“They brought him to Synastry,” Tullius surmised. They’d tracked Elm to that planet and knew as much. Unfortunately, this didn’t help them any with discovering who held him now.
Considering how easy it was to find this place, Shiloh highly doubted the men who’d mistaken Elm for him and stolen the wrong brother would be able to evade Kian for this long. No, there had to have been a handoff at some point, with someone terrifying enough to scare Ricky into keeping his identity a secret even from his own people.
“Some agent,” Tullius insulted Bai. “Let a civilian get caught up in this mess and did nothing to stop it.”
“My job is to find the source of the drug leak,” Bai argued.
Shiloh laughed. “Cold. I like it.”
He twirled a finger in the air, silently telling the rest of the Eumia who’d been picking through the wreckage to wrap things up. Now that they knew the person responsible for attacking him and his alpha were dead, there wasn’t any other reason for them to stick around.
“What should we do with him?” Tullius motioned to Bai.
“Let him go,” Shiloh said. “He’s I.P.F. We don’t want to get involved.”
“He witnessed you murder eleven people.”
“Butchered is more like,” Bai stated, but there was only a very thin thread of disgust in his tone. His eyes shone brightly and didn’t waver when he held Shiloh’s gaze. “The Eumia isn’t my mission. It’s a simple enough matter to report back that Lady Luck’s members turned on each other. This was a dead end anyway. No one here knows the identity of the man supplying them the stolen goods.”
“Looks like I did you a favor. You get to go home early.” Shiloh pulled a cigarette case from his front pocket and moved for the exit. “Wait until the cleanup is done, then you’re free to go, Detective Bai.”
“You really think that’s wise?” Tullius followed him outside, the two of them stopping just beneath the awning to prevent being caught in the light rain.
“He didn’t even get involved when an innocent was kidnapped,” Shiloh pointed out. “He doesn’t care about us. Besides, Kian is friends with the Imperial Heir, remember? We’re untouchable.”
It seemed like Tullius wanted to push the issue, but he ended up letting it go instead. At thirty, he was one of the older members who’d stuck around after Kian had taken command, traveling with them from Synastry to help build their new homebase here. Typically, he was the one left in charge of theclub, but with most of the others off with Kian searching for Elm, he’d been the best option to tag along with Shiloh.
He, like Diogenes, had known him practically all his life, was in fact the one who’d been sent after him and Sloane one of the times they’d run away from home.
There was a scar that ran the length of his back left leg as recompense, a gift Shiloh had given when they’d been fighting him off. He and Sloane had been outnumbered in the end, but Tull had needed to be carried to the hovercar, which had satisfied Shiloh immensely at the time.
“Done hiding I see.” Tullius pointed to the cigarette between Shiloh’s lips. “And you’re smoking again. Word of advice? Leave that habit behind. It’ll kill you some day.”
Shiloh snorted, picking up that it’d been meant as an ironic joke. “Don’t worry, it’s not sticking. I’m just using it to keep me busy for now.”
“Worried about him?”
“I’m keeping my alpha safe,” he reassured, already sensing the new direction of conversation.
“Sarang is still unconscious?”
“He’s awake, but he needs to rest.”
Tullius glanced over his shoulder, back into the corner building where the others were doing cleanup. “I have to be honest, after meeting them, I’m starting to doubt these people would be capable enough to take down the underboss.”
“They didn’ttake him down,” Shiloh growled. “And they got the jump on us.”
“A big enough jump to send him into a coma?”
That was the story Shiloh and Bishop had fed the Eumia to explain Sarang’s sudden absence. Sure, it had holes, considering how skilled at combat Sarang was, but Shiloh was sticking with it.
“You saw the wreckage. They ran us off the road. He hit his head in the crash. Does it look like I’m in the type of mood to play around about my alpha’s safety?” he countered.
Tullius gave him a lengthy look and then shook his head. “No, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t up to something, Prince. You aren’t keeping him at the hospital or at Caelum. Where is he?”
“Safe.”
“I want to see him.”
