Page 96 of Pursued

“I understand, sir. Not to excuse myself, but it looks like the bug was planted. A virus inserted remotely into our security system.”

“Hm.” It wasn’t Airi’s fault then, but I didn’t rescind the probation. She should’ve instructed our tech team to watch for something like that.

“I promise it won’t happen again.”

“I know,” I said softly. “Because if it does, I’ll know who’s responsible.”

My next call was to Mila’s burner phone.

She didn’t answer.

I opened my security app, but everything was quiet. I called my security again and was informed that her brother was sleeping, and Mila was in my bedroom.

I couldn’t verify that last because as at the beach house, I’d refused to put cameras in the master suite. I was damned if I was going to be spied on in my own home, and besides, cameras could be used against you.

I tried Mila two more times and then told myself she was sleeping, too. After all, she’d been up most of last night.

I stared out the tinted window, my finger tapping an impatient rhythm on my knee. Something was bothering me about Joey’s rescue. At the time, I’d thought Redbone had found us in the basement way too quickly, but in the heat of the moment, I’d forgotten about it.

But howhadRedbone gotten past Tomas? He was the man who’d taken a team to the penthouse. Could he have let Redbone escape? Even warned him somehow?

And how had Tomas known Joey was in the basement in the first place? The door had been locked—his scout couldn’t have gotten through it without leaving the shadow dimension.

“Trust no one.”

And my father himself had suspected someone at headquarters was involved.

But Tomas? No fucking way.

Everything in me recoiled in disbelief.

The Slovak vampire had been at my father’s side every step of the way as they built the Kral Syndicate to the multibillion-dollar empire it was today. Father trusted Tomas with his life—literally. In addition, Tomas had mentored me and my brothers, teaching us how to fight, cluing us in on the nuts and bolts of how the Syndicate ran. He’d spent plenty of one-on-one time with us. Hell, if he’d wanted us gone, he could’ve arranged an “accident” years ago.

And yet, it made a terrible kind of sense. Who else could’ve alerted Redbone? There was no way the vampire had just happened to wake at the very moment we were breaking into the basement. Even if he had, Tomas and his team had supposedly disabled the security, including the cameras, so how had Redbone known exactly where to find us?

And it was Tomas who’d recommended I’d hire O’Brien.

The limo halted on the street in front of my building. I was out the door like a shot, the guards on my heels.

The elevator ride up seemed endless. As I stepped into the foyer, the guard on duty came to attention.

“Good evening, sir.”

“Any problems?” I demanded.

“No, sir. Everything’s quiet.”

“Camila’s still in my bedroom?”

“Yes, sir,” he said to my back as I strode down the hall, the bodyguards still with me. As I passed the living room, I was running. I headed straight for the master bedroom, heart pounding a tattoo against my ribcage, terrified that Tomas had somehow gotten to Mila.

When she wasn’t there, my heart stopped.

Then I saw her phone on the nightstand—and heard her humming a happy little tune in the bathroom.

Footsteps sounded. “Gabriel? Is that you?”

The air whooshed from my chest. “Yes.”