Lora Leigh - Rule Breaker

“Judd and Gideon,” Rule murmured as he propped an ankle on his knee before leaning his elbow on the arm of the chair and narrowing his gaze thoughtfully. “We know Gideon’s already here, and I’ve managed to find a few leads on a Breed who arrived twelve years ago, only to disappear a few days after Liza and Claire’s accident.”

Jonas clenched his teeth as he fought for patience. Dammit, he wouldn’t have to play these fucking infernal games if everyone would just stop trying to evade fate and the fact that he knew what the hell he was doing.

He breathed in deeply. “When we were here nine years ago, we were originally searching for a transmission we traced to a young man, Mark McQuade. He was an exceptional hacker, and for a number of years he fed us information and files that he stole from the Council’s secure computers. Files so top secret that if they were released at the time, they would have destroyed some of the world’s top leaders. We used them to blackmail those leaders instead.” Jonas smiled mercilessly. “Some enemies are better used than destroyed.”

It was a philosophy he knew Rule agreed with. Still.

“I knew we were searching for a hacker when we first arrived,” Rule stated. “He was killed by Coyotes that night before we could reach him and his sister, though.”

Rule was going to continue to play the charade, Jonas thought.

As though he weren’t well aware that the Breed had made several trips a year to the area to check up on the girl since that night.

“Yes, he was,” Jonas sighed. “He was killed trying to protect her when the Coyotes found her first.”

Here it was.

Jonas pushed back a flare of satisfaction, knowing it was far too soon to feel any triumph. Only when Gideon faced him with the answers he needed, and Amber’s cure, would he allow that triumph free.

But here, finally, was one of the final steps to ensuring it.

“Gypsy McQuade.” Rule sat back in his chair somberly, though Jonas wasn’t unaware of the phantom form of the natural lion that eased slowly into view until it sat beside Rule, watching Jonas suspiciously, powerful teeth prominently displayed.

Jonas had no intention of warning Rule that his mate awaited. Hell, if the Breed hadn’t figured that out, then he deserved whatever he got.

Hell no, Jonas wanted the man who had betrayed Mark McQuade and his sister Gypsy.

He knew who it was.

He knew he had no proof.

But he knew how to pull that information from the darkness into the light. That was his strength and he would use it exactingly.

“What do you know about Gypsy McQuade?” Jonas asked, as though he had no idea that Rule likely knew far more than he would ever let on.

“Not a lot,” Rule answered without so much as a flicker of the eye or the slightest scent of a lie. “Dane and I have run into her fairly often at many of the nightspots and parties used by our contacts to pass information to us. She’s a regular at the clubs and bars, both legal and underground, and has been for years as I understand it. She likes to party, though she doesn’t mess with the drugs and never drinks more than she can handle. She’s actually become very good friends with the Coyote females from the Delgado pack, Ashley, Emma and Sharone. Surprisingly, her friendship with Khileen slowly faded, though they still seem to get along well whenever they see each other. I would think you know more than I’ve pulled, considering her friendship with your mate and child.”

Jonas snorted. “As you probably already know, then, she’s amazingly reticent about discussing her own life.”

Rule nodded.

“Her brother was an exceptional hacker,” Jonas sighed, continuing to ignore the reference to Gypsy’s friendship with his family. “The Breed community still owes him a hell of a debt. Because of that debt, I’ve ensured she’s always had friends to turn to. Not that she’s taken advantage of it. She’s as distrustful as her brother was.” Jonas frowned; surely Gypsy had managed to cry out all that guilt and pain by now. “Gypsy was convinced she was the reason her brother was killed.” He breathed out roughly. “Her file is on your e-pad, as well as my notes and observations, along with Liza’s, Claire’s and Terran Martinez’s. Along with her file are the ones on her sister, Kandy Sweet McQuade, as well as Mark’s former fiancée, an assistant DA in Window Rock, Theadora Lacey. They’re the short list of contacts the Unknown are suspected of using to learn our movements in the area, as well as the rogue Breeds the Council sends out. The Unknown are suspected to be directly responsible for our inability to locate or capture Gideon, and we suspect they also know Judd’s location. Find just one of them, Judd or Gideon, and we’ll have what we need to pull both of them in and finish this. Barring that, identify just one of the Unknown, and we achieve the same result. And if we’re very lucky, maybe I can learn who betrayed Gypsy’s brother and destroyed that kid’s life in the course of the investigation.”

And Jonas could officially give Rule leave to run an investigation that he’d been running under the radar for far too long.

The search for the person or persons responsible for revealing Mark McQuade’s activities to the Council Coyotes searching for him nine years ago.

Because as sure as that Breed was playing one of the most intricate manipulations Jonas had ever seen—outside his own, if Rule wasn’t extremely careful—then he was going to get his ass burned if he was revealed to be doing so.

...

Rule stared back at Jonas for long silent moments before pulling the electronic pad from the holster he wore at the side of his thigh. He activated it and pulled up the files Jonas had sent. He scanned each one quickly while giving the appearance of patiently reading.

Hell, he knew this file like he knew his own life.

Probably better.

How the hell had Gypsy become suspected of working with the Unknown?

He was going to end up kicking someone’s ass for letting this happen. Years of maneuvering, watching her pretty butt, and protecting men—both human and Breeds—Jonas would give his canines for, could come to a quick and painful end for not just himself, but Gypsy as well.

He knew each of the other young women in the file, though he’d taken little interest in them over the years. He had no reason to.

Kandy Sweet McQuade—someone should have shot her father for that name—ran her parents’ candy and gift store, while Hansel and Greta McQuade, along with Gypsy when needed, and their deceased son’s best friend, Jason Harte, ran a small but successful personal image building business.

Two sisters and the ex-fiancée of a dead man suspected to be working with a group so covert that, until now, they were only regarded as a damned fairytale. They should have stayed a fairytale. Someone was dropping the ball here, and they damned well better pick it back up before he began kicking assess.

The Unknowns contact, code name Whisper, was suspected to have begun working with the group between nine and ten years before, during the year after Mark McQuade died she was directly responsible for contacting the Unknown in time to keep the rogue Coyotes from moving in on the location where Honor, Fawn and Judd were hiding three years after they escaped the plans the Genetics Council had for them. Had it not been for Whisper, they would have been taken.

Eyewitness reports in New Mexico at the time described a small group of Native Americans disguised in war paint and battling a team of Coyotes as two others sped away with two teenage girls and a young adult male. And they were never seen in the area again.

Trails had been laid leading from New Mexico. There had been sightings in Venezuela, but neither Council nor Breed forces had ever gotten close enough to actually have a chance of capturing them.