no woman, adria thought with a prickling sense of unease, would be immune to such a man.

chapter 26

kaleb took the printed documents silver held out, relating to a business arrangement between him and the blackedge wolves. "any issues?"

"no. they've agreed to the changes you requested." she glanced at her datapad, looked up. hesitated.

such hesitation was unusual for the ice-blonde who had been his aide since before he became a councilor, but kaleb had an excellent idea of the reason behind it. "you're wondering why i would subcontract any type of security to the wolves."

"yes. you have the arrows, and your own men. you don't need blackedge."

"they have certain unique skills," he said, scanning the first page of the contract as he did so, his mind taking in the data at a speed that, when silver first started working for him, had caused her to believe he wasn't actually reading. he was. his mind processed each word as he swept his eye over it, embedded it in his memory.

flipping the page, he continued. "even psy can be tracked by scent."

"true," silver said, "but changelings can't evade a telepathic sweep."

kaleb glanced up. "a weakness only if the psy in question is aware he or she is being stalked. many of our race ignore any skill or ability beyond their own."

a longer pause, and he could almost hear her mind working methodically through his words. it was what made her such a good aide. he didn't trust her-he didn't trust anyone, and silver's first loyalty was to the powerful mercant family, but he knew she wouldn't betray him so long as he had her respect.

for the majority of the time since he'd become aware of them, he'd believed the mercants were swayed solely by power and wealth-of which kaleb had amassed a great deal. however, after monitoring them for years, he'd seen multiple mercant family members remain with failing companies until there was no chance of salvage. he'd also seen them betray wealthier employers if the price was right. it had led him to revise his earlier conclusions.

power and money might purchase a mercant's skills, but earn their cold-eyed respect and they would not only become mute when it came to your secrets, they would also stand fast in the face of trouble. in the past year, kaleb knew he'd moved onto the very exclusive list of people the mercants would not sell out.

their connections and abilities, added to that of the arrows, brought him another step closer to taking total control of the net. of course, there had always been a second option when it came to the net, one he hadn't yet discarded. it all depended on the outcome of his search.

"you are correct, councilor," silver said at last, her voice cool, clear, flawless. "do you need me to collate data on the individual you're tracking?"

"no." he had long ago discovered and memorized every shred of available data on the one person he searched for with remorseless persistence.

scanning the penultimate page of the contract, he indicated for silver to wait. thirty seconds later, he was done. picking up a pen, he signed the document in triplicate and passed it across the desk. "tell blackedge i have no need of their services at present." the wolves would serve their purpose after he'd located his target-because that target was highly likely to refuse his hospitality. and in this case, a psychic leash was not a viable option.

of course, selenka durev, the blackedge alpha, wouldn't agree to hunt just anyone, but after years of meticulous research, kaleb understood the finest details of how the pack functioned. if and when the time came, he'd get what he wanted. no one would be permitted to stand in his way.

"sir," silver said after double-checking he'd signed and initialed all the required places in the contract, "about henry scott."

he'd asked her to keep her ears open for any information on the councilor who hadn't been seen since sienna lauren's x-fire decimated the pure psy army. "is he alive?"

"only according to unsubstantiated rumors-those could be a strategic attempt by pure psy to bolster their membership. without henry's backing, the group has negligible power."

hmm ... "there's a man named andrea vasquez. thirty years of age." it was the darkmind that had brought him the name of henry's general. "what do you have on him?" he asked, though he'd already done his own research. however, the mercants had a way of knowing things no one else did.

"if you'll excuse me a moment."

he gave a curt nod. having finished finalizing a memo in the interim, he put it aside for silver to deal with, and turned in his chair. the crystal clear floor-to-ceiling wall looked out over the busy square below, black-garbed commuters scurrying to work, their heads downbent, breaths frosting the morning air.

his mind catalogued the visual intake, but it was an automatic act, his concentration on the psychic search he'd been running continuously in the back of his mind for years. except now, he utilized every spare minute to run it in the foreground-because he was close. very, very close. enough that he might make a mistake if he didn't move with utmost stealth.

alerted by the psychic reminder, he paused, reworked his search algorithm to halt at the first sign of a trip wire or sensor. by the time silver walked back into his office, he was facing his desk once more, even as his mind hummed with a task that would've taken the full attention of most normal cardinals.

kaleb had never been normal. not in any way.

"vasquez," silver began, after taking a seat opposite his desk, "is a gradient 8.3 telepath who was placed into arrow training as a child. however, he was deemed unfit for the squad at age fourteen and reassigned to a regular black ops unit where he served with distinction until his apparent death."

all of which correlated with kaleb's own findings. "wet work?"

"not on file, but given the nature of his psychological evaluation, it's a reasonable assumption that he was used for close-contact assassinations."

kaleb had no doubts about vasquez's status as a trained killer-henry had never liked getting his hands dirty. "when did he fall off the grid?"

"eight years ago. death verified."

"of course." it was the only way to vanish outright from the net. "let me guess-an accident that left no remains but for a fragment large enough to provide dna."

"the crushed and partially burned remnants of the smallest finger from his left hand. easy enough to replace with a prosthetic."

and speaking of a man dedicated enough to mutilate himself.

"he hasn't been seen, or dna typed, since then." his aide tapped the screen of her organizer to bring up several images she turned toward him. "however, since you brought up his name in relation to henry scott, i took the liberty of going through the surveillance images of henry taken during the six months before his disappearance. vasquez isn't present in any of them."

that, kaleb knew, meant nothing. the man was a trained ghost. "it's unlikely he looks anything like he did eight years ago."

"i agree, but," silver continued, earning her paycheck with the next words she spoke, "it appears that, prior to his disappearance, henry was making regular six-figure-sum deposits into an account in the caymans. while the account itself is untraceable, henry tagged the payments with the initials 'a. v.' at his end."

kaleb was almost expecting it, that it would be such a simple thing that would destroy the wall of secrecy vasquez had built around himself. henry had never been good with details. "you have something further," he said, watching her bring up another file.

a slight nod, not a single strand out of place in the neat twist that was her hair. "the payments stopped after henry's encounter with sienna lauren. however, it now looks as if someone is reorganizing his financial assets." her eyes, an unusual color between blue and gray, met his. "our banking contacts were able to confirm it isn't shoshanna."

shoshanna was henry's wife, the relationship a fiction to placate the human and changeling population. "that's excellent work, silver." he didn't ask her to forward him the files-silver was his aide because she did things like that without being asked.

rising, she held the organizer to her side. "at present, this 'a. v.' is a phantom the same as vasquez, but i've alerted my family that he has become an individual in whom you have an interest." she left without further words, the click of her heels muffled by the carpet.

kaleb considered the possibilities. the first was that vasquez had taken over after henry's death and was setting himself up as the new leader of pure psy. however, from everything kaleb had discovered about vasquez, the male was not a leader. while training to be an arrow, he'd followed orders with dogged fidelity. the sole reason he'd been excised from the squad was because of a psychological imbalance that made him a risk in the field, given the sensitive nature of many arrow operations.

it must've been a difficult decision for those in charge of the squad, as according to the classified training file silver had just sent kaleb, quite aside from his lethal combat abilities, vasquez possessed a critical skill: being able to organize at the minute level. if he now had control over henry's finances, that meant he'd foreseen the need for it, had ensured he'd have the necessary access.

silver, he said after a quick telepathic knock, the reorganization of henry's finances. where is the money going?

unknown. even our best people haven't been able to track the funds. we can, however, confirm that the money isn't going to the caymans.

no, kaleb thought, vasquez was no rogue.

he was simply following orders to hide the existence of his master.

chapter 27

riaz hadn't seen adria since the waterfall, so when he ran into her on the outskirts of the pack circle a week later, they both froze. her wariness was writ large across the clean lines of her face before she blinked and wiped it away.