Page 52

A knock sounds at the door, once, three times, then once again.

“That’s Saint. He’s one of Rowan’s people,” Orien says, straightening. “Stay right here. Don’t touch anything. Don’t look at him.” He cups my nape and squeezes. “I’ve got this, trouble. I’ve got you.”

He strides to the door and opens it with a quiet word to whoever stands on the other side. Two sets of footsteps enter the apartment, and quiet voices exchange information I can’t hear.

The sight of my clean hands clashes with the blood on my shirt and the body on my kitchen floor, leaving me struggling to make sense of what just happened.

Orien reappears with another Alpha, this one younger, with a shaved head and a square jaw. He wears a canvas jacket that does nothing to hide the breadth of him. He carries a black duffel bag in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. He takes in the body on my floor with the same look most people reserve for a broken appliance.

Without asking, Saint holds the bottle out to me, and I take it with shaking hands. Popping the top, I take a long drink, the burn helping to jolt me out of my fog of shock.

They move through my apartment, Orien giving instructions to Saint, who begins unpacking the duffel bag.

I stay where Orien put me, watching as Saint pulls on a pair of latex gloves and kneels beside the body. He checks the Alpha’s pockets, removing a wallet and phone, which he hands to Orien without comment.

They work quickly, spreading a black plastic sheet beside the body before rolling it onto the material. Blood smears across my tile, and Orien moves in with a spray bottle and rags, wiping it away before it can dry.

“I need bleach,” he says, not looking up from his task.

“Under the sink,” I whisper.

He finds it without further direction, adding it to the spray bottle before continuing to clean. The acrid chemical scent cuts through the copper tang of blood, burning at the back of my sinuses.

Saint works to wrap the body in plastic with practiced movements. “He’s heavier than he appears.”

“Yeah, we’ll need the cart from the car.”

Saint rises, stripping off his bloody gloves and replacing them with a fresh pair from his pocket. “I’ll get it.”

He leaves through the front door, closing it quietly behind him, and Orien continues wiping down surfaces, removing every trace of blood. Without asking, he puts the wine chiller into the garbage bag with the bloody rags.

Orien isn’t only Rowan’s cleanup man. He’s the person called when something needs to disappear without question. The one who erases problems so completely that no one thinks to search for them.

And he’s doing it for me.

The smell of bleach follows Orien into the living room. The desk lies in pieces, glass scattered across the hardwood. My bookshelf is on its side, novels in disarray. A lamp lies broken beside the nightstand, the shade torn.

Orien works through it, picking up the larger pieces of glass, wiping down surfaces where the Alpha might have touched, checking for blood spatter I hadn’t even noticed. He finds my phone where it fell during the struggle and sets it on the counter without comment.

The front door opens again, and Saint returns with a folded handcart, the kind movers use for appliances. He unfolds it with a quiet click, positioning it beside the wrapped body.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Yep.”

Together, they lift the plastic-wrapped form onto the cart. It’s not graceful. Dead weight never is. But they manage it with a minimum of noise, securing the body with bungee cords before covering it with a blanket from Saint’s bag.

“Building has cameras in the stairwell and elevator,” Orien says, already moving toward the door. “I’ll take care of the footage on our way out.”

“Sounds good.” Saint adjusts his grip on the cart. “The car is in the service entrance. No one saw me come in.”

They’ve done this before. Many times, from the ease with which they move, the quiet understanding between them.

Orien comes to kneel in front of me. “How are you holding up?”

I don’t have an answer. My hands have stopped shaking, but I still can’t quite believe what’s happening. What Orien’s doing for me.

He takes my hands, turning them palm up to check for any cuts or scrapes I might have missed in the fight. Finding none, he settles them back on my thighs. “May I check you for injuries?”