“Vodka?”

“What else? I’m in Russia!” Monique giggled. “Actually, there might’ve been a bottle of tequila involved, too.”

Valentin grinned. “You weren’t worried about mixing business with pleasure?”

Monique waved a hand. “Jai is in accounts. We hardly ever see each other except at the company Christmas party.”

Valentin stayed another fifteen minutes but didn’t learn anything else that might be useful. His next stop was the security-control station, where Ivan Mercant brought up the security feeds from the night of the power cut.

Ena and Arwen had already been through these, but that was before Ivan was cleared. The other man’s demeanor changed from all business to ruthlessness camouflaged by a flawless black suit the instant he saw the gap in the recording. “This shouldn’t happen,” Silver’s cousin said, his blue eyes hard. “The security system has multiple redundancies. It should always stay on, power outage or not.”

“Why didn’t you notice this at the time?”

Ivan found his organizer, checked the dates. “I was on leave a week on either side of the incident. My return briefing wouldn’t have covered this.” He put down the organizer. “I would say I can’t believe this was missed, except that the individual noted as being on duty that night was a man I had to fire only a month later when he came to work high.”

“Could he be the inside man?” Valentin asked. “Someone had to turn off the security system.”

“If he was,” Ivan replied, “we can’t question him. While high one night, he fell into the Moskva and drowned. He was also a talker—I wouldn’t have trusted him with any kind of a conspiracy that required keeping his mouth shut. I’ll have Arwen trace his finances regardless.”

Valentin stared at the blackness of the missing footage. And thought of what Silver had told him of a family with strong ties to the energy market—and access to complex chemicals—whose leader was against racial integration, against Trinity, to the point that he might be funding a terrorist organization. “Anyone on your team connected to the Patel family?”

“Human conglomerate headed by Akshay Patel?”

Of course a Mercant would have that information in his perfectly coiffured head. “That’s the one.”

“Not according to my current data, but I’ll do some digging.”

“If the cameras went off, does that mean Silver’s internal security devices would’ve also gone off?”

“Yes. I helped her with the setup, and we locked them into the power grid to guard against failure.” His face displayed no expression, but had the very dangerous and highly trained man been a bear, Valentin would’ve said he was pissed. “I never considered that an enemy would take down the entire power grid to get to her—that shouldn’t even be possible with the safeguards in place.”

Yet someone had pulled it off, and the end result was that for twenty minutes that night, Silver’s apartment had been open to intrusion. “Someone really wanted her off the chessboard.” Valentin’s claws shoved against the skin of his fingertips.

“I’ll work on unearthing the traitor in our midst,” Ivan said flatly.

Valentin had a feeling that if there was a traitor, his cover wouldn’t last long with Ivan Mercant on the trail. The man reminded him of a spy from the silver screen, suave and handsome on the surface, deadly underneath.

Leaving the other man to his task, Valentin went to his car, used the car’s system to call Pavel. “I need you to find out about a man named Jai Shivani who works in the Moscow branch of the same company as Monique Ling. Look for any connections to the Patel family—of the Patel Conglomerate, headed by Akshay Patel.”

“Gimme a few minutes.” The other man hung up.

As it was, Pavel didn’t return the call until Valentin was about to get out at Silver’s complex, the dash clock showing it was eight forty. She wouldn’t normally be home at this time, but given how late she’d worked, Valentin was hoping she’d gotten some extra rest. He wasn’t sure he could control his protective instincts if she was running herself ragged. The possibility of a telepathic whack on the head or no, he might throw her over his shoulder and kidnap her to his lair.

“Jai Shivani is related to the Patels. Third cousin twice removed,” Pavel said. “But, distant relatives or not, he went to the same boarding school as Akshay Patel, and they seem close in the school photos I was able to unearth.”

“Boarding school probably made them closer than many siblings.”

“Fewer connections between them in their adult lives,” Pavel added, “but they both go to certain parts of the world at the same time every year. Family reunions maybe.”

Or planning sessions.

“Send me everything you have.” Once that information came through, Valentin had a decision to make: He knew the Human Alliance had asked everyone to wait, but it was focused on Akshay Patel. Jai Shivani was a small fish not even on their radar, according to the information they’d shared with Silver. The man was also in Moscow. Literally a ten-minute drive away.

Valentin’s instincts raged at him to head that way, eliminate a possible threat on his mate’s life. But Silver was also the head of EmNet and couldn’t afford to lose the Alliance’s trust.

Claws releasing, he gritted his teeth, made a call.

“I want to talk to him,” he said bluntly to Lily Knight after explaining that Jai Shivani’s name had come up in the course of another investigation. “I’m right here, and I can be a scary bastard.” He was very careful not to promise to hand the man over to the Alliance—if Shivani had orchestrated the attempt on Silver’s life, his own life was forfeit.

Bears didn’t take prisoners.

“I can’t make that decision,” Lily replied. “I need to talk to the leadership.” She returned his call five minutes later. “They want a human observer with you. Your mate has one working for her in the main EmNet office, a man named Erik Jahnssen.”

“Done.” Valentin knew he could drive away right now and Silver would never know about the upcoming confrontation. Of course, that kind of secret was how stupid bears lost their women.

Valentin was not a stupid bear.

He walked to her apartment, knocked.

Chapter 46

Itgrl42: I heard Silver Mercant is already separated from her bear mate. I knew it wouldn’t last.

LvrBoo: Did you drink a cup of idiot soup this morning? Mates are forever and bears aren’t exactly known for walking away from those they love.

BB: I once got mad and walked away from my bear boyfriend. We’ve been happily mated for twenty years. I never bet against a bear out to woo his woman. *smile*

—Forum of Wild Woman magazine

SILVER OPENED HER door seconds after Valentin’s knock, already dressed in a gray pantsuit with a white shirt and sky-high heels. Her hair was also up in that fancy twist that made his hands itch to mess it up. “Valentin.” Her eyes scanned his face. “Is something wrong?”

He wanted to yell at her. She had lines of exhaustion on her face, shadows under her eyes. “You have a half hour?” It came out a rumbling growl, his bear was so mad at her. “It’s important.”

She glanced at the complicated timepiece on her wrist, the face a large square that displayed all kinds of data. “My deputy is meant to log off at nine. I’ll ask him to take an extra thirty minutes.”