Lover Uncloaked (Stealth Guardians #1) - By Unknown Page 0,91
your visit isn’t entirely personal.”
Aiden straightened, turning the glass in his hand. “My charge is being protected at the compound right now, so I—”
His father shot up. “At the compound? What on earth has gotten into you? It’s against our rules! You’d better have a damn good explanation for that!”
“I do. Actually more than one.”
“Well, don’t make me wait for it.”
“Sit down, father, this will take a while.”
When he took his seat again, Aiden nipped from his glass. “There were several attempts on Leila’s life, and we have reason to believe that a council member who wasn’t happy with the outcome of the vote, is behind it.”
Both his mother and father gasped at the accusation.
“They would never!” his father said in outrage.
“They would, and they did. But that’s not the worst of it. There’s more. We have a traitor on the council. A traitor who’s feeding information to the demons.”
His father’s face went white in shock. He exchanged a surprised look with his wife.
“Tell me everything.”
Aiden nodded, filling his father and mother in about what had transpired up till now. With every word, his father’s expression grew grimmer. By the end, both of his parents sat there, looking shell-shocked.
“No wonder Hamish disappeared. The boy has good instincts. Always knew it.” His father nodded as if talking to himself. Then he stared back at him and Pearce. “I’m assuming you have a plan.”
“I need to know how the council voted on Leila’s case.”
“The votes are secret. You know I can’t tell you,” his father objected, outrage coloring his voice.
“I’m afraid you’ll need to break some rules this time. We have no lead on who on the council is responsible. We have to narrow down the field. Whoever voted to eliminate Leila is a suspect in the attempts on her life. And somebody who voted to protect her, must work—”
“—for the demons,” Pearce concluded.
“Explain your reasoning,” his father requested.
“The first is easy: the person voting to eliminate Leila wanted to make sure neither she nor her research falls into the demons’ hands. He or she tried to steal the research data, killed Leila’s boss and wiped the data off her laptop in the process. That same person is responsible for sending the dogs on us at our safe house.” Aiden knew his reasoning was solid.
“And the traitor? Why would he have to be someone voting to protect her?”
“Because Leila’s drug is only in its final stages. She’s still needed to refine it. It is in the interest of the demons to keep her alive if they don’t want to end up with a drug that might in the end not work. They had to keep her alive.”
“And you think somebody on the council was responsible for sending this Zoltan and his thugs after you in Sonoma?”
Aiden nodded. “Yes. By that time they’d realized that all known copies of the data were destroyed, and now they had no choice but to snatch Leila if they wanted the drug. Nobody knew we were there. Only Hamish, Leila and I.”
“And you trust Hamish,” his father asked.
Was his father doubting his friend? “Implicitly. He helped us escape the safe house, and he was the one finding the lost portals.”
“Good. You should trust your gut more often.”
“So, will you help us?”
His parents exchanged looks. Then his mother gave him a soft smile. “Of course, he’ll help you.”
“Then who voted to protect her?”
Anxiously, Aiden leaned forward. One of the names he’d receive was the traitor who worked for the demons.
“I did,” his father confessed. “But then, you knew that already. Besides me, there were Cinead, Riona, Finlay, and Norton. The others voted to eliminate her.”
“Thank you.”
“How are you going to trap the guilty party?”
“I need you to call an emergency council meeting.”
“What do you want me to put on the agenda, son?”
“You need to tell the council members where Leila and I are hiding.”
Stunned, his father stared at him. “You want to turn yourself and your charge into bait?”
“There’s no other way.”
THIRTY-TWO
Barclay watched as the last council member finally took his seat in the chamber before he let the gavel drop onto the table to ask for silence. He knew he would have to go slowly in order to give Pearce and Aiden sufficient time to upload the tracking software to all council members’ cell phones. Beyond the closed doors of the council chambers, the two of them were already working on the cell phones, Barclay having made sure that the council assistant would be called away from