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Tao touched her arm, never pushing her boundaries. His big round eyes bore into her as innocent as a teddy bear.
“Of course,” he replied. “I wanted you to know beforehand. Before Lucas made a decision.”
They nodded at each other and shared a small embrace. It wasn’t as tight and reassuring as the first one they gave one another upon greeting, but it was friendly enough. Tao didn’t have a single vengeful bone in his body.
They walked back to the restaurant, out of the darkness and into the light of the streetlamp. Eliana still had her arms crossed, thoughts swirling around her mind like a windstorm.
On the one hand, what Tao said made sense. If he simply showed up after fleeing to California with the expectation of being crowned the next alpha, the pack would have something to say about it. But if she were at his side as the closest thing to an heir, they would be more likely to embrace Tao as their new leader.
And things would begin to run smoothly again.
Something about it felt sticky, though. She cared for Tao and maybe was even close to loving him at some point when they were romantically involved. On paper, Tao was perfect … respectful, kind, chivalrous, brave, strong, and emotional when it was required. Any woman would gladly fall at his feet.
So why wasn’t she?
Eliana knew why as they walked closer to the restaurant. The lantern from the porch washed over the reason, who was crouching with an extremely furrowed brow.
Lucas. She had never felt for Tao the way she does for Lucas, even in the limited time they’d known each other. But he was already an alpha of another pack, and he wasn’t an option for her.
Yet even the way he was hunched over, peering into a hole in the porch floor, made her swoon. She clicked back into reality for a moment when she saw he had removed a plank and was reaching into a hole. She and Tao stopped at the stairway, flabbergasted.
“Lucas, what are you doing?” Eliana implored.
Lucas was focused, reaching into the darkness with two hands. At first, she thought he had perhaps heard an animal struggling beneath the boards and was saving it from a painful death. There were many bats around the island who found themselves in compromising situations.
But what he was lifting looked heavier than a bat.
“Lucas, what the …”
Before Tao could finish his sentence, Lucas yanked something that looked like a metallic cube out of the plank cubby hole. It gleamed under the faint lantern light, looking so alien and out of place as if it had come out of a UFO spaceship.
“The board was loose, so I went to fix it. But it came off easily.”
Eliana and Tao climbed the porch, bending down next to Lucas to look at what he had removed. At first, Eliana was simply curious, but maybe because both Lucas and Tao were sitting so close to one another, the eeriness of the box and the dim light of the lantern, she felt ominousness rolling in like a storm.
“What is it?” Tao asked.
“It’s a lock box,” Lucas said coolly. “But usually, lock boxes are locked ….”
Still crouching, Lucas flipped open the top of the box. It had a spot for a keyhole, but it had been ajar. All three of them peered inside. Eliana’s heart felt like a bomb about to explode.
There were papers inside, which gave her an odd sense of relief. Lucas fingered through them, handing them to Tao and Eliana. It was a small but telling gesture that Lucas wouldn’t stick his nose into the pack business.
It made Eliana’s heart flutter.
“These are postmarked,” Tao said, suddenly looking flushed. “From prison.”
The three moved inside, where there was more space and light. They stood in the kitchen under the spotlight of the fluorescents, next to the chrome prep table. They had removed each letter from its envelope and laid them out flat.
Eliana read each one multiple times, unable to comprehend what she was absorbing. Lucas read it again while Tao went to the restaurant office, where there was a computer to search for information.
Her body was damp with sweat, and she was breathing hard. Lucas stood next to her, a rock solid support that she barely realized she needed.
“So let me summarize,” Lucas said, running a hand casually through his hair.
It had started to release from the bindings of the gel he had been using from the humidity in the air.
“This person is named Garth Neilsen, and he had been corresponding with Phil, your uncle, from prison, correct?”
