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Chapter Eleven
The next few days were uneventful but productive. Liam’s guys hit all the locations Ivan and Charles had given us. I got a crap ton of writing done and was halfway through the first draft by the time Isaac called me. And the best part was a message came through on Ivan’s phone which I’d been holding.
It was an order to pick up the chocolates. Ivan had said they only used them once for that task, but the order had come through on his phone. Maybe Ivan didn’t know as much as he’d said or maybe they were just running out of assholes to do their bidding.
The time for the pick up was the day after the text, giving Liam enough time to have someone stake out the area and watch for whoever dropped it off. That day had arrived, and I was arguing with him about going to the stake out.
“Do you have any idea how boring it’s going to be? It’s why I pay people a lot of money to do it for me.”
“I’m going. You don’t have to come, but I need to see the fucker myself. And it does seem like it’d be boring, so having you there may make it less tedious.”
Liam sighed and ran his hands over his bearded face then through his hair as he usually did when he was super annoyed. I got him to do it at least once a day. It was becoming a little game I played with myself. “Fine. Give me ten minutes to finish this up and I’ll come with you.”
Exactly ten minutes later I was backing out of the driveway. My little blue Prius would be way less conspicuous than his Tesla. The location, just as Ivan had said, was a defunct carnival site about half an hour from Liam’s. They’d leave the box on the seat of one of the gondolas on the Ferris wheel.
We didn’t see his guys anywhere, but if we had easily found them, they wouldn’t be doing a good job. I pulled the car off the road and into the trees about a mile away from the site. Then met up with Liam’s men to watch for our guy.
It was more boring than I could have imagined, and I was glad I’d hassled him into coming. Pestering him was my only entertainment. It wasn’t easy to get to him and that made it even more fun.
One of his guys held up a hand. I peered around him to see a figure approach the Ferris wheel with the familiar white box and silver bow. We couldn’t see their face from our vantage point, but when they turned, and the moonlight hit them I saw them clear as day.
I stumbled back when the world spun, tripping over Liam’s foot. He told his men to let the culprit go. He’d seen them too. We waited until they left, and we heard their car drive off before anyone spoke.
“Red? Ember?” Liam said giving me a little shake.
“It wasn’t… It couldn’t be. Was it?” I looked at him, pleading with my eyes for him to say it wasn’t who I thought it was. That I’d hallucinated. That it was just someone who looked similar.
But I knew the truth. I knew who I’d seen. And I knew my heart had just broken into a million little pieces.
“It was Stella,” Liam said.
The tears came and wouldn’t stop. I should have been angry. Livid. But the heartbreak was so strong it overpowered any other emotion. Liam got me back to my car and drove us back to his house. I cried the entire drive and then kept crying as he led me into the house where he held me until I stopped.
He let me sit in silence for as long as I needed. After I’d finished mourning the loss of the person who had been like a sister to me, the anger finally came. And it came hard. So hard I involuntarily shifted.
My wolf was as hurt as I was. She stood just kind of staring at Liam for a moment before she ran out of the room to the backdoor where she barked for Liam to open it and flew outside as soon as he did. He shifted and ran with her.
Our wolves broke through the tree line and ran deep into the woods. Henry called from above and joined them. They ran for miles until arriving at a lake I hadn’t known existed. My wolf sat on the shore and stared out over the water. Liam’s sat next to her, nuzzling her neck with his nose. He let out a little yip to get her to look at him. He tilted his head to the side in question. She licked his face to let him know she was okay. Or as okay as she could be.
They sat there for a few hours until my wolf yawned and curled up on the ground. Liam’s settled in with his head resting on her stomach. Our wolves fell asleep cuddled up next to the lake, and as far as I was concerned, we could all stay there for the rest of our lives. My life had just irreversibly changed, and I was in no hurry to get back to it and face Stella Johnson.
I have to say waking up in front of a lake as the sun rises wasn’t terrible. Waking up remembering your best friend is a backstabbing criminal sucked major lemons. Liam and I stayed in wolf form and hunted in the forest before heading back to his house. Seeing him without the fog of despair reminded me I had to ask him about his wolf.
Back at the house we showered and ate another breakfast. We were sipping our coffee when I finally asked him.
“What do you mean tell you about my wolf?” He drank his coffee as calmly as could be. Like he had not a worry in the world. That made me suspicious.
I narrowed my eyes. “The fur. It’s not the typical Autumn coloring and you are huge.”
He gave a nod. “Why thank you.” He smirked as he raised him mug to me.
“Yeah, well… in this case, you know I mean your wolf is bigger than the other Alphas.” He smirked again, and I laughed. “Ass. Are you ever going to tell me anything personal about yourself? Or am I supposed to just blindly trust you?” I was feeling a little vulnerable after finding out about Stella, so I may have put more heat behind my words than I’d meant to. But dammit, he evaded questions better than any politician I’d ever seen.
He placed his mug on the table and leaned forward to take my hand in his. “I’m not used to sharing my life with anyone. I have a complicated past and need to know I can trust you before I go into it. If that makes you uncomfortable, we can get you a hotel or other accommodations.”
“So, it’s like that? I blindly trust you’re not doing anything fucked up. Or I leave?”
“I assure you I am not the bad guy,” he said. His tone was flat and his jaw tight.
