Undercover(41)
When he finally did get in, he discovered the room was empty of the central processing unit for the network as well as Kira’s and Perry’s personal comm units.
He blew out a frustrated sigh. It was one thing to take a personal unit—he did that while traveling all the time—but another entirely to remove the central unit. Totally unnecessary unless one had something of great value to protect. Or something to hide.
Leaving the room, he reset the door and did a sweep of the rest of the house, just in case they’d left any other comm units. But he quickly discovered all other comms had been removed as well.
He made a mental note to see if there was a way to look into the Family network to get into Kira and Perry’s personal system. He’d tried but had run into walls. The Families had built major protections for themselves into the legal framework of the Federation. Their networks were protected by the law in all but the most extreme cases. It did seem as though this sort of situation would qualify, though. He’d need to run it by Ash when he spoke with him again.
He thought of Sera as he let himself out of the house, this time through the back door. He missed her and needed to get the hells back to her side as soon as he spoke with his father.
“Brandt, you can’t be serious.”
Brandt looked at his father and scrubbed his palms down his thighs. “I am. I’m in love with her.”
“She’s a concubine! You can’t be thinking straight.” His father pushed up from his chair and began to pace.
Kira had been nowhere to be found, and Brandt needed to tell his family about his intentions with Sera before he left to get back to Borran.
“She’s not. She’s on my team. She was only posing as a concubine.”
“Well, that’s a small mercy, I suppose. Who is she then?”
“Her name is Sera Ayers. She’s from Sanctu. And I’m old enough to know what love is. I’m thinking just fine.”
“Bah, love.” His father waved a hand and then paused, picking up on Brandt’s not giving Familial affiliation for Sera. “Did you say she’s unranked? She may as well be a concubine, Brandt, for all the good it does you.”
“I’m not with her for status, Father.”
“That’s clear. She has none, and she’ll give you none. She’ll drag you down. She’s nothing.”
Brandt stood, a flush heating his face. He physically jerked back, fists clenched at his sides. For a few long moments he had to concentrate on his breathing to keep from saying something they’d both regret.
Brandt respected his father more than any other person he knew, and he couldn’t recall ever actually standing up and feeling as if he wanted to strike out in anger at him.
It wasn’t absolutely necessary that he have the permission of the head of the Family to marry, but he wanted it anyway. Not that it would stop him from saying what needed to be said. “Don’t you dare ever speak that way about her. She is everything. I love her. She’s strong, smart, self-made. You think Kira is self-made? You think these women Mother parades past me every three minutes are self-made? Have any of them ever earned anything on their own? I thought that was important to you.”
Viktor Pela sighed and touched his son’s shoulder. “This is a mistake. You have a duty to your Family.”
“I’m doing my duty to my race right now. Every day. As does Sera. I’m not a first or second son. Marius will marry politically, you know that. Ivan has already. It isn’t necessary for me to do it, too. Stop making excuses.”
“Your mother will tear the walls down around us all.” His father threw his hands up in the air.
“I imagine so. Which is why I’m telling you and not her. I would like your seal on the papers. And then I need your quiet on the situation until my mission has been completed.”
“You want me to give you permission to marry an unranked woman, and then you want me to keep it a secret? You don’t wish to have a joining here in Majar? On the grounds?”
“It’s going to take all my charm to convince her to marry me to start with. I don’t know that I can also work in a ceremony with eight hundred attendees. Right now, it needs to be quick and quiet, and then later, we may do a joining here.”
His father took the papers and looked them over. Brandt breathed a sigh of relief when his father finally signed and stamped his seal on them.
“Why the hurry? Is she with child?”
“No. I want to extend my protection and status to her.” He took the papers from his father’s hands and tucked them in an inside pocket. “It’s complicated, but, oh gods, do you remember the woman Ash was with when he married Kira? The one he loved and wanted to be with?”
His father shot to standing again. “You told me after I signed the papers? This Sera is that woman? I thought she left?”
“She did. Ash offered to make her his mistress, but she didn’t want less than marriage, less than the total love and attention of her man. She left and rose in the ranks of the corps. To lieutenant.”
His father’s eyes softened as approval replaced his outrage. “An unranked female? And she’s young. She must be an exceptional soldier.”
Brandt hid his smile. “She is. And she’s on my team. You may as well know she’s with Ash, too. But only one of us can marry her, and I want it to be me. I want to protect her from any retribution that may come of what we reveal in this investigation. And I want to protect her from any censure for being involved with us both.” He paused. “She’s a good person. Honorable. Strong. Courageous. Everything a man would want in his mate.”
“You have to tell your mother. Not right now, I understand your situation. But I’m not risking life and limb, hells, I don’t even have all my limbs to risk! You have to do it when the time comes. Go, go with my blessing.”
Brandt grinned, relieved. “Thank you.”
“She sounds like the kind of person I’d enjoy. I’ll look forward to meeting her.”
“Thank you for that, too. You’ll like her. But in the meantime, I’d like you to lock Perry and Kira out of the Family Network. Just say it’s technical problems or something like that. I can’t say more, so please don’t ask. It’s imperative for everyone.”
“I have to know. Is Kira in trouble?”
“She could be. And if she is, she’s done something horrible. Something she can’t take back. I hope my suspicions are wrong, but I can’t know for sure yet, so in the meantime, lock it all down.”
Ash stalked from his office at HQ and headed to his CO’s. As he went, he dodged yet another woman who fluttered her lashes at him. The news that he’d been involved in a threesome had made him some sort of irresistible quantity to women. Not that he’d had a problem before. He smiled inwardly. But it was worse now, as if he emitted some special pheromone or something. Women were all over him.
He needed to get back to Borran, and he needed to straighten everything out. He’d made his intentions clear, but until they got it all out in the open and settled upon, he’d be uneasy. They hadn’t been able to simply come out and be specific about the future when they’d had to rush off. They needed that.
Sera’s communications with him had been short, but she’d told him she loved him and missed him. She was opening up, taking a huge risk, and he wanted to be sure she never regretted it. He needed her. Needed to be tied to her in some sense.
He had a few more things to do, and then he needed to get back. To see her again, to hold her in his arms and tell her he loved her, preferably with his cock buried inside her.
The female assistant who’d been giving him the eye finally spoke. “He’ll see you now.”
“Thank you.” Ash didn’t say anything else as he headed through the large doors to Comandante Ellis’s office.
“Ash, good to see you.” Wilhelm Ellis sat, all nearly seven feet of him, behind an enormous desk. The thick file of intel they’d gathered was before him on the blotter. “Sit, please.”
Ash sat. And waited. Ellis was a man of few words, but they’d come when he was ready and not before.
“Her work so far had been exemplary. Subcommander Ayers is a credit to your team and the corps. Getting the info chip from the woman on Nondal was a fine stroke of luck.”
Ash nodded. “Not luck, sir. The woman trusted Sera before she knew Sera had taken care to set up a way to get free from Nondal if she chose.”
“Beautiful, too, eh?” Ellis’s perceptive gaze landed on him, daring him to argue.
“Why do you say so, sir?”
Ellis laughed, startling Ash a moment. “Why do I get the feeling your cover has bled into your reality? This Sera is the woman you had to leave aside when you married, isn’t she?”
“Yes.” How Ellis had known wasn’t something Ash questioned. A man didn’t sit in Ellis’s chair without a great deal of insight and knowledge.
“Don’t play coy with me, Walker. If this situation is going to be complicated by anything, I should know. I should have known from the start. Her previous commander, Yager, sent me a very terse note about you. This woman is an asset we should use here if you’re going to muck it up there.”