Break the Day - Lara Adrian Page 0,30

too?”

“Of course.”

“Good. I’d like a copy, if that’s all right. I’m sure I can find a way to enhance the quality.”

By “find a way,” he meant to turn the image over to Gideon in D.C.

The Order would be interested in all of her gathered intel, although he doubted she would surrender it easily. And attempting to persuade her would be a problem all its own since he wasn’t authorized to divulge the fact that he was still working for Lucan Thorne.

She had brought him into her personal crusade, primarily because he left her no other choice. But he was still in play as a solo operative. Seeing her private war room didn’t change the parameters of his mission. Neither had kissing her.

Guilt rode him when he recalled her confusion over the reason for his ejection from the Order. She’d been more than confused.

She’d been outraged and defensive . . . for him.

“Do you think I’m crazy to be doing this, Rafe?”

“Crazy?” He scoffed lightly and shook his head. “I think you’re amazing.”

He couldn’t help but marvel over the fact that until a few months ago, she had simply been living as a civilian—a music student studying away from home, for crissake. Now, no one could argue that she was a formidable operative.

She had pulled together an array of intelligence that exceeded even what the Order had collected thus far on Cruz and his associates. Hell, she had put Judah LaSalle in her sights weeks ago when Rafe and his comrades had only heard his name for the first time the other night.

He shook his head as he set the photograph down. “How have you managed to put this kind of operation together all by yourself?”

She gave him a cautious look. “Someone gave me a headstart.”

“What do you mean? Does someone else know about any of this?”

God, he hoped not. It was already bad enough that she was involved. He didn’t want to have to report back to Lucan or Commander Chase that he would be bringing in more than one problem for them to contain.

Devony got up and walked over to the painting of her mother that hung on the wall. She removed the framed portrait, revealing the steel front of a safe built into the wall.

“Apparently, my father had been working on a lot of this information the last time he was here in Boston. I discovered it . . . after,” she said, opening the door and retrieving more files from inside. She came back and passed them to Rafe. “I don’t think he told anyone what he was working on. He wrote all of his notes by hand, which means he didn’t trust that it would be secure anywhere in electronic form.”

“Not even on JUSTIS computers?”

“Maybe especially not there.”

Rafe leafed through the pages of boldly scrawled notes and sketched diagrams Roland Winters had left behind when he died. Among the papers were handwritten logs of container shipments arriving and leaving from various Boston ports. A number of new and unfamiliar names made appearances in the notes, along with that of Judah LaSalle.

And on the port logs was more than one reference to a company called Crowe Industries.

Rafe’s blood seethed when he saw it. He knew that name well. The business tycoon who owned the firm, Reginald Crowe, had been ubiquitous around the globe for decades, his name on everything from lavish international hotels to major corporations.

Earlier this year, Crowe had shocked the world when he’d masterminded what would have been a mass murder of epic proportions at a gathering of countless Breed and human dignitaries. If Crowe had had his way, the peace summit would have been the match that lit a horrific war.

The Order had killed Crowe that night, but not before he had announced to the public at large that he was part of a terrorist cabal calling themselves Opus Nostrum.

The Order had been chasing the elusive organization ever since.

Not to mention another powerful adversary who had arisen in recent months as well.

“Some of your father’s notes are dated almost two years ago,” Rafe said as Devony sat down beside him once more. “If he had his eyes on Crowe Industries at that time, then whether he realized it or not, he must have been getting damn close to Opus too.”

She nodded, but there was a sorrow behind her eyes. “All my father ever wanted was a lasting peace in the world. My entire family was committed to that cause. They pledged their lives to