He was dismissing me. I jumped to my feet, pissed.
“Fine, if you want to be all brass balls about it, then let me talk to Tate before he questions him. You can at least do that. Bring Tate up here if you’re so goddamn worried I’ll cause a scene downstairs. He can meet me in my office.”
Don gave me a look of thinly veiled annoyance, but picked up his phone and placed the call.
“He’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”
I slammed the door behind me.
If Tate expected me to be quivering on my couch when he opened my door, he was disappointed. Coolly I sat behind my desk and waved a hand at the door.
“Shut it.”
Tate closed it and then folded his arms across his chest.
“I came like you asked, but you can save your breath, Cat. Nothing you say will change anything. We caught him red-handed at your mother’s. She’s lucky to be alive, if you can see past your concern over your lover to be bothered with that.”
He looked mildly disgusted with me, yet his heartbeat still accelerated when I went to stand near him.
“Oh, I care more than you imagine, Tate. Not just about him, but about you as well. That’s why I’m going to ask you this first, and hope you do the right thing. Take Juan with you and let him out. Then we’re locking down the building in emergency mode and finding out who our mole is. We can do this two ways, but it will get done.”
His nostrils flared as he shook his head. “You’ve lost your mind, Cat. Just absolutely lost it! God, no fuck can be worth throwing your life away for—”
“I love him,” I interrupted.
He cursed viciously before finishing with “Now I know you’re crazy! You’ve only been seeing him a couple weeks and you think you’re in love? That’s fucking nuts!”
He grasped my shoulders and gave me a hard shake. I just closed my hands over his.
“Tate, once you accused me of not trusting anyone. You were right—I haven’t. I’m going to trust you now, though, and I hope you’ll trust me. When you saw him today, when you looked in his eyes and really saw him... didn’t he look familiar?”
“Of course he did. I’ve been over that goddamn video for hours! And I’m the one who spotted him outside your house the other night.”
I tightened my hands. “Not from last night or the video. Further back. To be fair, you only saw him for a second, but it was a memorable one. After all, you shot him. Right before the car plowed into him.”
“That’s—”
Tate stopped. A growing look of awareness dawned on his features. He stared at me with widening eyes, and then his mouth tightened in a thin, hard line.
“Well.” The word was soft. “Didn’t you play us all for fools, Catherine Crawfield?”
I took in a deep breath. “It’s Bones, the vampire I told you I’d loved and killed in Ohio, but I didn’t kill him. I left him and passed another body off as his. I hadn’t seen him until recently, when he was at Denise’s wedding. This was all a setup today to get Bones in here so he could find the turncoat. He knew if he went to my mother’s that she’d call in the troops, and I’d told him the only way in was that capsule or dead. Bones chose the capsule, despite the risk that he might be killed once he was strapped inside.”
Tate still looked shell-shocked. “I almost did kill him. I had him in those restraints, and I knew all I had to do was shake him and those spikes would shred his heart. Juan stopped me. He told me we were questioning him first before condemning him. It’s been over four years. You haven’t seen this vampire until recently, but you’ve been in love with him this whole time?”
“Yes.”
Tate laughed, a harsh little bark. “Of course you have. But that doesn’t mean I’m breaking every rule ever implemented about vampires to let him out.”
“He is getting out.” My fingers cut into his hands. “The only question is, will you be conscious when he does? You’re my friend, Tate. In many ways, my best friend, but I want to be very clear—I’ll get him out and destroy anyone in my way to do it. You. Juan. Don. Anyone. I want you with me, as my partner and my friend, but I will do it alone if I have no other choice.”
He looked like he wanted to slap me. “Goddamn you, Cat. Goddamn you! You’ve been with him a total of what? Six months? You’ve been by my side for over four fucking years! Is he worth that much to you? More than all you’ve fought for and all you’ve done? Think, for Christ’s sake!”
I stared straight into his eyes and didn’t hesitate. “Yes, he is. Maybe you don’t understand. Have you ever owed someone everything? All your strengths, all your victories, every last thing that’s meant anything in your life... and it can be traced back to one single person? That’s what Bones is to me.”