Blood Assassin (The Sentinels #2)(69)

Kaede snorted. “That doesn’t make you the father.”

Bas wondered how the younger man would explain the color of Molly’s eyes. He’d never seen anyone beyond himself with that particular color of bronze.

Still, it wasn’t the color of eyes or hair or the tiny nose tilted at the very end that made Molly his daughter.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t?”

“The second I held Molly in my arms she belonged to me,” Bas said with a quiet sincerity. “End of story.”

Kaede’s distrustful expression abruptly melted, revealing a tenderness that would shock most people.

Who would believe the man referred to as “Bas’s Blade” had a heart?

Molly had changed them all.

“She belongs to all of us,” Kaede said.

Which only made it all the more vital that he get her back, Bas acknowledged. His people depended on her bright spirit to lighten the darkness of their souls.

Deliberately, he forced his thoughts away from Molly. Instead, he concentrated on the vicious pleasure of getting his hands on her kidnapper, allowing a hum of anticipation to override his debilitating pain.

It was the only way to keep his sanity.

“Did you discover anything?”

Kaede snapped into his role of executive assistant, flipping open the file folder.

“Names,” he said, handing over a stack of papers. “But no known addresses.”

“Let me see.” Bas scanned the top page. “Stephan Reyes?” He glanced up in surprise. The Sentinel had been his right-hand man before he’d gotten into a drunken fight with another Sentinel over a woman. “Isn’t he dead?”

Kaede shrugged. “We never found his body.”

“Good point.” Bas tossed the paper aside. “But Stephan was trained by the monks. The kidnapper wasn’t.” He scanned the next paper. “Russell Harvey?”

“He was the healer who we caught experimenting on norms.”

Bas wrinkled his nose. The man had been a true genius, but he’d been lacking any sort of ethics when it came to his medical experiments. Bas had drawn the line when he’d discovered the healer infecting young women with increasingly lethal diseases to see if he could discover the power to cure them.

They still had no idea how many he’d killed before they caught him and ordered him to leave.

It was only because he truly had a gift for healing that Bas hadn’t destroyed him on the spot.

“I’d nearly forgotten about that SOB.” His lips curled in disgust. “This is exactly the sort of sick game he would enjoy playing.”

Kaede nodded. “Agreed. But I don’t think we should assume anything until we have all the facts.”

Bas sent his companion a wry glance. “Logic from you, Kaede?”

Kaede flashed a smile, pretending he didn’t exist on the edge of violence. “One of us has to keep his head.”

With a shake of his head, Bas took out the last sheet of paper.

“Lee Sandoval?” He frowned. “The name isn’t familiar.”

“He was Jael’s lover.”

Jael. Abruptly he recalled the pretty, quick-tempered witch who had an unfortunate habit of trying to lure him into her bed. A pain in the ass.

The only reason he’d kept her around was because she had a talent for creating unbearable pain. A skill that had made Bas a fortune from human dictators who wanted to torture a prisoner.

It took longer to remember the awkward, unsociable male who’d been her lover.

“The computer geek,” he at last said.

“He was also a psychic, although he rarely used his powers,” Kaede said. “We assumed it was because they were embarrassingly weak. Now I wonder if he wanted to keep them hidden so we would underestimate him.”

Bas frowned. “Why?”

“He was the sort who liked to fly under the radar,” the warrior said, his voice filled with disdain. “There were a few rumors that he was using his computer skills to skim money and transferring it to a secret account.”

A thief in his house?

Bas stiffened in outrage.

“Why wasn’t I told?”

“It was all just nasty gossip, I couldn’t find any proof,” Kaede said, excusing his decision not to turn the bastard over to Bas. “Still, when Jael was killed and he announced he was leaving I decided to let him go. It was the best solution to a messy problem.”

Bas felt a momentary pang of regret.

Jael had been in Bangkok when she’d been ambushed by a gang of humans who’d tied her to a stake and burned her alive.

Bas suspected the norms had belonged to the Brotherhood, but there hadn’t been any direct links to the cult and he’d had to content himself with tracking down two of the bastards responsible and killing them as slowly and painfully as possible.

After the tragedy he hadn’t considered Jael’s lover, or what had happened to him.

Now he had to wonder if Sandoval had used his inside knowledge of Bas’s operation to slip in and steal Molly.

“He would know about Anna and the price that cities would pay to get rid of her,” he said slowly. “But it’s a risky plan and there’s easier ways to make money than kidnapping or blackmail. Especially for a psychic.”