“Since when do you shelter lycans?” She stuck out her chin the same way she had done as a determined two-year-old, dead set on buckling herself into her own car seat even if she hadn’t figured out how to work the belts and clasps. “Considering you’ve taken it upon yourself to break a few rules, I figured I could, too.”

Cursing, he jumped to his feet and dragged her after him out of the alley. He wasn’t about to risk his sister’s life. Legally, she might be an adult, but he was still her brother. Hell, he was more than a brother. Since their parents’ deaths, he was her sole parent. Their grandmother had fed and sheltered them, but at sixteen Gideon had known she viewed them as a yoke about her neck. At sixty-five, she had finished raising children and only did the bare minimum parenting.

Kit tugged against his hold. Clearing the alley, he released her and shoved her ahead of him into the parking lot. “Go home, Kit.”

“No.” She propped a fist on her hip.

“You can’t stay.” He waved to the sea of cars. “Leave.” He glanced over his shoulder, hoping Claire hadn’t stepped outside yet.

“Let me stay.”

“You know why you can’t. NODEAL prohibits female agents for a reason.”

“Yeah, and it’s bullshit.”

“Menstruation makes females more vulnerable. We need agents that are not only strong but more difficult to detect.”

Kit pointed at herself. “Well, if Cooper is going to accuse me of hunting lycans and read me the riot act for something I didn’t do, then I might as well get in on the game.”

He sighed and looked up at the sky. Cooper. Gideon should have guessed. She did the opposite of whatever that man said. “He came to see you, huh?”

“Uh, yeah,” she said with heavy sarcasm, nodding as if that much was clear. “He tore me a new one.”

“He’s under a lot of stress,” Gideon found himself defending him. “Never forget how much we owe him, Kit.”

“What about you,” she accused, arching an eyebrow. “You seem to have forgotten. You’re the one breaking code behind his back.”

Her words hit home, igniting a guilty flame in his heart. He dropped his hand. “Go home, Kit,” he said flatly.

“When are you going to stop treating me like a child?” Green eyes so like his own glinted up angrily at him. “You’re not my father, Gid. If I want to do this, you can’t stop me.”

Gideon squeezed the bridge of his nose. He didn’t have time for this.

Clasping the gun in both hands, elbows bent, she faced the alley. Gideon nearly groaned, remembering that while his friends’ sisters had played with dolls, his had wanted to play cops and robbers. Just his luck she never outgrew the habit.