No, she hadn’t. And Rule felt it himself, just as he’d felt the pressure inside her increasing later.
“Then stop this fucking investigation,” he snarled, pushing the desk chair back with heavy force as he came to his feet. “Leave her the fuck alone.”
He faced the other Breed as he rounded on him, watching the silver mercury in Jonas’s eyes swirl like storm clouds boiling on the horizon.
“I don’t smell Mating Heat,” Jonas stated casually.
“What, one of your schemes not working so well this time, Mate Matcher?” he accused furiously.
“My schemes always work, Rule, one way or the other. You should know that by now. The question here is, am I scheming?” Jonas pointed out without so much as a hint of arrogance. He was pure confidence instead. That was what pissed off his enforcers the most.
“You’re always scheming,” he growled, pacing to the bar for a drink, all too aware of the silent presence of his brother Lawe and Lawe’s mate, Diane.
“That’s enough, Jonas,” Lawe spoke up.
Rule flicked his brother a look of false amusement as anger pounded at his temples. “Still trying to protect me, big brother?”
“No more than you still try to protect me, little brother,” Lawe answered quietly.
Rule tossed back the drink before setting the glass carefully on the bar and staring back at Jonas with narrowed eyes.
The director stood in front of the windows again. He liked to dare the bastards if they got a chance to actually take a shot, he’d once claimed. That hadn’t changed with his mating, only his security protocols had changed.
They’d heightened.
Dressed in black slacks, a white long-sleeved shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, his feet encased in specially made black dress shoes that would probably outkick any combat boot, he was the epitome of sophisticated style.
Hell, he’d come out of the labs he was created in with that same bearing, that same look in his eyes.
“Have it removed,” Rule told him quietly. “Or I’ll remove it for you.”
A black brow arched imperiously. “Really?”
Rule didn’t change his stance. He didn’t tense; by God, he’d known what he was going to do the minute he’d heard the pain trembling in Gypsy’s voice.
“I took the position of division director,” he reminded Jonas. “We signed the agreement and the bylaws, and you don’t have the power to continue anything that I decide has no merit.”
Jonas’s gaze flickered. “You’d sacrifice Amber for a woman who’s not even your mate?”
“Goddammit, Jonas, she doesn’t have what you want,” Rule snarled, enraged.
It was the pain in her voice. That ragged self-loathing and bitter regret was killing him.
“She’s the contact we’re looking for and you know it.” Still, the director’s tone was quiet, without heat, without anger. As though he were simply pointing out a particular piece of information.
“Not anymore, she isn’t. If she ever was,” Rule growled.
He’d taken her out of it when he’d left her apartment the week before. He’d called her fucking contact and made his wishes clear. Gypsy was out, starting now. Hell, he should never have agreed to allow her in it to begin with.
Jonas nodded slowly. “Probably for the best.” He surprised Rule with the comment. “She wasn’t cut out for it.”