“Hell, no.” Rafe’s reply came out sharper and more defensive than he intended. “Devony’s not actually part of Cruz’s gang. She’s working her own mission, been embedded with them for a couple of months.”
“Embedded,” he said, suspicion rankling his forehead. “You mean as a JUSTIS covert agent?”
“No. She’s a civilian, Lucan. Actually, up until the bombing in London killed her parents and brother, Devony was a music student studying here in Boston. She’s been trying to track down the ones responsible for the attack on the JUSTIS office. She’s looking for Opus, same as we are. She wants to see them destroyed because of what they did to her family.”
“Son of a bitch.” On the other end of the video feed, the Order’s leader sat back in his big desk chair. He slowly shook his head. “We can’t have this, Rafe. She’s going to get in our way. Hell, she already is. We need to contain her. I’ll have Chase take care of—”
“Lucan.” Rafe didn’t know what he could say, how to explain that Devony had actually proven to be a help, not a hindrance, to his mission. There wasn’t anything he could say. He had to show him. “Hold on for a minute. I’m going to upload some information.”
He grabbed his phone and sent some of the photos he took of Devony’s war room and the handwritten notes her father had left behind. Then he waited, watching as Lucan reviewed the intel in unreadable silence.
“That’s just the start of the information she’s collected these past few months. The logs were assembled by Roland Winters over about a year’s time. He kept them hidden in a safe at the family’s Darkhaven in Back Bay. Devony doesn’t think he told anyone about them, including his colleagues at JUSTIS.”
“She volunteered all of this information to you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was this before or after she drained Jordana of her power and knocked one of our most lethal warriors on his ass for more than an hour inside that museum?”
Rafe cleared his throat. “After. Devony’s got the ability to siphon another’s ability and use it herself. But it costs her. She was weak and in a lot of pain afterward. I helped her. I followed her home later, and she eventually told me everything.”
As far as field reports went, his was light on details about that night. He didn’t think the blow-by-blow was going to make Lucan any happier. Not that the shrewd Gen One needed him to color everything in. From the grim look on his face, it was obvious he understood exactly what Rafe wasn’t saying.
“Does she know about your mission for the Order?”
“No. That part of my cover is intact. As far as she knows, I want to take Opus out for my own personal reasons.”
Lucan grunted. “I don’t think that’s all too far from the truth.”
“No, sir. You know I want to redeem myself. I’ve never made a secret of that. But my loyalty is with the Order. I’m not going to let you down again.”
“You didn’t let us down in Montreal, Rafe. That’s a burden you placed on your own shoulders.” Lucan studied him for a long moment, his brows flat over his measuring gaze. “This is your mission, Rafe. As long as you don’t compromise your cover with her, I’m going to let you call the shots where this female is concerned. But understand, that means you’ll live with the results.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So, what do you recommend we do about Devony Winters?”
Rafe knew all it would take was a word and Lucan would ensure she was placed under Order protection somewhere out of the blast range of Opus or anyone in their circle. She would be safe. She would be out of his way, somewhere he didn’t have to think about the prospect of her getting hurt or distracting him from his goal.
But all of those things would come at a price.
And as much as he wanted to think their partnership wasn’t real, the warrior in him recognized he wasn’t going to find a stronger ally in this quest.
“Devony stays. She’s mine to look after.”
Lucan gave him a grave nod. “All right, son. She’s yours.”
As he spoke, a chime went off on one of the devices on his desk. He glanced at it and scowled, a look of true concern on his face. His low, whispered curse spoke volumes.
“Is something wrong, sir?”
He started to shake his head, then slowly exhaled and met Rafe’s stare through the monitor. “We’ve been dealing with an issue in Europe for the past few days. It concerns the team doing some black ops work near Budapest.”
“Micah’s team,” Rafe said. He recalled that another of the Order’s elders, Tegan, had only recently come back from that region where his son had been deployed. “What’s going on?”
Lucan gave him a sober look. “Micah’s team went dark the other day.”
Holy hell. Rafe felt a jab of worry, even dread, for one of his closest friends. “Do you mean they’re MIA?”
