“What the fuck?” she mouthed up at him. And yeah, he was going to have some explaining to do there. She’d want to know why he hadn’t told her, and then she’d be furious that he hadn’t told Raph the whole truth. That was something to look forward to.
“Given what you’ve told us. I think this warrants further investigation.”
Jesse straightened, excited at the prospect of seeing Ian again—in any capacity. “You want me to go see him?” They could talk, maybe he could ask the right—
“No. You’ve done enough.” Raph stopped him mid-thought. “I want you to stay as far away from him as possible. Do you understand me?”
Jesse nodded.
“You are to have no further contact with him.”
“Yes, Raph.”
Raph glanced around the room, gaze landing on Peter, and Jesse wanted to groan. Anyone but fucking Peter. Unfortunately Peter was one of them who had a legitimate reason to go into Bristol, and as a result had all his documents and paperwork up to date should he get pulled over. He was also the one Raph usually asked to do stuff like this. A fact that had never bothered Jesse before now.
“The rest of you can go,” Raph said. “Peter, I’d like to see you in my office, please.”
“Of course.” Peter shot Jesse such a smug look. It was only Lys’s grip on his leg that prevented Jesse from leaping over the chairs between them and throttling him.
Naturally Raph caught his murderous look and walked over to him. “I know you didn’t mean for this to happen, Jesse, but the fact is that it has, and we need to look into it.” Jesse looked down at his feet. “I just want to know where we stand. I can’t afford there to be any nasty surprises waiting for us. And I’ll need all the information you’ve got on him. Name, address, phone number. Nothing’s going to happen to the human,” Raph added when Jesse frowned.
Jesse wished he could believe him. He trusted Raph with his life, but what would happen if it turned out Ian did know about them? What then? He wanted to ask but wasn’t sure he was ready to hear the answer.
“Okay.” Grabbing Lys’s hand like a lifeline, he turned and walked out.
CHAPTER NINE
Ian read the email from his boss, heart sinking with each word. For some reason he was exhausted this week, and it was only half over. The absolute last thing he felt like doing was driving down to St Austell for two days, but travel was part of his job description. Normally he’d be happy to go, would’ve probably made a long weekend out of it and stayed till Sunday, but he’d been looking forward to catching up with Blake and Cate tomorrow night. Scratch that, he’d been dying to hear about Blake’s visit to the coven, and Thursday was the only night they were all free for a few hours.
Except now Ian would be in sunny Cornwall.
Bollocks.
He opened their group chat.
Sorry guys, can’t make it tomorrow night. Got to drive to St Austell in the morning. Back Friday night. Hopefully.
Cate was first to reply.
That’s shit. Guess I’ll have to get the gossip from Blake on my own.
As much as it killed him not to be there, he couldn’t very well deprive Cate.Yeah, that’s fine. Just don’t tell me what he says. I want to hear it first-hand.
As if I’d do that to you. We can postpone. It’s fine. How about Sunday afternoon?
Yeah, that’d be great.Ian smiled at his screen. Cate was the best.
Blake replied about twenty minutes later.
Snowed under with work and training info, so that suits me better. See you guys on Sunday.
Sunday it was. A few more days wouldn’t kill him.
Probably.
He was halfway through an episode ofBlue Planetwhen Cate’s name popped up on his phone with a text message.
Hey, got to work later than usual tonight. Any chance you could meet me after?
