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“Maybe they’re not even there for you. Paranoid much?”
“True, I’m probably being overly… or maybe not.”
“Why? What’s happening?”
“Two guys, dressed all in black, just got out of the car and they’re both carrying assault rifles.”
“Deacon,” she said, and I heard her catch of breath.
“Yeah, I’m about to get shot again.”
She gasped. “What? No, that’s not––”
“I’m hanging up. Call Avery for me.”
“Yes. Now, promise me––”
I hung up, then turned and darted for the back door. Once I was outside, I got up on the roof of the house, pleased at how easy it was—I was definitely all healed—and ran across it to the front.
Leaping quietly onto the roof of the house on the right, I dropped down first into its yard, then flipped over the fence onto the sidewalk. Quietly, I was a wolf after all, I crouched down between two parked cars, and watched.
One guy checked the door, found it locked, went down on one knee, flipped his gun over his shoulder on its strap, and got started picking the lock. He was covered by his partner, who hung back, far enough in the front yard that he was shrouded from anyone passing on the street.
Someone hadn’t done their homework, because as a lupine, I certainly would have heard him from the bedroom, even with how quiet he was. On the other hand, maybe they were counting on me coming to the door so they could kill me immediately, and then grab Sasha.
Sasha.
I needed to find out where he was, and if these men were also after him.
Slipping out from between the two cars, I moved silently toward the man furthest from the house, came up behind him, and hit him a freight train. He flew forward onto the sidewalk, knocked out. I had his rifle in my hand in seconds, aimed at the guy trying to pick the lock on the door.
“Don’t move,” I warned the man on my porch. “I was shot three times a couple weeks ago, and look, all better.”
“Fuckin’ filthy-ass lupines,” he muttered as he turned to me, eyes narrowed, lips tight, the muscles in his neck cording.
“Yep. Wolves, man, we’re everywhere. Can’t live with us, can’t kill us, what’s left?”
“She took your precious omega, and he’s dead by now.”
But I would know that, feel that. There was no way I would not. I hadn’t chosen him; we were fated mates, and those did not come along every day. Still, he’d meant the words to hurt, and they did.
“Why?” I asked him, my voice hoarse.
“He has what she needs.”
What she needs…
There was only one thing it could be. “She’s gonna be disappointed, because the item went into police custody last night.”
He sucked in a breath. I loved guessing right, though really, not much of a jump. How many treasures had Sasha known of?
“Going to be very hard for her to get it now.”
“Then he really is dead. That necklace was going to be her biggest payday yet.”
Necklace? What necklace?
“She said an emerald that big would be worth a fortune now.”
