He still hadn’t remembered how to read and he needed her help. “Of course.” She pulled out her cell phone. She thumb-typed way faster than she wrote.
Then he looked at Vic. “I need a beta,” he said to her brother.
Vic frowned. “I have no idea what that means.”
“An XO. Will you serve me?”
“Yes, sir!” Vic straightened into a military salute that was crisp and so handsome on her brother. Every now and then he gave her a flash of the man he could be, and right here despite all the changes, she was seeing what she’d always hoped was in there.
“The bodies,” Simon said with a gesture. “Talk to the cop. Figure out what’s the best thing to do.”
“On it.” Wow, her brother even did a military turn as if he were on a parade ground. Meanwhile, the cop nodded to Simon and then Vic.
“My name’s Ryan Kennedy. Detective.”
“Vic Nelson. Simon’s beta.”
They shook hands awkwardly, but soon got to business by talking in low tones. Alyssa turned back to Simon, belatedly realizing that she was now the center of his attention. And he just stood there looking at her with an intensity that made her heart beat triple time.
“Simon?” she finally asked when the tension got too much for her.
His voice came out in a bare whisper. “Four steps. First, become dominant. Second, please the alpha female. Third, lead the clan.” He paused as his eyes became brilliant green. “Fourth, lead wisely.”
She didn’t know what to say. Her mind was still spinning on how he could please the alpha female and the guess that he meant her. But that wasn’t what he was asking her, and she struggled to catch up.
“My thoughts are simple: four steps.”
“Dominance, female, leadership, wisdom. Got it.” She didn’t get it, but that’s all she had at the moment.
His gaze traveled the room, pausing significantly on Nanook’s carcass and the dead drug dealer. “You are the alpha female. Your role is wisdom. Only you can stop me before I go too far.” She nodded, her gaze cutting back to Vic, but Simon grabbed her arm. “They’ve sworn loyalty. They can’t disobey.”
And since she was the only one who hadn’t growled or roared, that left her. And what a sticky place that was. She was supposed to be the brakes on an unpredictable, violent man? No way. That was crazy and a sure way to die. She’d seen that enough just growing up in Detroit. And yet, the way he looked at her—dark and intense as if she was his only lifeline—had her aching to reassure him.
“I can tell you,” she said in a whisper. “I can’t make you listen.”
He swallowed, and his gaze turned anguished. “I know.” Then he glanced behind him at the body of the drug dealer. “I just killed a man.”
“You just killed two.”
“I don’t regret Nanook. He demanded the challenge and would have killed me. The other?—”
“Was about to shoot you. Same self-defense argument.”
“Or entrapment. I knew where the guns were. I knew someone would grab one.”
Surprise flashed through her body. While she’d been barely following what was happening, he’d been thinking at least two steps ahead. She’d always guessed Simon was smart. Now she realized he was probably the smartest man she’d ever met.
But rather than give away exactly how sexy that made him in her eyes, she looked down at her phone. “What do you need from me?”
“Just take notes.”
She nodded. “Who do we start with first?”
He gestured to the huge, ebony-skinned man with the scar, and pretty soon she was tapping out details faster than even her thumbs could manage. Which meant she quickly gave up and switched to record. His name was Hank and he was very familiar with the details of Nanook’s operation. He shared them easily while she gestured for Detective Kennedy to listen in.
Next step was to control the physical space. Apparently Nanook, who had no known relatives, lived right upstairs in what turned out to be a luxury man-cave of truly appalling leather and velvet taste. His only nod to style was that the painted picture of dogs playing poker was done as bears. Simon took one step inside, wrinkled his nose and said, “Get rid of it all.”
Alyssa blinked and said, “Come again?”
