"I pray you're both wrong," Rowan said, his sober gaze drifting over to the sedan where Lazaro Archer still held his dead son. "These past few hours have been bloody enough."
"We should vacate the building and the street and clear out of here,"
Tegan said. "It's too risky to let either of the Archers stay out in the open any longer."
"I'll get started on the evidence cleanup," Brock offered.
As soon as he turned to walk toward the apartment building, Rowan was right beside him. "Let me help you, please."
They strode across the construction site, but hadn't even gotten halfway there when Rowan's cell phone trilled with an incoming call. He held it out in front of him, as though to ask Tegan's permission to take the call. The Gen One warrior nodded.
Rowan put the phone to his ear, and Brock watched in a state of mounting alarm as the Enforcement Agent's face blanched. "There must be some mistake," he murmured. "The whole Darkhaven ... Good Christ."
Brock motioned to Tegan, feeling ice begin to settle in his gut as Rowan said a few more words of disbelief, then woodenly disconnected the call.
"What's going on?" Tegan demanded, having jogged over on Brock's signal. "What the hell just happened?"
"Lazaro Archer's Darkhaven," Rowan murmured. "It burned to the ground tonight. There was an apparent gas leak and a massive explosion.
There were no survivors."
No one said a word for a very long while. A light flurry of snow swirled under the wintry starlight, the only movement in a night gone suddenly cold and dark as a grave.
And then, across the way, young Kellan Archer buried his face in his hands and began to cry. Great, racking sobs of raw anguish. The boy knew what he'd lost tonight. He felt it. And when he glanced up with tear-filled eyes that flashed with furious amber sparks, Brock saw the rage that was already smoldering in the young male's heart.
As of tonight, the boy he'd been was gone. Like his grandfather, who sat several yards away, covered in his own son's blood, Kellan Archer would never forget--or forgive--the death and sorrow dealt so treacherously tonight.
"Let's get this place swept and get the fuck out of here," Tegan said finally. "I'll put the boy and his grandfather in the Rover. They are now under the protection of the Order."
Chapter Twenty-seven
Lazaro Archer stoically refused the Order's offer to take him past the remains of his Darkhaven for a final good-bye. He'd had no wish to see the rubble of his life, which had claimed nearly a dozen innocent people, including his beloved Breedmate of several long centuries. Although the official report out of the Enforcement Agency had attributed the blaze to a gas leak, everyone in the Order--and Lazaro himself--understood the incident for what it truly was. A wholesale slaughter, carried out at Dragos's command.
Archer's grief had to be profound, but by the time he arrived at the compound he was the picture of emotional control. Showered now, his gore-caked clothing thrown away and replaced by a set of fresh black fatigues from the Order's supply room, Lazaro Archer seemed transformed, a darker, more formidable version of the civilian Breed elder who'd stood in the tech lab just a night before, desperate to find his grandson. Somber, subdued, he appeared determined to rally his entire focus around the health and welfare of his grandson and sole surviving heir.
"Kellan says he doesn't remember much about the abduction itself,"
Lazaro murmured as he and Lucan observed the boy through the window in his infirmary recovery room. The youth was cleaned up and resting, at the moment being kept company by little Mira, who'd taken it upon herself to read to him at his bedside. "He says he woke up in that rat-infested building, freezing cold, held at gunpoint. The beatings didn't start until he was conscious. He said the bastards told him they wanted him to scream and suffer."
Lucan's jaw tensed as he listened to the abuse the youth had been subjected to. "He's safe now, Lazaro. You both are. The Order will see to that."
The other Gen One nodded. "I appreciate all you're doing for us. Like most civilians, I know the Order values its privacy, particularly when it comes to your headquarters. I realize it cannot be easy for you to permit outsiders into the compound."
Lucan raised a brow in acknowledgment. He could think of only a few rare instances, beginning with Sterling Chase and Tegan's mate, Elise, more than a year ago, followed most recently by Jenna Darrow. For more than a century before them, there had been no exceptions.
As much as Lucan disliked having his hand forced, he wasn't such a coldly rigid leader that he would turn his back on someone in need. A long time ago, perhaps--before he'd met and fallen in love with Gabrielle. Before he'd come to know what it was like to have family and a heart that beat out of devotion to another.
He put his hand on the Gen One's broad shoulder. "You needed a safe house, you and the boy both. You'll find no more secure shelter than this compound."
As for any concerns Lucan might have had about entrusting the compound's location to Archer or his young grandson, Tegan had assured him that both males were free of duplicity. Not that Lucan had suspected either one of being anything less than honorable.
Still, he was careful not to place his trust blindly. He had to be careful.
Every time he looked around lately, he felt the weight of so many lives resting on his shoulders. It was a responsibility he took seriously, all too aware that if Dragos wanted to strike at the heart of the Order, he would do so at this very location.
It was a thought he didn't like to dwell on but one he couldn't afford to ignore.
He didn't think he could bear it if the Order--his family--was dealt a blow as staggering as the one that had come down on Lazaro Archer tonight.