“Sorry.” Determination tightened Burnett’s expression. “Hire on with us, and you’ll get full privileges. Until then, you do only what I say you do.”
Chase’s eyes grew a bit brighter, but he didn’t respond. Remembering his negative response to Shawn earlier about signing on with the FRU, her curiosity about his employment with the Vampire Council piqued again. Why was he working for them? How had he come to work for them? Was there a reason for his loyalty to his employer?
The other agent, a were, walked up and motioned for her and Chase to follow. While Della did as requested, she recalled smelling the were at the restaurant.
The agent pushed open a door at the end of a drab, gray hallway. “They’ll bring them in one at a time … in about three minutes. You can see and hear them, but they can’t hear you.” The were motioned to the glass wall. Not that he needed to explain. Both Chase and she had been here once before. “Burnett will be doing the interviews.”
Once alone in the room, Della looked at Chase and her curiosity bit. “Why the loyalty to the Vampire Council?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“You seem really loyal to them.”
His shoulders tightened. “They aren’t the rogue group as you’ve been led to believe. We might not agree with all the FRU politics but—”
“I didn’t say that. I’m simply asking why you’re so loyal to them?”
He looked cornered by her inquiry.
“That’s a strange question coming from you, who defends Burnett even when you hate it that he’s coddling you.”
His counterattack, rather than giving her a straight answer, made her even more curious. Was he hiding something?
“Not so strange,” Della answered. “That’s exactly why I’m curious. I’m loyal to Burnett because…” She paused, finding it just a bit hard to admit out loud. “He’s more than just a route into my career, he’s family. What’s your excuse?”
He didn’t answer right away. Was he thinking of a lie, or … “I like my job. I like the freedom the council allows me. It’s no secret I find Burnett’s micromanaging to be ridiculous.”
“Yeah, but that’s Burnett—with me. We’re talking about working for the FRU, not working for Burnett.”
“True, but I get the feeling he carries a lot of weight in the unit. And the rest of them are just like him.”
Della could have argued the point. No one cared as much as Burnett, and while she hated his coddling, she wasn’t above caring for him right back. That said, she couldn’t deny seeing reason in Chase’s answer.
“How did you hire on with the Vampire Council?”
He looked at the glass wall into the empty interrogation room. “They became aware of me being a Reborn. They sought me out.”
Out of habit, she listened to his heart. It hadn’t skipped, but she hadn’t forgotten his ability to control that organ. Her suspicions grew. Had he turned away so she wouldn’t note the telltale signs of him lying?
She was just about to call him on that fact, when she heard them: An agent, one of the vampires who’d come to help transport them here, brought one of the rogues into the room and forced him down in a chair.
A few seconds later, Burnett came in and sat across the table from the unhappy cuffed vamp. Burnett carried a file and opened it on the table. His gaze stayed on the paperwork. He didn’t come across as violent, but being Burnett, just his presence carried a certain amount of intimidation.
He sat there without speaking. Never even looking up. Even hidden behind the one-way glass, Della could feel the tension building.
The vamp couldn’t handle the silence any longer. “We weren’t going to hurt them. We just wanted the blood.”
“Funny, it didn’t seem that way, did it?” Chase asked Della.
“No,” Della admitted.
Slowly, Burnett looked up. “Tell that to the agent who got knifed and the one who got clipped in the jaw.”
“Hey, that chick kneed me in the balls.”
“You’re lucky she didn’t remove them to play badminton with.”
Chase chuckled lightly. “Burnett knows you well.”
Della shrugged, but didn’t answer, too busy studying what was happening in the other room in hopes of learning a thing or two.
Burnett leaned back in his chair, squaring his shoulders, making the guy sitting across from him appear smaller. Did he do that on purpose?
Finally, Burnett spoke, but looked back at the file. “She doesn’t normally go so easy on lowlifes who threaten her life.”
“I told you we weren’t—”
“Jason Von, right?”
When the kid didn’t answer, Burnett leaned forward, his eyes glowing. “Is that your name?”
“Yes,” Jason said.
Burnett nodded. “Look, Jason, I’m not going to beat around the bush. All eight of you are going down for attempted robbery, two of you get the added bonus of assault. Our facilities are almost filled. We have two spots left at Burton. It’s not a walk in the park, but Parkrow, our other facility, it’s rough. Only about fifty percent who go in, come out. And twenty-five of those will end up killing themselves. And the first two of the five of you with the lesser counts who tell us what we need to know will get to go to Burton.”
He pulled a photograph out of the file and pushed it in front of the rogue. The rogue, who suddenly seemed too young to be up to his yin yang in this kind of trouble.