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Ethan felt laughter bubbling up despite the grim location. Rook was the least serious of all four guardians, but he was so protective and supportive, and now apparently he’d decided he was in love…with Ethan. If it weren’t for their bond humming between them, Ethan would’ve thought Rook was drunk.

“The interrogation isn’t finished,” Ethan said. “We still need to question Voss, cross-reference his information with Pope’s documentation, and develop an extraction strategy for Ashford that accounts for that biometric monitoring.”

“Later.” Rook’s thumb brushed across Ethan’s knuckles. “You’re not doing this alone - the others can do all that while you take some time to rest, eat plenty of food, perhaps we could take a bath…all the quiet relaxing things a person should do before getting another good night’s sleep.”

“I should review…”

“You should rest. Your brain works better when you’re not exhausted.” Rook started up the stairs, pulling Ethan with him. “That’s Julian’s rule, by the way. Cillian started mandatory sleep schedules for our humans, so you don’t get over-tired.”

Ethan followed, his hand secure in Rook’s grip. Behind them, he heard Thorn mutter something about “mates” and “ridiculous” before the basement door closed. There was a good chance that if Pope didn’t spend his time alone quietly, he wouldn’t be alive in an hour or so, and that wasn’t as bothersome as Ethan thought it would be.

As he climbed the stairs, all Ethan knew was that Rook was right. He was exhausted and realized that he’d barely had any sleep at all since before Fiona was rescued. The seven hours from the night before, especially after confronting Pope in the church, had been the bare minimum, and not really enough time to heal.

However, Ethan did have one more thing to do first. A declaration of love should never be ignored, and while his analytical and overly paranoid brain would scream at him that he and Rook hadn’t had enough time together and that he couldn’t be sure about his feelings so soon, to Ethan, those same feelings felt right. For once in his life, he was going to trust that.

“I love you, too,” he said quietly as they reached the main floor. “For the record, in case you were wondering.”

Rook stopped walking, although that might have been because his shadows suddenly exploded outward looking like multiple gray fireworks as they danced in the air. “Say that again.”

“I love you. Present tense, active voice, first-person declaration.” Ethan pushed his glasses up his nose. “Is the repetition necessary for comprehension, or were you simply not expecting…?”

“Yes!” Rook kissed him, and Ethan would’ve laughed with the sheer joy from it all, but all he could do was hang on and kiss his mate back. He did have a silent chuckle as one of the shadows removed his glasses, though, before they fell off - that was a sweet thing to do.

Chapter Nineteen

“…because the Kenosha warehouse electrical usage spikes every forty-eight hours at three a.m., which indicates…”

“…a refrigeration cycle consistent with medical storage, not standard climate control…”

“…exactly, and that means they’re likely holding victims longer term rather than for immediate transport…”

“…which correlates with Pope’s client list showing two buyers requesting ‘conditioned merchandise’ in the Milwaukee region…”

Rook looked at Cillian across the tactical room table. Cillian looked back. They’d been watching Julian and Ethan volley information back and forth for the past twenty minutes without either of them finishing a complete thought independently.

“Is that sort of thing contagious, do you think?” Cillian asked quietly. “The scary-smart-analytical thing?”

“I think they’re just both delighted to find someone else who organizes evidence by color-coded threat levels.” Rook gestured at the wall where Julian had mounted three separate timeline charts, each with a different highlighter system. Ethan had added Post-it notes that matched Julian’s exact organizational schema without being told the system.

Thorn rubbed his temples. “Can we return to the operational plan before they start speaking in spreadsheet?”

“Too late,” Silas said from his position at the computer terminal. He’d been monitoring the conversation while running background checks on Pope’s client list. “They’re already speaking in spreadsheet. I counted four Excel references in the last ten minutes.”

“…if we cross-reference the property tax records with the utility data…”

“…we can establish a predictive model for the next transportation window…”

“Which is forty-seven hours from now,” Julian and Ethan said simultaneously.

Forty-seven hours? Rook didn’t like that sort of timeline. It sat in that gray area between taking time and making a cautious approach, while leaving too much time sitting around doing nothing. He watched as Ethan highlighted something on Milwaukee warehouse notes while explaining secondary exit routes to Julian.

Ethan was wearing another one of Rook’s shirts. It hung loose on his mate’s smaller frame, and Ethan had to roll the sleeves up to keep them free of his hands, but Rook got a warm feeling over his whole body, just knowing Ethan had no problem wearing his clothes.

He loves me, I love him… That thought didn’t need embellishment - it was complete all by itself. But Rook still got a buzz from the fact he was able to touch his human without hurting him in any way, and even better, Ethan touched him back. Rook’s shadows gave a shimmy - they liked it too.

“Going for all three facilities at the same time is our best option,” Thorn said, pulling Rook’s attention back to what they were supposed to be discussing. “Pope’s notes confirmed all three facilities share the same security system. If one set of alarms is triggered, it’s possible they’ll lock down the other two within minutes.”

“Three in the morning seems like the best idea,” Silas added. “That gives us the advantage during the refrigeration reset when their attention is divided.”