Rafe chuckled beside Nathan as the young officer butterfingered his camera and nearly dropped it into the blood pool surrounding Cass’s headless body. “Twenty bucks says the new guy doesn’t make it back to his squad car before he passes out.”
As Rafe spoke, Elijah strode over with Jax to join them. “Now, that’s just mean, picking on the human.” Eli grinned. “I got forty on the Breed detective over by the club door. He’s been trying to hold his shit together, taking statements from the staff and fighters, but that vampire’s gonna need an assist before the kid does. I give him about two minutes before he goes all fangy standing around this much spilled hemoglobin.”
Jax grunted. “Hell, we don’t get out of here soon, I’m about to sprout fangs myself.”
Although the blood was dead and no longer viable to any of their kind as sustenance, there was hardly a Breed in existence who could ignore the prolonged sensory torment of the lake of blood surrounding Cassian Gray’s remains. Even Nathan felt the throb of his lengthening canines and the sharpening of his pupils as he stared at the headless body across the dark, wet pavement.
Then again, blood thirst was only part of his problem tonight.
The bigger instigator to his dangerous mood was more than likely tucked away safe and sound in another male’s arms right about now. Nathan growled at the thought.
The unbridled sound of aggression drew his team’s gazes, Rafe’s more questioning than that of the others. “You okay, Captain?”
“No,” Nathan muttered. Refusing to acknowledge the reason for his lingering discontent, he jerked his chin in the direction of the crime scene. “Instead of putting Cassian Gray’s ass in an interrogation cell back at Headquarters, I’m watching JUSTIS mop up our best potential source of intel on Reginald Crowe. Hell, Cass might have been our best source of intel on the Atlanteans themselves as well.”
Rafe’s nod was grim. “True, but this slaying did answer one question. How many deaths by decapitation do we see on average?”
Eli arched a brow. “Not counting Crowe’s little helicopter blade mishap on that rooftop in D.C. last week? Exactly none.”
“Someone was making a statement here,” Jax suggested.
Nathan had to agree. “As we suspected, Cass wasn’t human. Whoever killed him obviously knew that too.”
Rafe met his gaze in the dark. “But who would want Cass dead—Opus Nostrum? Or someone Cass might’ve crossed in his business dealings at La Notte? No doubt the man took a lot of secrets with him tonight.”
“Could be whoever wanted him dead had a secret of their own to protect,” Eli added.
Nathan stared at the carnage across the way, considering all of the disturbing possibilities where Cassian Gray’s murder was concerned. “Someone knew what he was and how to kill him. This was an execution. But even so, that doesn’t tell us why.”
And there was another question still gnawing at Nathan.
What the hell was Cassian Gray doing at the art museum today? That the bastard had gone there within hours of his being killed was suspicious enough. But to have gone there and merely chatted with Jordana about art, when he was so concerned with being found out he’d changed his appearance and been MIA from his club and staff for nearly a week?
What business did he have at the museum? It didn’t make sense that he would spend precious time—not to mention risk coming out of hiding—to go there today.
Nor did it sit well that Jordana was evidently the last person to see Cass alive.
What did he want with her? Because Nathan was damned certain it wasn’t coincidence that put the elusive club owner at Jordana’s exhibit. He’d had a reason to go there. She may not realize it, but Cassian Gray left something with her today. He did something, said something—something Nathan was determined to find out.
And if he was looking for that answer, what was to say Cass’s killer wasn’t doing the same thing?
For all he knew, Jordana could be in the crosshairs already.
Holy fuck. If Cass had put Jordana in harm’s way, intentionally or otherwise—
A murderous flare of rage shot through Nathan at the thought, a deep protective instinct that he had no right to feel where the Darkhaven female was concerned. Still, the ferocity of his emotion stunned him.
But his fury was self-directed too.
He’d let Jordana walk away from him tonight. Hell, he’d all but shoved her away.
Bad enough he’d let jealousy and stung pride rule his warrior’s logic in neglecting to debrief a possible intel source. But in allowing Jordana to leave the crime scene, he’d left her completely unprotected, should Cass’s killer trace the Atlantean’s steps back to his visit to the museum.
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.