a debt.
“Jaime,” he snapped as soon as he connected.
The woman on the other end let the silence stand for a second longer than necessary. “Seth,” she greeted in a warm tone. “Nice to hear your voice. Staying out of trouble, I hope?”
“You’d be the first to know otherwise,” he answered testily.
“Hm. I suppose that’s true.” She paused again before getting down to business. “I need you to pick up one of my employees. I believe she may be in a spot of trouble and could use the extra protection.”
Seth paced away from his brother. Irritation crawled up his spine and settled in his temples with a throb of pain. This wasn’t the first time she’d had him keep an eye on someone. Usually, it meant babysitting some rich asshole for the weekend, but occasionally he kept the truly innocent from feeling someone’s wrath.
Resigned, he asked, “What sort of trouble?”
“It will be all over the news in a few hours,” she mumbled, almost to herself.
Her pause put Seth on alert almost as much as the words that followed.
“There was an explosion at the shifter-specific penitentiary, allegedly under the orders of Jasper Crowley and with help from inside actors. Numerous prisoners have escaped. It’s a damn disaster, and she may be the only witness.”
Seth locked eyes with his brother across the room. He hadn’t been there for the battles, but he’d heard about them. None of the Crowley males enjoyed picking through the memories and he wasn’t about to push them to open up about their feelings and personal traumas. The snarls and flashing eyes were answer enough to understand how that fucker Jasper touched their lives.
Now he was back to the same shit and orchestrating his own early release?
He didn’t know this woman from Adam, but he understood the burden of others looking to permanently silence his ability to call bullshit. “I can leave now,” he said. “Send me the address.”
Seth ended the call. He threw his phone on the bed and ripped open the top drawer of the wobbly dresser for the rest of his clothes.
“What the fuck, man?” Dash objected.
Seth shoved a stack of shirts into his duffle. He scratched a thumb down one side of the zipper, then lifted his face to meet his brother’s look. No use letting the news sit and fester. Better they heard it from someone they knew than random talking heads on the radio or TV.
“There’s been some trouble at Shiftermax.”
Chapter 4
Lilah shrugged the blanket tighter around her shoulders and fought the urge to fidget. She stilled her bouncing leg for a handful of heartbeats before the jittery movement started again.
Men and women darted all around the Supernatural Enforcement Agency field office. They reminded her of bees, all activity that made little sense to her but served some purpose for the hive. Phones rang and rang until someone finally had enough and picked up the line, only for others to continue chirping without answer. The same had happened for nearly five hours straight while she sat and watched and waited.
She glanced up at the clock on the wall. Five hours and ten minutes since she’d given her statement and been shown to a seat to wait. Not that she blamed them. They had a prison break to contain. She was small potatoes compared to that gnarly disaster.
She darted a glance toward the door. They had all her information. They could reach out whenever the worst of the storm passed. All she wanted to do was strip down, crawl into bed, and pretend the entire day had been all in her imagination.
No. They’d given her instructions to wait. Sticking to her promise to stay seemed the best thing to do on a day of lawlessness. She had to find order where none existed. Sometimes it was the only way to keep from falling to pieces. And frankly, going home when Jasper knew her address felt like trouble waiting to happen.
Her hands shook as she raised a paper cup of water to her lips, only to let it fall when she realized it was empty.
A shadow fell over her. “Lilah McKenna?”
“Yes?” Lilah craned her neck to see the man who’d spoken. The different colored shirt marked him as something other than the rank and file agents. The wide berth they gave put him above them in the hierarchy.
“Special Agent Mallory. I want to go over the statement you gave to one of my agents.”
“Of course.” She pushed to her feet and blindly followed him through