AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I probably wouldn’t. I looked towards the guest rooms. That man was going to kill me, and then if he succeeded, he’d have gone after Iris next. There was no way I’d let that happen, and I refused to feel guilty about it.
What’s done is done.
31
IRIS
Eli’s Penthouse
Austin, Texas
Steam rose from the bathwater all around me, but it still felt like the chill wouldn’t release my bones. At least the shivering had stopped, but… I didn’t feel any warmer. Not really. Not in the way it mattered. Every time I closed my eyes as I tried to sink in a little deeper, I saw Ryan Sanders’ face staring blankly up at the night sky, unblinking and unseeing.
Never in a hundred years did I think asking him to get more information would end like this. Maybe get him a little stressed out, sure. Maybe,possibly,a little roughed up — but even that had seemed farfetched to me.
Now, I felt like an idiot for not seeing the danger I’d put him in sooner. I’d been so focused on finding out what happened to Cyn and Ashley that I didn’t assess the risk to Ryan well enough, and he had paid the ultimate price. My stomach rolled again.I thought he was too valuable to them. I thought he’d said he was in charge of their funding. I thought they’d be hamstrung without him.
I should have checked what Ryan was saying instead of taking him at his word.Eli’s in finance, right? Why didn’t I justthinkand ask him to run a check or whatever on Ryan? Or his funds? Or whatever? It couldn’t have been that hard, could it?
It certainly couldn’t have been as hard as telling Catherine Sanders that her mate was dead, as if her only child being missing wasn’t bad enough.
And what’s going to happen to Ashley now…?
She didn’t fit the profile of the other missing shifters; as far as I could tell, she’d been abducted to ensure Ryan’s continued cooperation. But if Ryan was gone… they couldn’t just let her go. She’d probably seen too much. At the very least, they would risk someone in their organization getting fingered for abducting someone. Maybe they had other expendable people and that’s what they’d do, but…
That seemed like a dismal thing to hope for.
The other options I could think of were worse, though. They might use Ashley for whatever experiments they were doing orsilenceher the same way they had her father. The only crime she’d committed was being related to the man, and now…
I gagged a little on the thought.Why didn’t you just use your brain,Iris? Now you’ve lost your inside man and put one of the missing people at risk!
Ashley and the Sanders weren’t my clients, but I still felt some responsibility towards them, perhaps even more now than I had before.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I can do.
I didn’t even have a mentor, a pack elder, or a partner to turn to. It was just me — Iris Walker, Private Detective. Usually, I preferred it that way, but right now? Right now, I could really use some advice.
Eventually,the water went cold and I stepped out, pulling the plug to let it drain away. I hoped my questions and worries would spiral away with the water, but no such luck. I was left with an empty tub, wet hair, and a mind still full of thoughts.
I quickly dried myself off and looked at the clothes laid out for me; as advertised, they were too big, but the sweatpants had a tie, so at least they wouldn’t fall off me. The tee shirt was baggy, too, but it smelled like Eli, and at the moment, that felt comforting. Even my wolf seemed settled by it, and right now, I’d take any sort of warmth I could get. I took a deep breath and checked myself in the mirror; I looked tired but otherwise okay. Giving my hair a quick shake to rid it of any forest debris, I took a deep breath and headed out of the bathroom.
To my surprise, I heard three voices in the living room; Eli was sitting in one of the chairs, and Remus and Nicholas were seated across from him on the couch. Even more surprising was the lack of tension that I’d felt earlier. It didn’t seem like Eli was three seconds away from telling his father off — or vice versa. I exhaled, mildly relieved.Hopefully, they got whatever that was out of their systems.
Eli must have heard me and stood at once, navigating around the chair and striding over as I walked in. “Are you feeling any better?” he asked softly, leading me towards another one of the chairs.
I gave a small shrug. “I don’t think I’m going to feel better for a few days,” I admitted. As soon as I sat, a blanket seemed to appear magically. I’d have been more annoyed by Eli’s intense attentiveness if I wasn’t still feeling the chill. “The shock is wearing off. That’s all.”
Nic made a concerned noise; everyone’s eyes were on me now. “Do you need water? Something stronger?”
“No,” I shook my head. “Thank you.”
“Do you need a doctor?” Remus asked, his brows pulled down. I didn’t miss the dark look Eli shot him. The older alpha cleared his throat, looking a bit abashed. “I know everyone was flocking over Eli before.”
I shrugged. “Of course you were. He’s your family member.” I wasn’t offended. “And he had been shot.” Frankly, I’d have been more offended if someone tried to doctor me while Eli stood there bleeding. “Seriously, I am okay. Shocked. But okay. No one touched me.”
It felt weird, being the center of everyone’s attention — I was barely used to Eli treating me like that, but Remus and Nic too? That was entirely too much. Even my wolf, calm and content moments ago, had begun to retreat deeper inside me, overwhelmed by the sheer power these alphas all had and their full attention on us.
“So,” I said, hating the silence that fell over everyone once they’d stopped offering me things. “What do we do next?”
