He wouldn’t be, if not for Devony.
He didn’t have to tell Mathias that. Since Chase had told his good friend about Rafe’s injuries, he would have also explained to the London commander that it was Breed blood that had saved him.
Devony’s blood.
Her bond.
He wanted to tell everyone in the room what she meant to him, but the din of competing conversations was stilled by the buzzing of Chase’s comm unit. He answered the call, frowning as he received the report.
“That was Aric and his team,” he announced after setting the phone down on the table. He glanced at Rafe. “The warehouse at Conley Terminal had been cleaned out by the time our team arrived. No dead bodies. No crates of liquid UV. No trace of the spill, either.”
“Opus moved quickly. They knew we’d come looking to grab the rest of that cargo.”
Chase nodded. “I called the team back in. They’ll be here within the hour.”
“Any idea who owns the warehouse?” Mathias asked.
“Yeah,” Gideon said via the video feed. “About five layers of shell corporations. I’ve been hacking my way through them for the past hour.”
“One of the guys in Cruz’s gang told me the shit we were stealing belonged to some kind of arms dealer,” Rafe said. “And Cruz mentioned the cargo was arriving from overseas.”
“Great. That helps.” Gideon’s reply was punctuated by the clacking of his keyboard on the other end. “Shouldn’t take me long to find the bastard.”
“We need that lead,” Lucan said, his grim face filling another of the monitors that were linked in to the war room. “With Judah LaSalle dead, that dealer may be our next best lead. Anyone holding on to liquid UV is either in bed with Opus Nostrum or on their bad side. I don’t give a shit which camp this son of a bitch is in. I just want him in our hands—yesterday.”
“I’ll put a team on it as soon as we have your go,” Chase said.
Lucan nodded, glancing at Rafe. “Excellent work on all of this. I know it hasn’t been easy for you, living like this these past weeks. Or more recently.”
“No, sir.” Rafe cleared his throat. “Ah . . . about that.”
When he came down here with the intent to explain to his commander and the Order’s leader what Devony meant to him, he hadn’t expected an audience of his whole damn team and then some. But the words needed to be said and he couldn’t wait another moment to put them out there.
He’d screwed things up with her, not only tonight, but from the beginning. He only hoped he would have the chance to make them right.
“It’s about Devony,” he said. “I’ve made a terrible mistake with her—”
He felt her presence through their blood bond . . . even before he heard her sharp intake of breath just outside the room.
He turned around and there she was.
All the breath left his lungs on a curse.
She stared at him, but only for a second. Her wounded gaze flicked to the other members of the Order gathered around the room alongside him. His friends, obviously. Teammates he had never truly lost.
Then she glanced over at the screens that contained all the information she had opened up to him in the privacy of her Darkhaven. All of father’s meticulous notes and theories. Her months of work in her quest to avenge her slain family.
All of the secrets she had shared with Rafe in the moments before he took her virginity on the floor of her father’s study.
Christ.
He felt her stunned confusion like a blow to his chest. Her sharp feeling of betrayal pierced him.
“Devony.”
She mutely backed away.
“Devony, wait.”
