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“Thank you,” Sasha said to her. “He really scared me last night before Deacon showed up. I hated that feeling.”

I saw her really look at him, see that he was being sincere, and give him a slight smile that I’d never seen her give anyone else. But it made sense—I hadn’t met anyone yet who wasn’t a bit smitten. And yes, omegas tended to have that effect on people, but with him it was more. He absolutely radiated kindness.

“You two—” Agent Woods pointed at me, then Sasha. “—need to go into protective custody right now, since no one can tell which of you everybody wants to kill.”

It was a bit snide, but also logical.

Sasha’s phone pinged, and he apologized as he pulled it from the breast pocket of his jacket to check.

“But we already have two police officers stationed outside our home all night,” I relayed to the room. “I’m certain that will be enough.”

“You don’t get to say what––”

“But I do,” Mrs. Poole announced. “We’re going to skip protective custody for the alpha, and his omega, at this time.”

He wanted to argue, it was there on his face, but he knew better.

“Good,” Mrs. Poole said with a smug smile. “All settled. Now, let’s adjourn to Hudson’s to collect the diary and⁠—”

“Oh no,” Sasha gasped, and everyone turned to him.

“What’s wrong, dear?” Mrs. Poole asked him.

“We had a break-in at work, and at the moment no one has any idea what, if anything, was stolen. Mr. Calvert said our collection and cold rooms are covered in papers that will take us weeks to try and sort through.”

“Well, let’s all get over there right now,” Mrs. Poole demanded. “And let’s have some detectives there as well to figure out who did this.”

Bannerman turned to Avery and Wade. “You heard her. Get going.”

It was not lost on me that he looked the most tired of all of us.

9

SASHA

Ifelt so sorry for Mr. Hudson, because he was counting on auctions going live, and everything that was supposed to be bid on was now strewn all over the second floor. People always said things like, “It looks like a tornado went through here,” but in this case, it actually did.

There was no place safe to walk, and even with everyone putting booties on their feet, Mr. Calvert did not want people traipsing through his auction house. The good news was, the diary wasn’t on the first floor or the second, but up the back stairs that wound around in a circle with walls on both sides of you, on the third floor.

Mrs. Poole wasn’t thrilled with the lack of elevator, but I explained that the building was old, and while the first two floors had been renovated, the third had not.

“I wish I’d known I’d be trekking uphill. I would have worn boots instead of heels,” she huffed.

“She could have stayed downstairs,” Deacon muttered under his breath from behind me. “There’s enough of us here to vouch for wherever you’ve got this diary stashed.”

I shushed him. “I don’t want you to be sanctioned.”

“Sanctioned, my ass,” he muttered, clearly not enjoying the fact that our Saturday had gone off the rails. “I want to go home with you right now.”

“Love, I won’t be able to go home. I’m going to have to stay here and help with the cleanup. It’s going to be an all-hands-on-deck situation.”

“No,” he rumbled at me.

“No what?” I asked, turning to look at him over my shoulder but not stopping. I’d been up and down the stairs too many times to need to look where I was going.

“No, I won’t allow you to stay here.”

“Yes, but this is my job. It’s not really something you can say no to.”