Shards of Hope

Chapter 52

DEVRAJ SANTOS WAS on the phone with one of Aden’s people, hammering out details of the training protocol they were creating for the fiercely strong and unique psychic abilities now appearing in the Forgotten population, when Aubry ran into his office. Dev took one look at the urgency on his normally laid-back vice director’s face and cut the conversation short.

“What is it?” he asked Aubry.

“There’s just been a kidnapping attempt against five of our children.”

Dev’s anger was an arctic thing. The Forgotten had been through this once before, would rise up in bloody war to stop a second wave of innocent death. “The ones with SnowDancer and DarkRiver?” The two packs had offered safe harbor for gifted Forgotten children who needed to grow into their strength away from covetous eyes.

“Safe.” Aubry flipped an organizer toward him, his Texan drawl having turned clipped and hard. “These five are too young to relocate, were playing together in a small park when a fucking assault force came after them.”

Taking the organizer, Dev flipped through the images from the scene. “Injuries?”

“Kids are scared but safe. All three of the parents who were shooting the breeze while the kids played are down with severe wounds.” His hand tightened, tendons pushing up against the deep brown of his skin. “The adults confirmed the attackers were Psy, and that they had a symbol on their uniforms that traces back to the Marshall family.”

“How are the children safe if this was an assault force?”

“Luck,” Aubry said, voice grim. “Tag and Tiara were armed and close enough to respond to the telepathic cries for help. Otherwise, we’d be looking at dead parents and abducted children.”

In spite of his anger, Dev could see what Aubry couldn’t, blinded as the other man was by the terror and pain he’d witnessed at the site. “Why would the team wear identifiable gear, Aubry?” It went against every tenet of black ops. “Especially that of a prominent family?”

“Stupidity? Arrogance?” Aubry ran both hands over his clean-shaven skull, his eyes glittering. “Tiara and Tag shot a couple of them, so we’ve got blood at least, even if they all escaped. Fucking cowards.”

Dev walked out with Aubry, heading to go see the injured and the scared, but his mind continued to pick holes in the believability of the scenario. Yes, a number of Psy had proven they’d cross any lines to obtain power and Dev’s people were starting to display some very unusual ones, but the Marshall family was a business empire, not a military one.

“Don’t forget,” Katya said to him that night as they stood on the balcony of their apartment in a soaring high-rise. “The ‘Marshall’ part of their name comes from Marshall Hyde. The family changed its surname to his first name when he first rose to power in the Council. Ruthless is their nature.”

“But the Marshalls are smart.” The family group was a significant force in the financial world. “This wasn’t smart—if I know their identity, I can launch a retaliatory attack.”

Katya nodded slowly, the wind pasting strands of her fine blonde hair to his shirtsleeve. She’d grown it out until it now reached the middle of her back, and every so often, she’d smile at him and hand him a brush in memory of the time when he’d carefully untangled her hair though they’d been strangers to one another.

“Yes,” she murmured. “The Marshalls never pick fights unless they know they’ll win.”

Sliding his arm around her, he tucked her to his side. “My gut tells me that, no matter what, there was always meant to be at least one survivor who could point us toward the Marshalls.”

A frown of concentration on his wife’s face, her skin gilded gold by the sun she’d been getting as she helped play babysitter to a friend’s young and active children while the friend and her husband took a long-overdue honeymoon. “Maybe the Forgotten and the Marshalls have a common enemy,” she said at last. “Could be you’re supposed to get angry and eliminate them.”

Dev ran his fingers desultorily over her nape, satisfaction uncurling in his gut when her eyes closed, a sigh of pleasure escaping her throat. “It’s also possible the family was arrogant enough to think they didn’t need subterfuge, that it’d be an easy snatch.”

“How do we find out which?”

“Pax Marshall and I are going to have a conversation.” Pax might have a rep as a stone-cold bastard, but if he was behind this, he had no idea who he was baiting.