"Ready to check out the new cars?" Kian asked the brothers.

Anandur pushed away from the wall he'd been leaning against and closed his phone, shoving it in his back pocket. "Sure. But don't expect me to replace my baby with one of these electrical contraptions. It's unnatural to let a car drive itself. I don't trust computers. They glitch too often. If I'm sitting on my couch while it happens that's okay, but not while I'm sitting in a moving vehicle."

Kian slapped his back. "Every change is difficult to accept, but after a short while you can't understand how you've lived without it."

Anandur followed him out of the office. "Toilets were an awesome invention."

"Guns too," Brundar offered.

They stopped by Onegus's on their way to the elevators. "Want to join us for a test ride?" Anandur asked.

"And get out of here? Sure." Onegus rolled his chair away from his desk and stood up.

Kian's new unofficial protocol was to take only one bodyguard with him, but today was an exception. He was taking three.

His mother would approve.

Except, he was not going out. The first shipment of cars had been delivered to the underground parking garage of one of the adjacent high-rises. He preferred to walk over rather than drive there, taking the tunnel connecting the keep's underground to the one across the street.

"Did you get the paperwork?" Kian asked Onegus.

"Already taken care of. All the cars in this shipment are registered to our local biotech company as part of their fleet."

"That was fast. How did you manage that?"

Onegus smiled. "Roni. That kid is worth his weight in diamonds. He can hack into any government system and update records as if it has been done by their own personnel."

Kian wasn't happy with the shortcut Onegus had used. "There was no need to use a hacker for something that is perfectly legal and easily obtained by regular channels."

"It would have taken weeks. Roni had all sixteen cars registered in under an hour. I like the efficiency."

"Next time do it the regular way."

Roni wasn't transitioning. Perhaps the kid's body was still too weak from the pneumonia, and the last thing Kian wanted was to overload him with work. Besides, taking unnecessary risks was stupid.

"You know we are understaffed. If it makes things a little easier then why not?"

Kian stopped and turned to face Onegus. "Because every hack is a risk. We want Roni's backdoor into the government network to remain open for when we really need it."

Onegus shrugged. "You're the boss."

Everyone kept saying that and still doing things they knew Kian wouldn't approve of. Evidently, his people were well aware that his bark was much worse than his bite. He needed to slap a few with heavy penalties so the rest would toe the line.

His people were undisciplined, which besides annoying the hell out of him, also meant that they were lax as far as security went—as evidenced by how effortlessly Turner had found out so much about them.

He had no doubt that Turner's people did exactly as they were told, and that his security was ironclad. Anandur still hadn't found out where the guy lived or worked.

Embarrassing.

"Did you have any luck following Turner?" he asked.

Anandur shook his head. "You wouldn't believe how sophisticated this guy is. He has cameras installed under his car, on its roof, and several on its sides, probably transmitting the feed to an app on his phone. He checks it every time he returns from visiting Bridget."

Kian was impressed. "We should ask him to teach us his safety protocol. He makes us look like amateurs."

"Wait, I'm not finished yet. You have no idea to what lengths he actually goes. The guy is paranoid in the extreme."

"There is more?" Kian slowed his pace.

"The last time he came to talk to Bridget, I waited for the guy on the street in a borrowed truck and followed him. Naturally, I kept quite a distance. So when he turned into the mall, and I got stuck at a red light, I thought that I lost him. I was sure it was an evasive maneuver, and that he'd left through another exit, but then I saw him leave the car with the valet and enter the mall. I waited for him to come back for hours, but he didn't."

"Perhaps he had a lot of shopping to do," Onegus suggested.

"I came back at night, and the car was still there. The valet just moved it out into the general parking lot. Turner must have tipped him to do that. He either had another car somewhere in the mall's many parking areas, or took an Uber from another exit."

"He must've noticed you following him," Kian said. "I doubt he employs such elaborate maneuvers every time he goes somewhere."

"Maybe. But next time, I'm going to take Brundar and another Guardian with me. Brundar and I are going to follow Turner into the mall, unseen under the cover of Brundar's shroud. I have to know how he does it. As soon as he exits, I'm going to call the other Guardian and have him follow the new vehicle or the Uber or taxi or whatever other mode of transportation he takes from there."

"It's good that the rotations are over. Otherwise, you wouldn't have time to play detective," Onegus said. "It's not like there is any value in following Turner. He is not our enemy."

Evidently, the Guardians were not that good at detective work. The murders had stopped weeks ago, but no suspect had been apprehended. If it were indeed an immortal male, he must've noticed their patrols and fled.

Anandur's eyes blazed like flashlights in the tunnel's dim illumination. "I'm going to find out where the fucker lives and shove it in his face like he did to us."

Onegus chuckled. "I have a feeling Turner is going to give us the slip no matter what we do. The guy is too smart and apparently paranoid."

In Kian's opinion, paranoid was better than dead. Operatives like Turner couldn't be too careful. Especially in the private sector. The majority of the people Turner was dealing with were extremely dangerous and ruthless.