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“You’ve handled taller ones before.” This wasn’t exactly the first unreasonable thing I’d asked any of them to do for me. And it wasn’t exactly unreasonable; it was potentially life-saving. “Look, I don’t care about the expense. The facts are these: we need a team in place to protect Amelia Everly, because the likelihood of her being another target of whoever is attacking Jo is high. If they manage to do anything to Jo…” My throat dried at the thought, but I swallowed and continued. “If they manage to do anything to Jo, then Amelia would be the only heir to Gold Moon left. She’s clearly a target if someone is looking to clear the Everlys out of the way.”
The idea of someone after either woman churned my stomach, and the kind of panic I was unaccustomed to brought bile to my throat.
I was always in control.Always.
And I needed to be in control now. I could do that by asking my team to help me out, to keep the women safe.
After the moment Jo and I had just shared…okay, several long moments all strung together…safety was more important than ever.
And especially as I’d invited Jo to join my pack. From the very first time I saw her, I’d wanted her with me, at my side. My wolf wanted the same. I couldn’t really see a future where shewasn’tpart of my pack, but I needed to ensure her protection now to accomplish that.
“I need to keep them both safe,” I ground out. “It’s a priority. Jo’s safety is paramount to all else.” I looked at Brody to ensure he knew how very serious I was about this. “I know I can trust you with this important task.”
He nodded.
I brushed my hands together. Now that Brody was fully onboard, this were starting to feel settled. “Great. It’s just time to sort out the final plans for cruise then.”
Jackson chuckled, the sound lazy.
“Got something to say?” My tone was equally lazy.
My betaalwayshad something to say, although not all of it was useful.
“Always.” He echoed my thoughts.
“And this time specifically?” I swung my head to look at him and he grinned.
“Well,this time,I’m thinking that you don’t get to just breeze over the fact that protecting Jo Everly is so important.JosephineEverly. The heiress,” he said. Then he folded his arms like he was about to issue me a challenge. “So. Are you admittingto the entire roomthat you have feelings for Josephine Everly? That she’s important to you?”
The fear I expected over making such an admission in front of Brody didn’t come. Instead, I nodded. “I care about her, and I’d like to see where things go.” Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the fullest admission, and it wasn’t everything I’d told Jackson in the lift, but it wasn’t bad to get Brody to start to understand. “For now, though,” I said, “I’d like us to just work on keeping her alive.”
“Not a problem.” Brody sat back in the chair, his demeanor already different, as though he’d heard all the things I hadn’t said out loud to him. “I’ve got all of the right men on it. You needn’t worry.”
“In that case, there are some other things we need to discuss. The things that have taken a backseat while we’ve strengthened security around the women.”
“Nothing has taken a backseat, Patrick.” Brody looked determined as he said it, and I believed him. Brody kept a lot of plates spinning and never seemed to let any fall.
I nodded. “That’s great. So that company that owns the truck that rammed my car off the road…”
He sat up, more alert again.
“Bane’s Garden?” I spoke the company name like a question, like I was trying to jog Brody’s memory, but really, I remembered it perfectly. “What have we found out?”
The name of the company that had tried to have Jo killed was seared into my memory, and my wolf toyed with it every so often. They’d tried to kill the woman he wanted as his own, after all.
Brody shook his head and sighed. “I almost wish you hadn’t asked that, to be honest.”
I sighed, too. “What do we know?” I asked the question again, but the way he’d spoken suggested we didn’t know a lot.
“Little that can be proven.”
Jackson scoffed from where he was still standing next to the window. “Proof should be the easy part. There’s footage of the truck leaving Gold Moon…have we really not got any footage of it near the wreck?”
Brody shook his head. “The wreck itself isn’t even the biggest part of the issue. From what we can see of Bane’s Garden, it looks like the company is very much involved in the illegal arms business — trading, supplying, all that shit. But everything we find on them is circumstantial. There’s nothing we can prove. Even Seth couldn’t do anything without more evidence, and he’s usually a master at creating a case from a handful of details linked together by speculation.”
I stood, frustrated. “Anything else?”
“I’m still trying to work out how it all meshes in with Gold Moon, but it’s not a big stretch to assume it has to do with the strange shipments that Apex has been watching over the past few months. From what we found when we put the takeover package together, none of the Gold Moon clients have anything to do with Bane’s Garden. There just doesn’t seem to be any crossover.”
