Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling 14)

“No games,” Blake gritted out. “You know exactly who I am and I know exactly who you are.” He paused to let that sink in. “You made a mistake, exposed yourself.” It had been a small error, a single slip of the tongue, but that was all he’d needed.

“I’ll make sure not to make personal contact next time.”

“You do that. Now I need a fucking extraction.”

“You’re an Arrow. Act like one.”

“I also have the entire squad out for my blood. Get me out.”

A pause on the other end before the other party said, “I can organize it in another twenty-four hours. It’s too hot right now—my sources tell me the city is crawling with Arrows and with Krychek’s people.”

“I won’t survive twenty-four hours.”

“You can take a kill,” was the cool response. “Do it. Calm down so you can think.”

He thought of the amount of attention, the heat, and knew it would be irrational to act now, but the need was violent. And his contact was counting on that, counting on him being stupid. “Twelve hours,” he said. “Or I might decide to talk.”

“Don’t threaten me.” A rustling sound. “Be at the following location in exactly twelve hours.” The person on the other end of the line gave him the coordinates.

Hanging up after agreeing, he crawled out of his hiding place, flipped up the hood of his sweatshirt, and headed toward the one hidey-hole the squad hadn’t yet found and that Blake had kept in reserve. The small apartment had belonged to a man he’d killed years before. He’d made sure the taxes were paid, as was the rent, and since no one had ever come looking for the dead man, it wasn’t likely anyone would do so now.

The only problem was that the building was a busy one. Too many eyes, too many witnesses. That, however, didn’t matter now. All he had to do was slide in without attracting any notice, and stay down for twelve hours.

After that, he’d be free once again.

Chapter 68

IT WAS TAMAR who found the smoking gun the next morning. The financially savvy twenty-four-year-old woman whom Aden had saved from an execution order, and who’d been working for him long before the Arrows rebelled against Ming, said, “The money for the apartments where the two saboteurs were found came from a shell corporation, but I was able to strip away the layers to get a name.”

That name was Hashri Smith.

It wasn’t difficult to trace the man, given the information Tamar had uncovered. He proved to be a midlevel human businessman based in Singapore. Portly, with a thick head of black hair and round brown eyes that gave him a permanently startled air, he ran an import-export business that appeared to be fully legitimate. Nothing in his background said he had the kind of contacts or interests that would lead to an attack against Arrows.

He was, however, making frantic calls to a disconnected comm number night after night. During the day, he constantly mopped up perspiration using a handkerchief, his brown-skinned face haggard. Surveillance images taken from his own security cameras showed him jumping at shadows, as if he expected to be assassinated at any instant.

“He’s been cut from the fold,” Aden predicted before he made the executive decision to have Smith brought quietly in. Normally, he’d have waited, watched, but his instincts told him that would be a pointless delay—and if there was even a slim chance the human male knew Persephone’s whereabouts or fate, Aden couldn’t justify even a short wait.

Vasic went in and grabbed Smith while he was sleeping, the teleport made so swiftly that only someone who’d been inside the target’s bedroom and awake at the time would’ve noticed it. Since Smith slept in a separate bedroom from his wife, there was no witness.

Vasic seated the male in a room deep in Central Command that was a pure black cube. He and Zaira kept watch as Aden talked to Smith; though none of them believed the now shivering man was dangerous, it would be stupid to be complacent.

“You know who I am?” Aden asked Smith after taking a seat in the chair across from him.

Dressed in white-striped red flannel pajamas, the whites of his eyes visible and his hands tightly locked together, Smith jerked his head up and down. “Arrow,” he croaked out.

“Would you like a glass of water?”

Another jerk.

I’ll get it, he telepathed to Vasic and Zaira before walking out to do exactly that. I need him to trust me.

Why? Zaira’s blunt tone. Rip the truth from his mind. Olivia was brought in five days ago. Two or three more days at most and her daughter’s captors will realize Olivia’s memories were permanently damaged.

Do you really believe this man is anything but the lowest level of pawn?

Folding her arms as Aden returned to the room, Zaira focused a hard stare on Smith. The man visibly wilted. Damn it, she muttered. He’s the worst excuse for a terrorist I’ve ever seen.

Giving Smith the water, Aden sat in patient silence while the other man glugged it down.

Smith handed the glass back with a hand that trembled. “Th-thank you.”

Aden placed the glass on the floor beside his chair. “Do you know why you’re here?”

Smith’s eyes shifted left then right, his hands twisting in his lap. When he shook his head, Aden spoke very quietly. “Hashri, I can scan your mind, pick out anything I need to know. I can strip you of every one of your secrets.”

The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed, his breathing turning ragged.

“But I won’t,” Aden continued. “That would make me no better than the murderers we hunt.” It was a decision Aden had made with the fall of Silence. “However,” he said when the businessman looked hopeful, “my personal moral choice isn’t stronger than my loyalty to the squad. I will do whatever is necessary to protect my men and women and, in this case, an innocent child.”