Page 19 of Softer Than Stone
I rumbled in response, my gaze flicking towards the crumpled vampire on the floor. He wasn’t dead—not yet, and unfortunately not ever. The need to follow the law stilled my hand. But taking him into custody to discover why he’d gone after Waru in the first place was my priority.
The sound of Michaels’s car engine cut through the air. I exhaled. They’d take care of the vampire. I suspected we had another sixty seconds until he was conscious. All that mattered was getting Waru out of here.
Safe.
“What doyou mean it’s unrelated?” Confusion rippled through me. I didn’t believe in coincidences, especially ones that smelt like bullshit.
“I don’t buy it.” Michaels shook his head.
Frustration slammed into me. “But you just said?—”
“I recounted what the vampire said and am reiterating that, for whatever fucked reason or hard-core history said vampire has, he’s not breaking.”
Jaw clenching, I stared through the two-way mirror at the smug-looking vampire. He’d fully healed, but his shirt was ripped, and blood covered his face and chest. It didn’t give me any satisfaction.
Turner, the vampire, a name that checked out in the system, had no priors. He also lived within five blocks of Waru’s restaurant. His story, which he appeared determined to stick to, was he was a stalker, infatuated by Waru and his killer cooking skills.
The whole thing was ludicrous. Not that Waru wasn’t hot or skilled enough to warrant catching a stalker’s attention, whichsounded all levels of dodgy that I even thought that, but still, Turner was a lying liar who lied. And that right there—my eloquence—pretty much summed up how fucking pissed off I was.
Waru had been shaken up but remained remarkably together. He’d let Michaels interview him as I sat by his side, holding his hand. Thankfully Michaels had shown a rare moment of keeping his mouth shut and hadn’t commented on the way I clung to Waru, because I was absolutely the man who hadn’t wanted to let him go, let alone have him out of my sight.
The latter was probably why tension vibrated through my limbs. Shaw had taken Waru to get a hot chocolate, while I was left here thinking about everything Waru had told us had been said. Which had been jack shit. Beyond Turner smashing the window and giving him one hard punch that still made me clench my teeth, the vampire hadn’t said anything beyond professing his adoration of Waru’s lemon myrtle cheesecake.
And the knife…? Turner had wanted to eat said cheesecake from Waru’s naked body. Like, what the fuck? Who even ate cheesecake with a damn knife? Why not a spoon or a fork? It all added up to just how full of shit he was.
Fuck. Just the thought had me grinding my teeth and considering if Michaels would look the other way if spent some time alone with Turner in the interrogation room.
“Shit.”
I snapped my attention to Michaels, wondering why he was cussing. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, seeming to struggle to settle on an emotion. “I think we’re going to have to call Callen.”
Understanding slammed into me. I’d heard the stories, but I had no clue how true they were. “You think that’ll work? You think he can make Turner break?”
Michaels shrugged, even as he pulled out his phone. “I don’t know, man. The last time he worked his magic in the interrogation room, he got the answers no one else could. He wouldn’t let anyone but Thatch watch, and there were no recordings.”
My brows shot high. Thatch was the head of the ITU before he moved to join the SICB Academy, where he’d since been promoted to chief instructor. He was also Callen’s saner half and had used to be his boss. He was also a stickler for rules and following protocol. Unlike the division leader, who seemed to make a game out of breaking rules and seeing how far he could push Director Durrant, leader of the SICB.
I didn’t have the chance to respond before he was talking to Callen, explaining the situation, and asking for his special skill set.
Colour me curious, but I hoped to get to watch him in action to see what all the fuss was about. More than that, though, I really hoped he had some special mojo up his sleeves. We needed to figure out if Waru was at risk.
I spenttime with Waru before Callen arrived. The trembling in his hands had stopped, and the bruise on his jaw had almost faded.
“I can organise for you to go home, have someone watch the house.” The first time I’d offered, he’d shot me down. I was grateful for it, not wanting him far away. But exhaustion bit at his heels, making his usually rich brown skin look dull.
“No.” Creases formed between his brows. “Unless you want me to leave.”
“No,” I answered quickly. “That’s the last thing I want.”
His brow smoothed out. “Yeah?”
I squeezed his hand. “Definitely. We might be in for a wait, or it might just be another hour. I’ve no idea yet.” We’d brought both Waru and Turner to an on-the-books SICB location that had no association with the ITU. It made life tricky at times, working as a covert unit. We weren’t quite off the books, but we were as close as you could get to being ghosts.
The whole team had official SICB identities in bogus and innocuous divisions. We also each carried several aliases. It was no wonder that ITU relationships bordered on incestuous, which honestly, I’d taken delight a time or twelve saying to the members of the team who dated in-house.
To tell Waru the truth, I’d need to get approval from not only Lucas as team leader and Callen but also Director Durrant. If Waru and I reached that point, though, it would be worth weaving through the red tape so I could be completely honest with him.
