Read Online INVISIBLE POWER BOOK TWO: ALEX NOZIAK (INVISIBLE RECRUITS) by Mary Buckham - Free Book Online Page A

their seats before he took the third chair.
    Jeb could tell his friend’s unease by the lapse into his native language, a sure sign of distress.
    “Would you care for something to drink? Or eat after your flight. I could. . .” Philippe turned to wave over the butler hovering in the doorway when Jeb laid a hand on the Frenchman’s sleeve and lowered his arm.
    “Tell me what I have come over five thousand miles to hear. All else can wait.”
    The Frenchman sighed as Pádraig cast an anxious glance at Jeb as if saying, see the state he’s in.
    When Philippe held his tongue Jeb prompted, “There is nothing you can not tell me, old friend.” Shooting a look at Pádraig to include him, Jeb continued. “What are friends for if not to lessen one’s worries?”
    Philippe leaned forward, his hands clasped tightly together. “I have no words to tell you this.” He raised his head enough for his gaze to latch on to Jeb’s before he glanced at his protégé. “You brought the news. Will you share?”
    “Certainly.” The younger man scooted forward in his chair, concern creasing his forehead, his gaze turned inward until it snapped to Jeb’s . “I have learned some disturbing news.”
    As if a rubber band pulled to breaking point Jeb wanted to clip the young pup along the head as he would his own sons if they dawdled over telling an unwelcome tale. Avoidance only prolonged the tension, making everyone suffer.
    But this was Philippe’s home, his friend, so Jeb schooled his features to betray nothing except a willingness to listen.
    Pádraig leaned further forward and lowered his voice. “It’s about your clan.”
    Jeb glanced at Philippe. “Your family. Your offspring.” Jeb knew what the younger man meant but bought himself some time as his heart stuttered and he struggled to keep his pain under leash. “Van?”
    Pádraig cast a quick glance at Philippe who was the one shaking his head. “No.”
    Jeb considered himself a man of reason. A man who held to his code, no matter the cost, of temperate response unless action was needed and then he would execute that action swiftly and surely. No gray areas for him. But such restraint cost and his voice roughened as he faced Philippe. “Tell me. Now.”
    The Frenchman nodded. “It’s about your daughter.”
    “Alex?” Jeb spoke as if far away, braced for one blow but reeling under a different one. “Is she hurt?”
    By the Great Spirits don’t let her be dead. Anything but that.
    “Not hurt. Not yet.”
    Like a wounded animal ready to lunge Jeb latched onto the hard edges of the chair, his skin biting into the wood. “Tell me.”
    “She’s in Paris,” Pádraig answered, his gaze not meeting Jeb’s. “And there’s a price on her head.”
    “For what?”
    “Someone wants her alive. No questions asked. Collateral damage acceptable. The sooner the better.”

 
    CHAPTER 15
     
    Van Noziak lifted his head, spying the late afternoon light filtering through a shuttered window high over his head . He couldn’t see the gap shackled as he was against the wall, but he tracked the wedge of light spilling on the packed dirt floor, memorizing its movement as if doing so would create sense of what was happening to him.
    The ten-by-ten-foot stone-walled room smelled of damp, old straw, sewage, and despair. Wherever he was it had been used as a cell of last resort before. For many years would be Van’s guess.
    His tongue felt swollen and fuzzy. Dehydration? Or drugs? Or a combination of the two? His head pounded as if the bells of Notre Dame rang insistently within it.
    No idea how long he’d been here. The first days had been the worst, then his captors, all wearing hoods to disguise their faces, backed off on the interrogation, and the torture.
    Obviously he was now worth more to them alive than dead, but no idea how long that would last.
    They clearly knew he was a shifter, which explained the silver wrist and ankle cuffs burning into his skin, as well as the collar