“Oh, my God.” She grabbed the photo and peered more closely. “Aric. There he is.”
“Are you serious?”
She nodded vigorously, her finger trembling as she pointed to a half-obscured face standing among the wedding guests behind her and Aric. The squatty, dark-haired man had an unremarkable face but Kaya would know his build and carriage anywhere.
“It’s him. Mercier’s Opus contact.”
Across the kitchen, Rafe uttered an excited curse. “Let me see.” He and Siobhan both came over to look at the image. “Who am I looking for?”
“Right here,” Aric said, marking the place in the photo as he handed it to his comrade.
Then all of his attention returned to Kaya. “You did it. You found him.”
As excited as she was, she shook her head, loathe to take the credit when their task was far from finished. “I only found his face. We still don’t know his name.”
“We will.” Aric tapped his temple. “You leave that to me . . . partner.”
Before she could say another word, he caught her face in his palms and claimed her mouth in a slow, bone-melting kiss. Kaya didn’t fight it. Not even close. Looping her arms around his neck, she kissed him back with all of the desire and emotion--all of the love--she’d been trying so desperately to deny.
Dimly, distantly, she registered that Rafe and Siobhan no longer stood near them. And then she realized why, when someone pointedly cleared his throat just inside the room.
Someone that wasn’t Rafe and certainly wasn’t Siobhan, either.
Alarmed, Kaya squirmed, but Aric took his sweet time letting go of her.
When he finally did, his beautiful green eyes danced with bright flecks of amber. He swiveled his head to greet the new arrivals, his fanged smile utterly unapologetic.
She glanced toward the entrance of the kitchen too. Standing there were two couples. There was no mistaking the air of authority--and lethal danger--that radiated from the Breed males, both the handsome, golden-haired one in a crisp white shirt and dark jeans and the devilishly good looking brunet who stood beside his well-dressed comrade wearing a lot of sleek black leather and a pair of long, curved daggers sheathed on his belt.
The two Breedmates at their sides were equally stunning for different reasons, each blessed with incredible beauty and a strength that seemed to emanate from deep within.
Aric rose, taking Kaya’s hand to bring her up with him from their embarrassing clinch on the floor. He smiled at the tall female with caramel-brown hair and eyes the same spring leaf green as his own. Then he tipped his head in greeting to the golden male at the beauty’s side.
“Hey, Mom. Hello, Father. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
CHAPTER 21
“Lars Scrully,” Aric said, dropping a passport photograph and a folder of intel he’d assembled for the four Order commanders gathered with Nikolai in his private office.
The group of Order elders presented an imposing picture, even seated as they were around Niko’s large desk, engaged in sober conversation. Gabrielle Thorne and Aric’s mother Tavia were also in the room, seated together on an oversized sofa near the fireplace. The other warriors’ Breedmates and the rest of the mansion’s occupants were catching up elsewhere in the compound with Kaya and Mira and the Montreal team while Renata continued to rest with the baby.
“Scrully wasn’t on the wedding guest list, nor in any of the gate check security data Gideon’s hacking provided us. But we’ve got the son of a bitch.” Aric gestured to the file of intel he’d collected in the twenty minutes since Kaya had ID’d the squat, dark-haired man in the reception photo. “I knew I’d seen his face somewhere before,” he told the group of warrior elders. “There were some news stories from eighteen months ago when Lars Scrully inherited his father’s pharmaceutical empire.”
“Scrully Pharmaceuticals?” Tavia asked, her distaste for the name evident in her tone. “That’s the company that came under fire several years ago for acquiring expired patents on antivirals, cancer treatment drugs, and other medicines, then jacking up their prices by five-thousand percent. People literally died because they couldn’t afford to pay his exorbitant prices.”
Aric nodded, unsurprised that his mother would be the one to mention that fun fact. If his gift for recollection was flawless, it was only because it was handed down to him through her powerful DNA.
“That’s the one,” he confirmed. “Lars’s father, Simon Scrully, made a fortune off the backs of other people’s suffering.” Aric pulled out a printed obituary and laid it on top of the folder. “The old man had a severe allergy to shellfish. Apparently, someone forgot to tell the new chef at his favorite restaurant. Scrully ate a bite of lobster sauce on his pasta and dropped dead of anaphylactic shock before anyone could administer his medicine to counteract it.”
Dante let out a wry chuckle. “Ironic way to go, considering how the asshole got rich in the first place.”
“Or convenient,” Aric’s father said. “Now that I’m hearing this, I recall some rumors about the old man’s death. Some of the gossip at the time seemed to suggest Scrully’s son settled into his inheritance with a bit more glee than grief.”
Aric nodded. “That’s right. And he’s been spending money like water ever since. Expensive toys and women. Palatial homes. In fact, just three months ago, he moved into a newly built twenty-thousand square-foot lake estate here in the province.”
Nikolai frowned. “And thanks to Kaya, we also know Scrully was making arrangements to pay a cool hundred million to Stephan Mercier on behalf of Opus Nostrum.”
“Right,” Aric replied. “The question is, in exchange for what?”
