“She is not dead.” Nathan cut Zach off.
“You still love her?” Michael asked gently.
His nod was curt. It was more than that now. More than the sweet, gentle love they’d once shared. His love for her was deep and filled every corner of his heart. It was something savage inside him. He wasn’t sure he’d survive losing her a second time; therefore, that was not an option.
They were dropped some distance from the hotel, and Gabe dismissed the carriage. They then walked the rest of the way in silence, with the clip of Walter’s nails on the streets accompanying them.
“What’s the plan when we arrive?” Michael asked.
“I’ll go in and see if I can get Logan’s room number.”
“No,” Zach said. “You are not going anywhere alone.”
“I can control myself,” Nathan protested. “This is no different from any other mission we’ve undertaken.”
“It is in every way different,” Gabe said. “We’ll circle the hotel first, find out what is at the rear and if that will be a way in should we not get what we want through the front.”
Nathan chafed at the delay. He wanted to get inside that hotel and, if need be, pound on every door until he found Beth.
Was she hurting? Closing his eyes, he pushed the visions that filled his head aside and found the calm and control he could usually summon in his role with Alexius.
Following Gabe, he walked to the rear of the hotel with Walter on his heels.
“Psst!”
“Did someone just psst us?” Zach turned a full circle, looking for the maker of that noise. There were not many about, as the hour was still early.
“Psst!”
“Definitely sounds like someone is,” Michael said, moving into the shadows between the hotel and another building. The brothers followed.
“Is that you, Nix?” Nathan watched a man emerge. “What the hell are you doing here and not home with your six children?”
The man looked left and right before speaking.
“There’s trouble afoot, Mr. Deville.”
“The very reason we are here, Nix. A friend of mine, Miss Carlow, has gone missing, and she was last seen here,” Nathan said.
“Below average height? Shapley lass?” Nix asked.
“Yes.” Nathan tamped down the anger that anyone but he thought Beth shapely.
His brothers stood silently watching, listening at his back.
“A woman arrived in a hackney alone, around ten o’clock, Mr. Deville. She walked into the hotel and up the stairs, not stopping at reception,” Nix said.
“You were inside?”
“Badger was inside. He told me.”
“Right, please continue.” He’d learned early in his relationship with this man that it paid to let him finish whatever it was he needed to say before questioning him.
“We’ve been watching him, that Mr. Logan. He’s a nasty piece of work and has been turning men on each other. Trying to winkle out the informants among us.”
“But not succeeded?” Nathan pressed.
“Not as yet, but they are throwing money about the place, so someone will give in soon. He’s the one behind the unrest too. Sending men out to fill ears with lies and incite trouble.”
