“Cassius—” I tried to ask him what she had said, but I didn’t get the chance to finish.
“I should go to the Tribunal and ask them to revoke your Executioner privileges,” he snapped.
I winced. Yup, this is it. This is when he loses his ability to hold back the anger I knew he had about Carter being in the line of fire.
“You wouldn’t—”
“Carter is a younger vampire, and you abused your friendship with him,” he growled. “And he could get hurt for it. Since she woke up, no one has been able to find him. Mind you, they couldn’t get into his lightproof room. You better hope he’s in there, Kaliya. First, Paden gets tortured and has to close down The Jackalope until this blows over, and now, Carter might be…” Cassius took a deep breath. “Paden, I could ignore. He asks for trouble and lives in a dangerous world, even for supernaturals. He deals in information, knowing the risks. Carter is a different story.”
I closed my eyes, looking away from Cassius.
“I didn’t think they would get my phone. It’s normally glued to me. I’m sorry, Cassius.” It was stupid. It was an excuse. It was a mistake I had never made before. It was unforgivable.
He sighed, shaking his head. “We’ll talk about this later in private,” he said, picking up his phone again. He walked out of the room, leaving me with a confused Raphael and Leith, who shuffled after Cassius a moment later.
“You’re in trouble,” Raphael said softly, “because you wanted to find me.”
“And I sent a friend to get the intel I needed. It…it was supposed to be innocent and easy. Carter knows how to defend himself. I just have to hope he doesn’t need to,” I said, refusing to look at the not-human.
“What would Sinclair do to him?”
“Torture him for information. Ask to trade him for you. Kill him just to prove a point. Sinclair is capable of anything,” I answered, clenching my hands in fists so hard my nails threatened to break the skin on my palms. Carter knew what had been at risk. He wasn’t a fool, even if he was young, but that didn’t ease my worry. They hadn’t been able to find him yet. He was part of the nest. There’s no way he should have been able to hide from all of them.
I got up, unwilling to stew any longer, and went to find Cassius. Raphael didn’t need any more information to know how serious this was, and I couldn’t stand sitting there with his scent making my fangs ache constantly. I found Cassius in his office, leaning over and looking severe. He glared at me as I entered the room.
“Sinclair went to Midnight Reverie. Carter was already there because it was a Saturday night, and he’s always there on a Saturday night. I asked him to just keep an eye on them, maybe listen in. He couldn’t hear anything, so I suggested maybe asking one of Sinclair’s friends to dance. He hit it off with the fae and got an address. That was all. He joked around about why he was doing it, but he knew the score. He even let me know when they were leaving, so I could get out. I didn’t coerce him. If he hadn't wanted to help, I could have tailed Sinclair. I promise you, Carter knows me well enough to know I could have. I had options,” I explained, feeling less upset and more angry. “Carter knows me just as well as you do. Just as well as Paden does. He’s not a fool or an idiot, and I didn’t take advantage of him or manipulate him.”
“I know,” Cassius said softly. “You just didn’t think about how it could fall back on him.”
“It’s Sinclair! No, I didn’t think because it was a tiny margin. There were a thousand ways I could have gotten that intel from Sinclair and grabbed Raphael before he could. The likelihood he would have gotten my phone at my house after going after Paden? You really think that was a likely scenario?”
“If he hadn’t gone after Paden, no,” Cassius said, raising an eyebrow. “But once he went after Paden, you should have known Carter was at risk.”
“You’re right, but I was too busy running for my life.”
“I know.”
“It doesn’t count for anything, but I am sorry.”
Cassius shook his head a little, looking down at his desk.