“Nathan. Why are you doing this?” she gasped brokenly, stricken with shock. It took him a long moment before he turned his head at her approach into the lobby. “What’s going on here? Where are you taking my father?”
She couldn’t read the flat expression that Nathan held on her. His storm-cloud eyes were emotionless, chillingly so.
Gone was the passionate lover she’d left behind in her office. In his place stood the cold Breed warrior.
The merciless Hunter.
“Carys.” Nathan’s impenetrable gaze was looking past Jordana now. His voice was airless, a low command. “For fuck’s sake, I told you to keep her out of here.”
Gentle hands came down on Jordana’s shoulders. She jerked out of the comforting hold on a strangled cry. Jordana shook her head mutely, blindsided and lost for words under the weight of her confusion.
Nathan gave her one last glance—this time, a note of regret shadowing his gaze. Then he shoved her father forward and the rest of the Order closed in to surround them.
In moments, they were all gone, swallowed up into a waiting black SUV at the curb, then vanished into the night in a squeal of tires on pavement as they sped away.
Most of Gates’s fury and venom had left him by the time Nathan and the Order brought the Darkhaven leader into the command center for questioning. He’d roared and protested for most of the quick drive across town, but once seated in the interrogation room, the Breed male’s broad shoulders sagged in his rumpled tuxedo.
His gaze was no longer simmering with anger but cautious. Cagey and wary, as he eyed Nathan and the other warriors from beneath the dark brown slashes of his brows. “I demand to know what this is about,” he grumbled. “This is an outrage! I am a private citizen. The Order has no right—”
“We have every right,” Sterling Chase informed him. The Boston commander leaned against the back wall of the closed room, his arms crossed over his chest. “We have evidence linking you to criminal activity in this city—”
“Criminal activity?” Gates scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. You have no cause to believe that, let alone evidence.”
“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.
Abruptly, he bit off a curse and vaulted to his feet. “I don’t have to sit here and listen to this bullshit. I’m leaving. You can expect to hear from my lawyer—”