Her father hadn’t acted like an innocent man. He’d fought and fumed with a desperation that had made Jordana’s heart quake as she watched Nathan take him away.
Jordana had never seen him like that before, so terrified and combative. As though he knew he had something awful to hide.
As for Nathan … the hurt Jordana felt tonight was all the worse when she thought of him.
Had she been wrong to get so close to him?
Could her father have been the reason Nathan had shown any interest in her?
Nathan told her from the start that he wasn’t the kind of man she might have wanted him to be. He’d told her that as recently as last night.
By his own description, once locked on a target, he pursued, he conquered. Then he moved on, never looking back.
Oh, God.
Jordana felt physically ill. Had he used her to buy the Order necessary time or opportunity to go after her father?
Was that all she’d been to Nathan—a means to an end?
He hadn’t pretended to be anything other than what he said he was: a warrior, a Hunter. Jordana had fallen in love with him anyway.
Last night she thought she’d seen a different side of him. A tender side, as though he’d let down some of his armor and shown her the wounded, noble man behind the forbidding wall of impenetrable stone and cold, cutting steel he reserved for the rest of the world.
At the party tonight, and during their stolen passion in her office, Jordana had felt as if she were seeing Nathan in a way no one else ever had. He’d made her feel special, as though she meant something to him.
As though he might even have loved her too.
Had it all been a facade meant to lull her into trusting him further?
Could he and the Order have been plotting to spring some kind of trap for her father with her as the unwitting bait?
It staggered her to think so.
Her heart wanted to reject the idea outright, but doubt ran like oil in her veins.
“How are you doing, sweetie?” Carys’s heels clicked lightly on the marble as she came out to the lobby, turning off the museum lights behind her as she approached. “Everyone’s gone now, and I’ve closed up. Come on, let’s get you home.”
“No.” Jordana numbly shook her head. “No, I don’t want to go home. I want to see my father. I want to see Nathan. I need to know if what happened tonight was his plan all along.”
Carys’s brows pinched in a mild frown. “Jordana, you have to know Nathan would never—”
“I don’t know anything anymore,” she replied hotly, hurting so badly she thought her chest might crack open. “I need my father to tell me what he’s done. I need Nathan to tell me that he hasn’t been using me, playing me as part of his mission for the Order. I need to know if the two men I care most about in this world have been lying to me this whole time.”
When Carys reached out with a touch meant to soothe, Jordana wrenched away from her. “I’m going there now. I can’t stand by another minute without knowing the truth.”
“Jordana, wait.”
Ignoring her friend’s plea, she started across the lobby, heading for the exit at a brisk pace.
She didn’t get far.
From behind her, Jordana felt a disturbance in the air. Carys sucked in a sharp gasp, then went utterly silent.
Jordana spun around—just in time to see her friend’s legs crumble beneath her.
A large, hooded figure dressed in a black trench coat stood over the fallen Breed female. As he released Carys’s limp body to the floor, the man lifted his head, his face obscured in deep shadows.
He bore no weapon, but his palms were bright with an unearthly glow as he stepped away from Carys to stalk toward Jordana.