Page 118 of Claws & Cover Ups

“Alright. So, this Elliot Rhodes. Is this serious?” she asks.

My eyes go wide, and I look up at a smiling Nicholas. He winks at me.

“Very,” he says, looking straight at me.

“I heard Matt gave him the talk?” she says, doubtfully.

Nicholas rolls his eyes. “He did a great job. I talked to Elliot. He’s taking it all pretty well.”

I shake my head.

“Good, good,” she says. “I looked at the evidence received from Adler’s place. Looks like the man had completely lost it. They found pictures of my husband and Matt’s fiancé on his laptop. His plan was apparently to kill every human close to werewolves,” she says.

“Huh,” Nicholas says, sounding surprised. When our eyes meet, he smiles again.

My mouth hangs open. He planted evidence to protect me? I had him so wrong. He’s not a Boy Scout. Not at all.

“We need to have a team meeting on this soon. And if you talk to Elliot, please apologize on my behalf for letting this happen.” She sounds genuinely sorry.

“I’ll do that,” Nicholas says.

“And Nicholas?” Meena says right before he’s about tohang up. “They found a werewolf’s body in a hotel in Arizona. Heart attack. Maybe the Vigilante Wolf Hunter moved on?”

“If we’re lucky,” Nicholas says.

“Let’s talk about this in the next meeting. And tell me if the shooting becomes athing,” she warns.

“I will,” he says, and Meena disconnects the call.

“She never says ‘bye,’” Nicholas complains.

I ignore his disappointed face. “You broke into Dominic’s place, didn’t you?” I ask. I need confirmation. Ineedto know if he’s as deep into this as I am.

“Why would I do that?” he says, then turns away from me to find something in the bedside table.

I’m going to amend my statement. Nicholas is ahorribleliar.

A feeling of warmth courses through my body. I look at him sitting there, strong and dependable. For the first time in my life, I feel content. Protected.

He tosses something at me. I look down to find my “serious shit” phone in front of me. “Got this from your office. Thought you’ll need it. And seriously? A trapdoor in the floor? Were youtryingto get caught?”

I laugh. “I was so wrong about you.”

“I hope that’s a good thing?”

“The best,” I say, picking up my phone. I ignore the million missed calls from Sam and scroll through his thousand messages. They range from freaked out to concerned to angry.

I snort at a particularly threatening one.

Sam the Genius: If you don’t answer me right this second, I’ll publish all that poetry in your laptop under your name.

I continue scrolling, but my hand freezes when I reach one of the first ones he sent two days ago.

I found him.