An audio transmitter? What could it do other than allow someone to hear what was being said?
A memory surfaced then. Slipping such a device that her Unknown contact had given her into a meeting with a suspected Pure Blood commander. She hadn’t been told what it was for. The meeting had been a mere business luncheon with a small advertising company that had been in Window Rock for more than a decade.
Within hours after Gypsy had left, the computers in that office had gone down and the next morning Navajo Law Enforcement had swarmed over the building, arresting not just the owner but many of the employees as well.
According to the report that had filtered out after the arrests, those computers had autonomously sent out files to the Covert Law Enforcement Agency that implicated not just the owner but many of the employees in strikes against the Breeds as well as collaborating with soldiers working for the Genetics Council to betray Breeds suspected of hiding from their former creators in the Navajo Nation.
It had confirmed the information she’d uncovered that the Unknown’s audio devices were much more than simply tools to listen in on various meetings. They were technological weapons and they were used with the utmost efficiency.
Had that device worked and Jonas Wyatt’s computers been attacked, then she and her parents would have been immediately arrested for crimes against Breed Law.
What was going on? Who was using her mother and how the hell had they managed to convince her to do something so insane, no matter her beliefs?
“Gypsy, I am not sorry I chose to be the one to tell you—”
It was that stoic, forlorn expression that had Gypsy moving. Jumping from her chair, she moved quickly to the little Coyote Breed female and immediately embraced her, barely holding back a flinch at the pain the contact brought her.
To say Ashley was surprised was more an understatement than before, but Gypsy acknowledged that she surprised herself even more. She hadn’t realized how close she had become to the Breed females until this moment. Until she had seen the regret and the fear in Ashley’s eyes that she had destroyed her friendship with Gypsy.
“Stop,” Gypsy ordered as she pulled back and released the other girl slowly. “This wasn’t your fault, Ashley, and you’re right, I couldn’t have borne having anyone else tell me.”
The knowledge that her parents had attempted to betray Jonas, Rachel and that precious baby, Amber, was ripping at her soul. Her stomach was cramping with it, building a pressure behind her eyes that she hadn’t truly felt in years.
Tears.
She hadn’t really cried since Mark’s funeral. Would the tears come now? She hoped not. The agony she remembered feeling the last time she cried was an emotion she never wanted to feel again.
“Gypsy, perhaps she has a very logical reason.” Ashley tried to comfort her, her delicate expression filled with pain.
“Perhaps, Ashley.” She tried to agree as she moved slowly to where her clothing was still crumpled on the floor and picked it up. “I’ll take care of it, though, I promise.”
“If you need to talk, Emma and I are truly your friends. I hope you will remember that and not become too angry once you’ve had time to consider what I’ve told you.”
She could only shake her head as she turned back to the girl. “Do you think I’ll change my mind and hate you later?”
“I think maybe that is how I would feel if I had a mother, and she had not confided in me over such a decision,” Ashley agreed.
“But mothers don’t always confide in their daughters, Ashley,” she told the girl bitterly, sadly. “Sometimes, things happen— Daughters make mistakes sometimes that their parents can’t forgive.”
“No, Gypsy—” The other girl moved to cross the room when the bedroom door opened.
Rule stood in the doorway, his expression heavy, torn. His blue eyes raged back at her, brilliant and concerned as Ashley turned to him quickly.
“Ashley, you should leave now,” he told her gently as he stepped inside the room, his gaze moving to the Breed female with a hint of gentle demand. “Lawe and Diane are waiting for you to accompany them to dinner, I believe.”
Ashley nodded, then turned back to Gypsy. “If you need me . . .”
Gypsy gave her a small facsimile of a smile, but she couldn’t promise to talk later. She couldn’t promise she would even see the girl later. All she wanted to do right now was run. She wanted the silence of the desert enfolding her, the solace she’d always found in the wild, barren land surrounding her to sink inside the ragged wounds that were being uncovered in her heart.
Laying her clothing on the bed, Gypsy faced the man who seemed determined to claim her now.
“Where’s my motorcycle?” She was shocked at the ragged edge of her voice as she smoothed her hands over the material of the shirt covering her hips.
“If you need to go somewhere, then I’ll take you.” He stood relaxed, but his eyes watched her too closely, and she was very much afraid he saw far too much as he held her gaze.
“How long do you think that will work, Rule? How long do you think I’ll stand for you taking my independence and choice away from me? I want my cycle in the front of this hotel in thirty minutes, and you will allow me to walk out of here alone. I need to see my parents.”
“Not alone.” His voice deepened, the growl that had seen her backing down earlier echoing in his chest again.
That growl didn’t scare her any more than she would allow anything else to scare her.
“Don’t make me run, Rule,” she warned him instead. “I promise you, neither of us will enjoy the experience.”
Fury gleamed instantly in his gaze. The whites disappeared beneath the full blue, the black pupil dilating, and she knew she was facing a Breed who was more animal than man.
“Run.” He was suddenly in her face, daring her, challenge evident in the animalistic rasp of his voice. “Go ahead, mate, run. I’ll enjoy the chase and when I catch you, I promise you I’ll make damned sure you never consider such a fucking foolhardy action again. Do you understand me?”
She backed up before she meant to. It wasn’t fear that filled her, but nerves.
Because this man, this Breed, would keep his word in ways she was sure she would never forget.
CHAPTER 22
Exhaustion had seeped into Gypsy over the hours she and Rule had engaged in a silent, nerve-racking standoff in his room. The meeting scheduled with her parents was canceled. No surprise there, she thought painfully as Rule and Jonas discussed the option just after Ashley left.
Finally, desperate to find a moment to breathe that didn’t include his too-intent stare, she’d retreated back to bed.
She needed to think, to consider how to work around what she couldn’t go through. Rule would employ whatever means it took to keep her from leaving the room. That meant she would have to find a way to slip around him and make her way to her parents’ home.
God help her, what was in her mother’s mind to take such a risk? What had she done, Gypsy wondered, to make her mother chance her very life like this?
Where had she messed up?
Gypsy knew she had to have done something, she had to have made a mistake somewhere. What had she done to give anyone a chance to use her mother in such a way? And no doubt it was her fault. Her mother would do anything to protect her children after she lost her oldest child, and Gypsy knew her mother had suspected for years that there was a reason her elder daughter continued to attend the desert parties and clubs that had initially given the Coyotes the chance they’d needed to draw Mark out and kill him.