Panic exploding in her breast, she lunged for the exit.
She pushed the glass door open, inhaling a breath of chill night air as another scream built in her throat.
No sound left her lips.
Her feet simply stopped moving. All her fear—all conscious thought—went softly, swiftly silent as her skull filled with sudden heat and light …
Then all went dark.
“Cass made me keep his secret,” Martin Gates said, misery in his voice and in the droop of his mouth as he spoke. “He made me vow she would never know he was her father—not unless the worst should occur and his enemies caught up to him.”
Nathan had to admit, there was a part of him that wasn’t completely shocked to hear that Jordana’s true father was Cassian Gray. Aside from a passing similarity in their fair coloring, in hindsight Cass’s visit to Jordana at the museum the day of his death had been more telling. Had he gone there because he feared his enemies were closing in, and he wanted to see his child one more time?
As for the fact of Jordana being the child of an Atlantean father, that in itself was hardly a revelation. Although the truth had been unknown for many centuries, and was still kept secret from the public at large, a couple of decades ago the Order had discovered the link between the Breed and the immortal race that had fathered the rare females born Breedmates.
“If Cass wanted to keep her safe from enemies among his own kind,” Nathan said, “he would’ve done better to leave Jordana in your care and stay far away from Boston.”
Gates nodded. “He tried. And he never stayed in the city more than a few weeks at a time, just in case he might be found out. But Jordana meant everything to him. Cass loved her just as much as I do. I think that’s why he understood when I couldn’t make good on the other part of my original promise to him.”
“What promise was that?” Chase interjected, narrowing a hard look on the Darkhaven leader.
“That I take Jordana as my mate before her twenty-fifth birthday.”
Nathan recoiled at the idea, confused and suspicious. “Why the hell would he ask that of you?”
“Cass wanted her blood-bonded to someone he trusted. Someone he knew would keep her safe.” Gates gave a slow shake of his head. “I couldn’t be that man. I raised her as my own child. Jordana was my daughter every bit as much as she was Cass’s. No matter what I promised all those years ago, I couldn’t force my blood onto her. As she got older, I knew I had to safeguard her some other way. I had to find someone else I could trust with her secret.”>“I assure you, we do,” Chase said. “And I’m sure JUSTIS would be very interested to hear how one of Boston’s most upstanding pillars of polite society has secretly been involved in illegal sport and various other unsavory pursuits.”
“That’s insane,” Gates refuted with a scowl and a dismissive shake of his head. Then he turned a pointed glower solely on Nathan. “If you think humiliating me in front of my daughter and my peers will change my promise to you tonight, you’re sorely mistaken.”
At Chase’s questioning look, Nathan grunted. “Mr. Gates made it clear to me that he does not approve of my interest in Jordana and won’t permit it.”
“He threatened you?”
Nathan shrugged. It hadn’t fazed him then and hardly mattered now. After the way things went down tonight—the way Jordana looked at him, so hurt and betrayed—he doubted Gates had anything more to worry about when it came to Nathan’s intentions with her.
She might never want to speak to him again, would most likely never forgive him for taking her father away from her. She might despise Nathan forever for breaking her heart.
And he wouldn’t blame her.
He had never deserved her. Their worlds had been too different from the start, and tonight had proven that.
Bitter truth, and it didn’t make the cold hollow in his chest ache any less.
He wanted nothing more than to go to her now and offer comfort, explanations. Reassurances that everything would be all right.
But as he watched her father protest and begin to squirm under his interrogation, Nathan knew he couldn’t give Jordana any of those things.
Martin Gates’s guilt was written all over him. He was a man with deep secrets, secrets he’d apparently kept hidden for many years. His darting, anxious gaze said he knew the respectable mask he’d worn for so long was about to be ripped away. Gates had been living a lie that was suddenly about to be exposed.
And when it was, nothing in Jordana’s life would ever be the same.
“I have no intention of putting up with this thuggery for a moment longer,” Gates announced, one final, obvious bid to halt the disturbing conversation before it went any further. “I demand you release me at once, or I’ll—”
“Or you’ll what, Mr. Gates?” Chase interjected calmly. “Go running to law enforcement? Complain to your Darkhaven cronies and country club colleagues? Or maybe you have other alliances you think you can lean on. The kind of alliances you and Cassian Gray thought you could keep in the shadows, along with your other less-than-respectable business dealings?”
Gates’s expression went slack. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Chase stared at him in dangerous silence. Gates endured the prolonged quiet for a few moments, his gaze flicking from Chase and Nathan standing before him to Jax, Eli, and Rafe positioned near the door of the interrogation room.