Page 37 of Miami Heat (Urban Heat 3)

“If you let me go, I’ll explain.”

Adam opened his fist, and Roger fell to the floor. He rubbed his neck and shot Adam a look of irritation. When he stood, he faced Sakura. Mentally, Adam dared Roger to take a step toward her. Roger wasn’t such a fool. He remained where he stood.

“Please believe me. I’m not the one that turned you. Deveron’s smarter than that, but I couldn’t stick around for you two to jump to that conclusion and kill me without questions. Anyway, I think you should call your dad.”

“Gee, thanks.” Sarcasm dripped from Sakura’s

words.

“Hear me out. I’ve been on the scene a lot longer than you think. Remember I told you I travel a lot? Well, I spent a lot of that time in Italy, working for Deveron. That fact wasn’t common knowledge when your dad hired me.”

“Obviously.”

“Deveron tried the physical thing and almost got killed for it, so he decided to use his brain.”

“We pretty much got that from him,” Adam spat.

Roger folded his arms over his chest. “Did you also know I had contact with Shiya long before she went to Juneau?”

Adam stared. Sakura shouldered by him and grabbed Roger’s shirtfront. “You better explain real quick.”

“Happy to. I gave Shiya all the information she needed to figure out that Birk was a shifter. I pretty much sent her to Juneau.”

Adam ground his teeth. “You’re bragging about risking her sister’s life?”

Roger held up his hands. “She was never in danger of being killed. We have all the data figured out, and we monitored everything she shared with Birk.”

“You pervert!” Sakura drove a fist into his jaw, and Roger hit the floor once more. Adam sighed and reached for his mate.

“Hold on, baby. I think he’s got a lot more to share. You don’t want to punch his face in before he gets to say it.”

“He’s filth! He hacked into Shiya’s computer, and he sent her to Juneau knowing she could have been killed.”

“She wouldn’t have. I know it,” Roger insisted. “By the time she went, Birk was already half in love with her, and from the signs he gave off, Deveron suspected she was his mate. No shifter has ever murdered their mate. It’s not possible. Birk would have died before he let her come to harm. What’s funny, though, is with all Deveron’s scheming, he never thought Kotori would also mate with her.”

“You find my sister’s love life funny?”

Roger scrambled back a few steps once he had regained himself. “All I’m saying is Deveron orchestrated most of what happened. We even had a backup for all the data. It was never gone. I know I told you different, but I wasn’t ready to tell you everything then. We had to make your father desperate.”

“So you could come in all fresh and brilliant to save the day,” Sakura quipped.

He grinned. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Well, it’s water under the bridge. What does it have to do with me calling my father?”

For some reason, Adam tensed. All that Deveron and Roger shared so far blew his mind, but he had a feeling truths a lot more unsettling were about to come out, and he would have to do whatever it took to ensure Sakura came out on the other side unscathed, or nearly so.

“Do you ever have to return to a city or country, Sakura,” Roger asked, “after your assignment is over?”

She rolled her eyes. “More times than I care to admit. Often, we get new information about a shifter who moves into an area we just left. Or more often, another seems to spring up in the same family. That’s why my father and brother started talking about killing all the members of a family if even one shifter were born among them, even if they are human.”

Adam clenched his hands into fists. He had heard of Kasen, Sr.’s and Jr.’s plan and despised it even before he became a shifter. The Keiths had made it a point to protect humans at all costs, but recently because the shifter population refused to be denied, the heads of the family had decided to abandon their principles from generations past. From the first he had heard of it, he had determined to stand in Sakura’s way should she dare go that route. So far, she had ignored the order.

“Have you ever had a mission or heard of one of your sisters having a mission in Miami?” Roger asked. “I mean other than five years ago?”

She gaped at him. “No, I haven’t.”

“And you wouldn’t have—ever. As I said, I monitored all of your communications. I even sent a few tips your way to direct you. Every single reference to Miami was wiped from your database the moment it appeared. All tips were ignored and evidence of them destroyed.”

---