Turning on his heel, he strode down the hallway toward the garage. Caleb expected his daughter to follow, but she stayed where she was.
“I don’t know who you people are, but if you’re smart, you’ll stay away from my father,” she said to them. “He’s more dangerous than you can possibly comprehend.”
With that, she hurried to catch up to Harrington, her high heels echoing in the hallway.
“What the hell just happened?” Forrest asked as Kiara disappeared from sight. “I thought we were seconds away from starting the UN version of the O.K. Corral.”
“I don’t know,” Caleb murmured, fighting the urge to wrap his arms around Brielle and hold her close. “But we need to get the hell out of here and warn Jake and the others that Harrington knows they’re searching his offices. They could be facing an ambush there, too.”
They headed for the garage where they’d parked their SUV. Harrington’s limo was nowhere in sight. It was only after they were in the SUV and on their way back to the safe house that Caleb was finally able to breathe freely again. Brielle was safe at the moment, but he had no delusions about how close she’d come to dying. And that thought nearly crushed his soul.
Chapter 14
“I can’t come up with anything else to explain how he knew what we were planning,” Jake said, running his hand through his hair in exasperation as he sat down wearily on the big, comfortable-looking couch. “Harrington must have someone inside our organization feeding him information. There’s no other way he could have known we were both at the UN and his group offices at the same time.”
From where she was perched on the stool at the granite island dividing the living room from the kitchen in the Englewood, New Jersey, home they were using as a safe house, Brielle waited for someone to tell Jake that he was wrong, that there was no way anyone in STAT—or the CIA or NSA for that matter—had ratted them out. But nobody did.
“I’m less concerned about how Harrington knew we were in his building than how his security people seemed to know which way we were going to run during our escape,” Sawyer murmured. He was sitting beside Harley on the couch, his face grim. “Even after Misty shut down the building’s security cameras, those guards were ahead of us every step of the way. It was like they knew where we were going before we did. We’re lucky to have made it out of there alive.”
“I’ve been wondering the same thing.” Jake frowned. “Especially since it might mean we don’t just have a spy in our organization but somewhere on our team.”
As one, everyone—including Brielle—looked at Hudson, who was leaning against the island. He promptly gave them all the finger.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered. “I was nearly killed three times trying to get us out of Harrington’s offices. And it sure as hell wasn’t like I had a chance to communicate with anyone while we were running our asses off.”
Sawyer regarded him coolly. “Maybe you have a tracking device on you.”
Hudson stepped away from the island, spreading his arms. “Feel free to search me. Right here in front of everyone.”
“The tracking device could be one of those high-tech thingies that slip under your skin,” Caleb said with a low growl from the kitchen where he was searching through the mostly empty cabinets for something to eat. “I’d have to slice you apart to make sure I don’t miss it, though.” He glanced over his shoulder, eyes flashing blue for a split second. “I don’t think anyone would have a problem with that.”
Brielle was surprised by how angry Caleb was. Now that she thought about it, he’d been like that since they’d left the UN building in Midtown.
She was about to ask him what was bothering him—as quietly as she could, of course—but before she could, Hudson circled around the island and strode toward Caleb, a pissed-off, determined look on his face.
“I don’t know what the hell your problem is,” Hudson said. “But if you have something to say to me, why don’t you try it when I’m right in front of you?”
Caleb’s eyes turned blue again—and stayed that way this time. Brielle tensed.
Oh crap.
She’d been around her stupid brother enough to recognize a testosterone-laden display of masculinity when she saw it. If Caleb and Hudson got within arm’s reach of each other, all hell was going to break loose. The fact that Caleb was not only a werewolf but an omega at that only made it worse. There was a good possibility of someone dying.
Well…there was a good possibility of Hudson dying, anyway.
Before she knew what she was doing, Brielle was off the barstool and hurrying around the island to get between the two of them. She put one hand on Caleb’s chest and the other on Hudson’s, shoving to keep them apart.
“Stop it right now,” she said as firmly as she could, hoping to get through their thick male skulls.
Jake and Sawyer were already on their feet and moving in to help, but she backed them off with a warning look, figuring this whole thing was less likely to turn into a fight with her in the middle of them instead of another werewolf. Jake and Sawyer must have realized that, too, because they stopped where they were.
“Caleb,” she said quietly but firmly. “Hudson almost died helping your teammates get out of Harrington’s offices. I don’t know how Harrington is always a step ahead of us. Maybe he does have someone on the inside. Or maybe he has a supernatural working for him who can read minds. One thing I do know is that Hudson isn’t carrying a tracking device under his skin. He’s as much a part of the team as I am, and you aren’t going to claw him up just because you’re in a grouchy mood. Got it?”
She hadn’t really meant to call him grouchy, but the words stopped everyone cold, including Caleb, who stood there, mouthing the word to himself, a confused look on his face.
A moment later, the kitchen was filled with laughter as everyone started teasing Caleb for being grouchy. Forrest even went so far as to call him Oscar. Brielle held her breath, hoping that wouldn’t upset his inner wolf even more, but to her relief, it seemed like the tense situation had been defused. Caleb didn’t look like he was ready to punch anyone anymore. He even chuckled a little.
The conversation slowly turned back to what had happened with both teams today—without the finger-pointing this time. Not that it helped them come up with anything useful. As far as Harrington and the debacle at the UN building, all Brielle could say for sure was that he was a supernatural whose abilities seemed to revolve around seeing random images in his head on a nearly constant basis. His daughter, Kiara, seemed to have the same talent, though the visions weren’t as chaotic or overwhelming.
The search of Harrington’s offices had been the same dismal failure. Misty had gotten inside the firewalls of the corporate servers only to discover that they’d been wiped completely clean of anything dealing with Aldaran or the facility in Surinda. Even the data she’d discovered in Moscow had disappeared.