regular fences worked with rare books.
She moved over to check out Thorn’s desk but didn’t find anything interesting, unless you counted a little black book full of names, addresses, usernames, and passwords.
“Mr. Thorn, you silly man. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that you’re not supposed to write down your passwords?” she said softly. “It’s very bad for security.”
