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Documents had been pulled, photographs and video destroyed, data obliterated. And, where necessary, human minds had been scrubbed of any and all recollection to the contrary of what Mathias’s official statement read.
For all anyone knew outside the Order, Sloane had stumbled upon the scene of a homicide at a Southwark tattoo shop, apparently surprising a pair of perpetrators--one who had a knife, the other a gun. Unfortunately for Sloane, Mathias and his patrol team from the Order discovered the crime too late to save the respected Breed officer, who had been killed with a lucky shot to the head, the criminals having fled the scene.
Never to be seen or heard from again, of course.
As for Mathias and his team, they were already looking into another unusual string of killings.
It seemed someone had begun quietly targeting London’s banking community. Three high-ranking finance executives had been found dead in their homes in the past handful of days--one victim human, the other two Breed. JUSTIS was under immediate and great pressure to make the murders stop before the public found out and began to panic.
Mathias understood the urgency, but his mind was on another unresolved matter of great concern.
He had to see Nova again.
He had to let her know she was safe.
And that she would always be safe, so long as he had breath in his body and blood running through his eternal veins.
He just needed to find her first.
“Nice ink,” Callahan said, strolling into the room to where Mathias sat with a computer tablet, reviewing the intel from the recent murders. The young warrior sat down next to Mathias at the workstation, studying the sword tattoo on his back. “Think your lady will do one for me?”
“I don’t know,” Mathias answered. “What would you want?”
The warrior shrugged. “Something badass, like the one you have.”
“No way,” he said. “That one belongs all to me.”
And so does the woman who created it.
“What about the one you’re drawing on that report, then?”
“Hmm?” Mathias glanced down to where he’d been idly toying with the stylus on the tablet. He didn’t have a fraction of Nova’s talent, but he recognized the symbol immediately.
The rose window from the ruins of Winchester Palace.
One of Nova’s many tattoos.
One that meant something very important to her.
And that was where he would start looking for her as soon as night fell.
~ ~ ~
Nova tucked Eddie into the thin cot in the basement of the cathedral. The poor kid was exhausted. She was too. She sat on the edge of the mattress and smoothed his hair off his drowsy face.
“How long do we have to stay here?” he asked her, his words slurred from the sleep that was already pulling him under.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “For a while. Until I find us someplace better.”
He nodded sleepily. “Okay. Just don’t leave me.”
“Never,” she whispered, realizing only now that she had just stepped into Ozzy’s shoes. They wouldn’t be easy to fill. But she would do her best. She would find a way to give Eddie the same security and support that Oz had given her all those years ago.
God, she missed him already.
Would always miss him.
And she missed Mathias too, although that was a pain she didn’t have to accept.
