Rule Breaker(9)
Rule rubbed at the back of his neck, considering the information. “Are we sure we can trust that response, though?”
Orrin should have been Jonas’s grandfather rather than Rule’s and Lawe’s. The man was just as manipulating and just as calculating as Jonas could be.
“The truth was in his eyes, and his scent,” Jonas growled before his gaze turned intent, somber. “Rule, I need you on this. I don’t want you going off half-cocked because you think someone might be your mate,” Jonas stated, his voice echoing with concern now. “This is Amber’s life. Liza’s memories of her life as Honor Roberts are still too scattered and broken to help much further. Claire’s have returned in even smaller portions, and we have no idea how to find Judd and Gideon. Without the information they hold about those experiments and the key to Brandenmore’s encrypted files, Amber doesn’t have a chance of surviving this.”
Rule deactivated the e-pad and returned it to the padded pocket he stored it in before staring back at the director. “I never go off half-cocked, Director,” Rule reminded him. “Now, how do you suggest we identify Whisper, and who her contact within the Unknown is?” he asked, regarding the director curiously. “Or even if either of them are the contact you’re searching for?”
Son of a bitch and dammit to hell. He did not need this, Rule thought with an edge of carefully concealed anger. Investigating Gypsy’s sideline wasn’t his preferred course of action. Not when he’d prefer investigating that sensual, erotic side of Gypsy instead.
Jonas frowned, a severe, dark look that tended to make most Breeds extremely nervous. Rule had known him far too long, and knew far too much on him, to be nervous.
Wary in some instances, but never nervous.
“Commander Breaker, do I ask your advice on how to run the Bureau?” Jonas growled when the look had no effect on Rule.
“You don’t have to ask,” Rule quipped deliberately. “I believe I offer on a fairly regular basis. One of the reasons I’m considering that division directorship, remember? By the way, should I take it, Lawe, Diane and Thor will join me in the top-tier positions that have been outlined.”
Jonas grunted at that as he tapped a single slowly extending claw tip against the desk. “Taking my best people, Rule? Now you’re just trying to piss me off.”
That was entirely possible, Rule admitted silently. If only he could piss the director off enough to make him drop this damned case.
He knew that wasn’t happening, though.
“Distract you maybe.” Rule shrugged as he admitted to the accusation but not his reasons why. “You’re looking stressed, Jonas.”
And Jonas had never looked stressed in all the years Rule had known him.
He watched as Jonas shook his head before wiping his hands over his face. “Just find the Unknown, Rule. They’ll lead us to Gideon. Maybe then, Rachel, Amber and I can get some rest.”
Gideon was the last link.
Anonymous files had been sent from Judd to the Bureau, after Liza had remembered parts of that ritual that hid her for so long.
The files had detailed the codes he remembered, outlined clearly the research notes he’d seen and advised Jonas that if Amber had been given the first injection and was still living, to make damned sure the injections continued on a schedule he’d listed as the same that the scientists overseeing Honor and Fawn had used.
There was no serum to continue, though. No one knew the formula and there were too many files of children, young adults and adults who had been a part of that research and had been a casualty of it.
So why was Amber still living?