If that was true, it was a discovery that could be worth billions to whoever held the information. And while neither of us had any intention of holding it to ransom, we also had no intention of letting it get into the wrong hands—such as those of the sindicati or Rinaldo.

“Yes,” I said, somewhat impatiently, “but we did hand over the unrelated notes from the case.”

“We handed those over to whoever got to our office first, whether that was Rinaldo or Parella,” Jackson all but growled. “Maybe Parella got there first, and that’s what has pissed Rinaldo off.”

“Maybe.” We’d certainly taken a risk by making that play, but we’d done it in the hope that either Parella and his vampires, or even the werewolves—whom we’d also notified—might catch Rinaldo in the act of retrieving the notes and take the bastard down for us.

I guess we should have known he wouldn’t be caught so easily.

Jackson scrubbed a hand across his eyes. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be biting your head off when we both agreed it was our best option.”

“Well, not exactly.” I gave him a somewhat grim look. “I was the one who gave that ultimatum to Rinaldo. You agreed to it only after the fact.”

And if my impulsive action had caused Shona’s death, I would carry the guilt of it throughout this lifetime. But if there was one thing I’d learned over my lives, it was that good people sometimes paid the ultimate price, even if they were not directly involved in whatever fight or war was being waged.

Which didn’t excuse what I’d done or ease the guilt in any way.

We reached Seymour in record time, and, after Jackson had retrieved the phone from his old van, he made the call to PIT. Neither of us knew the security guard’s last name, let alone where he lived, so the only chance he really had of survival was for PIT to access his firm’s employment records for those details and then get there first. Had we had that information, I suppose we could have called the cops rather than PIT, and technically wouldn’t have breached Rinaldo’s warning. But would he care about technicalities? Somehow, I doubted it. Besides, I wasn’t about to send ordinary cops up against his men, not after they’d revealed themselves to be rather trigger-happy the one time we’d confronted them.

“Why didn’t you tell them Shona had also been threatened?” I asked once Jackson had hung up.

“Because she’s my responsibility, not theirs.”

And vengeance would also be his, his expression suggested, if the worst-case scenario eventuated.