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CHAPTER 14
“And then the Orcs decidethat the human is the perfect mate for them and they literally pick her up and carry her off.” Rio is in the middle of telling Adair averygraphic play-by-play of the book that Madeline had given him when the doorbell of the apartment rings. I had been busy pretending not to listen to their conversation, despite also being completely enthralled by what sounded like a balls-to-the-wall (literally, they hammer the woman’s abusive husband’s balls to the wall) story.
“I’ll get it.” Adair said, jumping up from his place on the couch, and heading towards the door. “You know, I really think that women have been keeping their books a secret from us, all of the books that I’ve read in the last year haven’t been nearly as interes....” His voice trailed off as he opened the door.
“Were we expecting a package here at the apartment?” Adair asked, sounding confused. We rarely had anything delivered to the apartment aside from furniture or other big items. Most of our mail went to the post office and was picked up by one of the assistants after being checked over.
Alarm-bells immediately began to ring in my head as I vaulted off of the couch. “Don’t touch it!” I barked, and Adair’s hand froze mid-reach.
I tugged him back away from the door to get a better look at the package that was sitting on our front mat. It was small, probably sixteen to twenty inches across and about that tall. It was a normal looking package. Well, except for the fact that every single seam of the box was sealed with clear tape.
“Rio, call the police, use the number on the fridge.” The San Francisco Police Department had been handling all incoming packages for Adair since he had run for congress. They worked with the post office to scan packages and envelopes for not only Adair, but several other important figures living in San Francisco.
Adair held progressive political views, which meant that there were going to be those who didn’t like it, and would try to stop Adair’s political rise by any means necessary. More than likely this package had been dropped off in person, which was surprising since security in this building was tighter than the arsehole of an incredibly wealthy man being asked to pay his workers fair wages.
When I could hear Rio on the phone, I took two big steps away from the package like it could blow any minute and, let’s be honest, it potentially could. I pulled the number for the building security up on my phone and listened while it rang for an inordinate amount of time.
Finally, a harried sounding voice answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Yeah, hi, this is Marcus Whitlock calling from 10-C and just wondering what the fuck is going on downstairs? Someone managed to drop a package on our doorstep.” I knew that I sounded pissed, but I hated anything that put my pack members in danger, and the package in front of me represented every single danger and risk that our pack opened itself up to with Adair running for Governor.
“Sorry, sir, we had a water main break in the bathroom downstairs and it’s a real shitshow. We’ve been mopping up water for over an hour.” A water main break? The timing was too perfect for it to be a coincidence. I made a mental note for the police to check the security cameras of the lobby along with the ones that were in the hallway outside of our front door.
Two hours later, after the police and the entire fucking bomb-squad had trampled through our apartment, we had our answer about the mystery box left on our front porch.
“Firecrackers?” Adair asked the officer who was scribbling away in his report.
“Yup. Set to ignite as soon as any pressure was applied to the box. It wasn’t enough to kill, but you’d definitely lose a finger or two if you didn’t know what you were opening.” With that the officer flipped his notebook shut and hooked his fingers through his belt loops.
“We’ll dust it for prints before letting the bomb squad detonate it. I’ll keep you updated if we find anything in the footage from your security office.” With that, the officer and the rest of his colleagues cleared out of our apartment, leaving Rio, Adair, and I standing together in the kitchen in silence.
I was the first, as always, to break the silence.
“We need to hire a full time security team to be with you at all times.” I was already texting Aria. One of her pack members, Theo, owned a security company, and could outfit us with enough muscle that it would give these crazy fuckers some pause.
“I don’t want that,” Adair’s words edged towards a whine, and I shot him a stern look. “I hate being followed around all the time. That basically says that I’m afraid to live in the state I'm supposed to be representing.”
I understood where he was coming from, but I was not going to be swayed about this. “Too fucking bad, Adair. That is the sacrifice you make when you decide to run for office. This is much bigger than being a congressman, and even then they forced you to have security.” I didn’t add that Adair also had a habit of talking about his values off the cuff before they were looked over by Mortie or his other speech preparers. I agreed with everything that he said, but I also knew that it could be inflammatory to those wholikedthe way things worked in California.
“Should we move?” Rio asked with a frown as he looked around the apartment that was our safe haven. Or at least it had been.
“No.” Adair sliced a hand through the air like he was cutting through the very idea that we would even think about moving. “I refuse to let some faceless asshole run us out of our home.”
“But wouldn’t it be easier to move into a home with gates and places for a security team to operate?” I point out. Aria had been telling me all about how safe they had made their home in Sausalito, and I would be lying if that didn’t sound absolutely tempting. I’d even been scrolling through real estate listings when I had a free second. But this was a conversation we could have closer to the election, we would need a place that he could commute to Sacramento from and, let’s face it, it was too hard to get out of the city from our apartment.
With a sigh, I scrubbed a hand through my hair. “We can talk about this later. But for now, you are getting a security detail for whenever you are out and about. Don’t make me phone Mortie, you know exactly what he will say.” Mortie had been pushing for Adair to get security for months.
With that comment, Adair’s stubbornness deflated and he finally nodded. “Fine. But at leasttryto find someone who won’t try to boss me around about where I go.” He had hated how the security in DC had treated him.
“I will. I’ll get Theo Nilsson to handle it.” I promised. Meanwhile, my brain was already moving a hundred miles a minute in an effort to try and figure out how the hell I was going to protect my pack better after this.
“You should have alreadyhad better security in the first place. You’ve got every nutjob in California’s hackles up like a bunch of pissed off cats. I’m honestly surprised something like this didn’t happen sooner.” I was about thirty minutes into a lecture that would have made my father proud. I was sitting behind my desk across from Mortie who had finally taken a break from his pacing to sit in one of the folding chairs that were strewn across our campaign office.
“And I’m not disagreeing with you,” I replied calmly. “I just thought I’d have at least a couple more months before needing to think about it.” In retrospect, that seemed like a really stupid perspective for me to have.
Mortie, realizing that he was arguing at me and notwithme, just leaned back in his seat and harrumphed.
“Have you thought about purchasing a house that you can lock up tighter than Fort Knox?” Mortie asked, echoing Rio and Marcus’s words from the night before.
