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“You did too.” He laughs again, leaning over to pull his phone from his pocket. “See right here you said ‘If you don’t get back here this instant, I’ll shove your head up your ass.’”
“Thank you for reminding me. It seems like I owe you a beat down since it took you a full hour to get back after I sent that.”
“How quickly your story changes at the promise of violence.” His chest shakes with silent laughter, and I narrow my eyes on him but don’t bother arguing with him anymore, knowing exactly what he’ll say next. “For someone so concerned with me leaving to watch after our mate, you do seem to be wasting a lot of time.”
And there it is. I swear these assholes like to get on my very last nerve, just to see how far they can push me.
“You’re lucky I consider you my brother, otherwise I’d be following through on my promise.”
He chokes on his laugh, not expecting me to give up that easily it seems. Well he’s lucky I’m in a good mood right now. He’ll have another opportunity to see her, and although I wish it was me, it plays right into the plan.
“Do you have many jobs lined up?” I ask. With everything going on here, we can’t really afford to have Zeke go off right now. But if he has to, I’ll need to figure something else out.
“No.” That easy going tone dissipates as his shoulders tense, his entire demeanor shifting at the mention of his other duties. “The last job was the only one lined up for a while.”
He may be second but he’s no less of a leader than I. He’s had a huge role in helping us get to where we are today, and that was partly due to the money he generated from his work as an assassin. My lips purse as I remember the fear glittering in Sky’s eyes as his name registered. I never would have forgiven myself if that was the reason our mate rejected him.
“I should go, who knows what trouble she’s gotten herself into already,” he says, sliding his feet off my desk. The sound of amusement sounds hollow compared to normal, and I frown at the shift in his attitude. What he’s had to do weighs on him heavily, but he tries to hide it.
“Have you found out anything else about that job?” I ask hesitantly, knowing he most likely hasn’t with everything going on. He barely had a chance to tell me about it, and all I got out of him was that the person who hired him set him up.
“No,” Zeke says gruffly, his gaze darkening and I can tell that’s about as much as I’ll be able to get out of him.
“You know you don’t need to anymore,” I offer, causing him to stop in his tracks. I’ve told him this countless times before, but his targets have changed over the years. Now he only takes hits that have done something reprehensible. But it never gets easier to deal with the blood on your hands.
“I know,” he says simply, dragging in a deep breath before shoving his hands in his pockets and silently striding to the door. My lips part, about to ask about the jacket, but I think better of it just before a sound can escape, internally scolding myself for almost voicing that question. “She loved the jacket by the way,” Zeke teases, pausing by the door long enough to throw back a smirk in my direction. I grind my teeth, not wanting to admit the asshole knew exactly what I was thinking, and I launch the closest thing near me at his head—which happens to be a stapler. Unfortunately, he ducks from the doorway just in time for it to collide with the wall, his gleeful laughter peeling out as he leaves.
I let loose a groan once he closes the door behind him, scrubbing a hand over my face as exhaustion begins to set in. Skylar’s lesson had been weighing on my mind all afternoon, so I hadn’t been able to focus on the logs at all. But now with Zeke’s reassurance and knowing he’s about to go watch out for her at the club, I can finally devote all of my attention to sniffing out the leak.
I slide the laptop back out from my desk drawer, ready for something to distract me. Otherwise I might just end up following Zeke to the club, and I can only imagine the pissed off look on my mate’s face if she saw both of our hulking forms in her club. I huff out a breath of amusement as I picture her face scrunched in anger and almost get up to follow him over there until the faces of the injured and two dead float through my mind.
There’ll be plenty of time to piss off my mate in the future, but for now I have to focus on this for them and for her. Because she very nearly lost her life, and I would have burnt that compound down to a crisp to get revenge.
I flip up the screen on the small laptop, cursing myself for not getting a desktop for my office. I don’t normally need to work on it for such long hours. Typically, this is something I would give to the few wolves that run the pack I.T. department. But I can’t let anyone know about this, not until I have something definitive.
I’ve been combing through the directory of beta profiles already, but I’ll go over them again before diving into those logs. I’ll need to cross-reference any betas that could have gained access to that information against the logs and see whose whereabouts can be accounted for.
I can already tell tonight is going to be a long night, but I sink into my seat, my eyes scanning the bright computer screen and preparing to dive deep tonight. I won’t be able to sleep anyway, at least not until I get the all clear from Zeke that our mate is home safe.
Chapter Seventeen
Skylar
Hisheatedgazewarmsmy skin, igniting the flames of desire and sending them straight to my core. I’m cemented where I stand, completely entranced by the man before me. A third mate.
Why is this happening to me? I was just starting to get used to the first two and now I find another.Is this some sort of joke, universe? Sure just pile it on,I think wryly, not letting myself admit that there are definitely worse things in the world than finding three hot as sin mates. I mean just one of them could reduce a girl to a puddle on the floor, but three of them—
“Hey, put that out,” Seline’s voice cuts through my thoughts, snapping me out of my daze. As though the haze lifting from my mind triggers his own to dissipate, he slowly drags his gaze away from me, a smirk tilting his lips as he turns to Seline. “I said, put that out.” Her voice is stern, but I sense the hesitance there. He is an alpha after all, and her senses would scream at her not to take too much of a tone with him. Which is probably the only reason a growl doesn’t slip in.
His finger flicks up, the movement so fast, so practiced that I barely catch it. The lid flips back over to extinguish the flame, and I can almost see a piece of him leave with it, his eyes creasing almost imperceptibly at the loss of comfort.
Satisfied, Seline slides a glass towards him and picks up the cash he’d left waiting on the bar. Glancing down I see the warm amber liquid in his glass—whisky neat. Of course, that would be his drink of choice. He probably loves the slide of the fiery liquid down his throat, burning him on the inside. My mouth waters at that thought, desperate to taste that whisky on his lips, to know him better and learn what put that fire in his heart.
And I idly wonder how he had stood leaving that flame going for so long, the heat surely would have warmed the metal lighter to the point that most people wouldn’t be able to touch it. But the flame he just extinguished fits him so perfectly, as though he had emerged from the ashes. Heat blazes within him, not only in his eyes but in his soul. I can feel that, feel him through the bond that pulses between us.
“Are you alright, girl?” Seline asks, startling me again as she places a hand on my shoulder. I force myself not to jump and instead give her a tight nod. I really need to get a hold of myself, I can’t continue letting my guard drop this low. I glance around the bustling bar and notice a few people avert their gaze as my head swings in their direction. That’s just great. Had they noticed the connection between me and the mysterious man with the fiery red hair?
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I murmur, just loud enough for her to hear me over the dance beats.
