That logical part of him that had been missing earlier tonight tried now to remind him that Jordana likely wasn’t without a Breed male to keep her safe from imminent harm. She had her de facto mate to protect her—a choice she’d willingly made last night.
As if Elliott Bentley-Squire were capable of looking after a woman like Jordana.
She needed a better male, a stronger male. The kind of male who would throw down his life for her in an instant.
The kind of male who would have leapt on Nathan last night and pounded him into a bloody pulp for the liberties he’d taken with her in that elevator.
Nathan snarled low under his breath. Told himself the current of urgency coursing through him was more about protecting a potential Order asset than assigning himself as a personal bodyguard to the woman he craved so fiercely, so unwelcomely.
The woman who just a short while ago had insisted she wanted nothing more to do with him, and rightly so.
As the JUSTIS officers cleared the crime scene and packed up the body, Nathan ordered his team to report back to base. Then he pivoted away and began to stalk across the dark pavement.
Rafe jogged after him. “What’s going on?”
“Jordana,” Nathan stated simply. “She was the last person to see Cass alive.”
“Jesus,” Rafe muttered. “Are you sure? How do you know that?”
“She told me. Cass showed up at the museum this afternoon. She spoke with the bastard.”
Rafe frowned. “About what? Why the hell would he go there?”
Nathan kept walking. “That’s what I intend to find out.”
“You mean we,” Rafe said. “As in the Order. As in we call this in to Headquarters and let them decide how best to proceed with the female.” When Nathan didn’t respond, Rafe grabbed his shoulder. “Jordana Gates is a civilian and a potential intelligence lead now, Nathan. You know the protocol on something like this.”
Yeah, he did.
He knew Order procedure and protocol inside and out. Hell, he’d lived and breathed it for most of his life. But that didn’t keep his feet from moving in the opposite direction of what he knew was the right and proper thing for a warrior to do.
“Holy shit,” Rafe murmured. “You really care about her.”
Nathan didn’t have the patience to try to deny it. Not that his friend would believe him, even if he wanted to pretend it was true.
All that mattered in that moment was getting to Jordana, making sure she was safe.
“Dammit, Nathan. You know I have a duty to report this.”
Nathan picked up his pace. He heard Rafe’s curse behind him, low and incredulous, in the instant before Nathan vanished into the darkness.
The teakettle started to howl in the kitchen as Jordana sat on her sofa, sweeping fresh tears from her cheeks. The sweet ending of the romantic comedy she was watching shouldn’t have inspired more than a smile or a satisfied sigh, yet as the credits rolled, she was about two seconds away from breaking down into a full sob.
Not that the movie was what had her so emotionally on edge. She’d been shaken up since she arrived home tonight. The long bath she’d taken when she first got there had helped calm her nerves, but she didn’t think she would ever be able to purge the memory of what she’d encountered outside La Notte.
She had cried inexplicably for Mr. Cassian—for Cassian Gray, or whatever his true name was. She’d never been so close to death before, and she hated that the kind man she’d spoken with had met such a seemingly senseless, violent end.
No matter what he’d apparently done for a living, the odd stranger Jordana had found inside the exhibit had appeared to be a decent, interesting person. What he could have possibly done to earn the death he’d been dealt tonight, she couldn’t imagine.
Sniffling as she got up from the sofa, Jordana padded barefoot to the kitchen to rescue the whining kettle. She had donned lavender silk pajamas after her long soak in the tub. Beneath a loosely tied matching robe, the light tank and shorts felt cool against her bare skin as she trekked through the empty apartment.
Carys and Rune had checked in on her a short while ago, practically insisting that she come out with them and not sit around the penthouse by herself. But alone time had been just what Jordana had wanted. Except now she felt a sudden, keen ache for the comfort of family. She longed for the reassurance of her father’s protecting arms.
Martin Gates would welcome her back to his Darkhaven anytime; she knew that. She also knew that going home would only make her father try to persuade her to move back in permanently. And that was a conversation she didn’t want to have with him again. Especially not tonight, when learning where she’d been and what had happened would send him into a fit of worry.
Although the wealthy Breed male had brought her up selflessly as his daughter from the time she was an infant, providing her with anything she could possibly ever need in life, Martin Gates could not seem to fully adjust to the idea that Jordana had become an adult woman. She was nearly twenty-five years old, yet he still wanted to direct her life as if she were a child.
God, her birthday. Jordana poured a cup of tea and groaned, thinking about the trust that would become hers in less than a couple of weeks. A payoff her father held out to her as incentive to settle down and take a mate—so long as that mate was the Breed male of his choosing.
As much as she loved seeing her father, if she went home tonight, she would never hear the end of how disappointed he was that she’d rejected a fine male like Elliott. At times, his desperation seemed so great, Jordana half expected she might be physically forced into the bond with Elliott. But her father loved her too much to do something so unforgivable, no matter how deep and misguided his belief was that she needed to settle down.