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.>A low growl escaped his throat as he reached for her. She pulled back, avoiding the contact. “No, don’t. Stay away from me.”
He studied her for a moment, his eyes locked on her. “Tell me you really mean that, and I will.”
“I mean it.” She forced herself to hold steady, in spite of the widening ache in her breast. She had to do this. For her own sanity, she had to put him out of her mind and out of her life. “I don’t want to see you again, Nathan. I wish I’d never met you.”
He said nothing. Just stood before her in agonizing silence, his inscrutable gaze seeming to cut straight through her, as cold and unfeeling as a blade. His face was unmoving, impossible to decipher if he was relieved or insulted by her rejection.
The walls she’d so naively thought she might pull down were in full force as she looked at him now, perhaps rising even taller than they had been before. Nathan wasn’t someone who let others in easily; she’d sensed that about him early on.
Now that she was pushing him away, he would shut her out completely. And she knew once he did, there would be no getting back inside.
One of his teammates—Aric Chase’s best friend, Rafe—called to Nathan from back at the crime scene. “Captain, heads up. Squad from Joint Urban Security is en route from downtown. This place’ll be crawling with JUSTIS officers in less than ten minutes.”
Nathan acknowledged the report with a vague lift of his hand. In flat, maddening silence, he stared at Jordana for what seemed an eternity.
Then he simply turned away from her, walking back to his waiting crew of warriors and the grisly reality of his dark world.
14
NATHAN LEANED BACK AGAINST THE ORDER’S PATROL VEHICLE next to Rafe, trying to pretend he wasn’t brooding from his confrontation with Jordana as he idly watched a team of six officers from the Joint Urban Security Taskforce Initiative Squad process the crime scene outside La Notte.
Shit, he was worse than brooding. He was pissed off and bewildered.
She wished she’d never met him? She had no idea. The best thing she could do for him was take her haughty indignation and all-too-tempting body and stay far the hell out of his way.
Out of his head.
Out of his life.
And the fact that he was stewing over the female an hour after she’d gone only jacked his frustration higher. He wasn’t used to letting anything, or anyone, get under his skin. His Hunter training had conditioned him to ignore distractions, to dismiss anything that might sway him from his course. Any obstacle in his path was either shoved aside or trampled beneath him, left behind and instantly forgotten.
It was how he survived. It was how he came through the fire of his childhood, his mind and body equally honed, his heart as ruthless as a blade.
He was a master of control, and yet Jordana Gates had somehow begun to chip away at that impenetrable foundation. Like a small trickle of water through a mountain of stone, she’d managed to find a breach and slip inside.
Try as he might to put her out of his thoughts, to close himself off to the desire he felt for her—to deny his maddening need to possess her, now that he’d had the first taste—he couldn’t get her out of his head.
The best thing she could have done for him was storm off in justifiable fury, determined that she never see him again.
And yet he brooded.
He stewed.
Told himself to let her run back to her safe life with Elliott Bentley-Squire and consider it a bullet dodged.
He tried to pretend that every muscle in his body wasn’t twitchy with the hunger to go after Jordana right now and take her down beneath him, show her pleasure like no other man ever would.
With more effort than he cared to admit, Nathan wrestled his focus back to the situation at hand. While most of the combined human/Breed JUSTIS unit stood around trying to look important as they made phone calls and manned crime scene blockades set up around the club, they’d tasked one of their junior members with the unpleasant job of photographing the evidence. The twenty-something human, an obvious rookie, had already vomited twice since his team arrived an hour ago.