Page 62 of Elven Prince

“I agree,” Maxwell added, fixing his silver gaze on Rebecca, his pained expression only making her feel worse for this conversation. “If we were talking about someone else, a different operative orformeroperative, that would be a different story. But Lerrick is Shade, through and through. He’s a good man. This wasn’t him.”

Readjusting her already bone-crushing grip on her assault rifle, Rebecca inhaled deeply, focused on clearing her head.

She didn’t truly believe Lerrick could have done something like this. She’d let her frustration and her guilt get the better of her when they had literally nothing else to go on.

“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t think it was him. But we can’t stay here all night hoping he turns up again on his own. We need to get back to Headquarters now and focus on what comes next.”

“You mean we’re just gonna leave him here?” Tig asked.

“If he’s even still here,” Rebecca replied. “But we don’t know that, either. I don’t like it any more than you do, but our current problem is too big to put on hold for him. He’ll turn up, eventually.”

“And what if he doesn’t?”

She knew the right answer—the coarse, seemingly heartless answer. That they would have to cut their losses with Lerrick, like they had to do with all their murdered contacts dotted all over the city.

Because if they didn’t figure out who was behind these attacks as soon as possible, there would be more.

And Shade would remain helpless to stop it or to protect anyone else involved in this shitshow.

But saying it out loud Tig as he gazed at her in horrified disbelief was just too hard. She couldn’t do it.

“He has a phone,” Maxwell said.

Rebecca and Tig spun toward the shifter as he drew his own cell phone from his pocket.

“I should have thought of it sooner,” he said. “I’ve got his number right here. If he answers…”

“Yes.” Rebecca pointed at him. “It’s worth a shot. You call. I’m going back inside for Bruce. It’s too dangerous to leave him here, and at the very least, we can offer him more protection at Headquarters. Especially if someone decides they want to come after him again to finish the job.”

Maxwell nodded curtly as he pressed his phone against his ear.

Rebecca took off for the house.

Taking Bruce with them tonight and putting him under protective custody in the compound was one thing they could do right, even if nothing else worked out.

Even if they never found Lerrick.

She’d only taken three hurried steps toward the house before a new sound caught her attention and made her stop.

A tinny, muffled ringtone rising from somewhere behind her.

She spun around to see Maxwell and Tig gaping back at her with equal surprise.

Then Maxwell took off, racing toward the vehicle they’d parked half a block away from the gnome’s bungalow workshop.

Rebecca and Tig hurried after him while the muffled ringtone continued.

Maxwell reached the vehicle a second before the ringing stopped and snarled furiously, his eyes strobing with dangerous flashes of violent silver.

“What is it?” Tig panted as he and Rebecca slowed in front of the vehicle. “What did you find?”

Metal groaned and squealed under the abuse as the shifter nearly ripped the vehicle’s rear passenger-side door off its frame. When he hauled it open, his ferocious growls deepened before he bent forward into the rear of the vehicle.

Then Rebecca got her first look at what he’d found.

It was Lerrick, sprawled haphazardly across the back seat, like someone had tossed him back there in a hurry.

The half-orc was covered in blood, his face split in multiple places, the swelling already making it hard to recognize him. Several bleeding lesions covered both forearms, and his blood-splattered magitek firearm lay beside him, tossed onto the back seat and balancing precariously on the edge of toppling to the floor.

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