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“Maybe I will,” I mutter. “Wouldn’t hurt for her to have some protection, after all.”
Now Iknowmy wolf’s trying to take control. He thinks we should’ve gone with our mate in the first place, even though the prickly little dynamo has no clue that’s what she is to us. However, if I went early, I could ease her into it, right? Something to think about.
“Do we have anything going down I need to be aware of?” I ask after taking another sip of coffee.
“Naw, the Bastians have all been put to ground, the businesses are booming, and unless one of these assholes goes off on the deep end, I think we can spare you,” Fox replies, smirking at me.
Since Nonna’s still in the kitchen, prepping several crockpots for soup, I content myself with discreetly flipping Fox off instead of verbally uttering a word. She may be used to us and our foul mouths, but we still try to be as respectful as possible. Tressa must see me, however, because she starts snickering and giggling until Chaos kisses her, effectively shutting her up.
Finishing up my meal, I stand and carry my dishes to the sink where I rinse them then put them into the dishwasher. Seeing Nonna with her arms full, I head in her direction and take the bulky packages from her arms then set them on the counter for her.
“Thanks, Stealth,” she says, going over and washing her hands before she picks up a huge knife.
Seeing that, I smirk and reply, “Looks like that’s my cue to go.”
* * *
My restlessness has increaseddespite working on my bike to make sure it’s road ready, going for another run with several of the brothers, and taste testing Nonna’s soup. I didn’t earn my position by not listening to my gut and my wolf is going positively bonkers. Looks like I’m heading to where my mate’s at earlier than I’d anticipated. I just hope she’s ready for me to come rolling in.
Nicole
In the twoweeks since I’ve been home, I’ve managed to pack up Tressa’s office, her bedroom, the living room, the kitchen, and most of my bedroom. Since the half bath in the hallway was only ever used for guests, I’ve also stripped it down to the bare essentials — toilet paper, soap, and a hand towel.
“What on earth?” I say as I walk into the house and see most of the boxes torn open, the contents that’d been sorted and packed strewn all over the place.
Fear and then anger engulf me as I look around at the damage someone caused. As far as I know, I don’t have any enemies that I’m aware of, and neither does Tressa. I mean, we’re both homebodies at heart. Couch potatoes that enjoy sitting and reading a good book as opposed to going out and partying. She works from home, and I work outside of it, but who could I have pissed off enough at my menial bookstore job? Sighing, I pull out my phone and call the police to report the break in. I doubt they’ll do anything, not much they can do outside of filing a report at this stage, but at least there’ll be a record in case anything’s been stolen, and we have to file a claim on our renter’s insurance.
As I pace and wait for them to arrive, I casually look through the other rooms and see that pretty much every box in three of the rooms was opened and emptied. All of my hard work dumped on the floor. I stomp my foot in aggravation and whimper. It’s going to take me ages to get things back to rights. A knock on my door has me sprinting over, and peeping through the tiny hole on our door. Anxiously, I fling it open to see two uniformed police officers standing there with bored expressions on their faces.
“We understand you had a break in?” the male officer asks, looking around to take in the mess.
“Yes, apparently so. I came home to this,” I reply, waving my hand through the air at the disaster that’s readily apparent.
“Can you tell if anything was taken?” the female officer questions, putting on a pair of latex gloves.
“Not until I go through everything,” I admit. “But I didn’t want to touch anything in case you were able to dust and get fingerprints.”
“That was a good idea. Let me see what I can find, okay?” she asks.
“Okay.” I sigh, feeling defeated. I’m not a fool, I know that if the perpetrator used gloves himself, it’s a lost cause.
I mean, what else can I do? While she’s dusting everything and trying to get fingerprints to lift from the surfaces of our apartment and moving boxes, the male officer continues asking me a variety of questions. Some make sense, some don’t. Like, why would it matter if anyone saw me carrying boxes inside? I did mention that a few times I felt as though someone had been inside the house, which he wrote down.
It wasn’t anything concrete, of course, but the night I first got home from my trip to the clubhouse, I could’ve sworn my bed was neatly made. Ialwaysmake my bed, yet it looked like I had rolled around and slept in it! Another night after work, when I came in, the remote was on the couch and I distinctly remembered putting it on the table next to the couch. Both times, I was freaked out, then convinced myself that it was possible that I didn’t put it where I thought I had since I was trying to get so much stuff done at once, I might have just forgotten. Now, I’m beginning to suspect I was wrong, and there has been someone coming in and out of our home like they own the place when I’m not here watching over everything. I wish the landlord had let us put in an alarm system; at least then, I’d feel like I’ve got something protecting me while Tressa’s gone, but the jackass, he refused, even though we told him we were going to pay the installment and monthly fees.
Thirty minutes later, they’re both done and thanking me for my time. I want to cry when I think of the hours it’s going to take me to reorganize, and pack everything back up. Sighing, I head into my bedroom to change into my packing clothes, grateful that I’m off work for the next two days so that I can hopefully catch back up to where I was before this disaster happened. It’s going to put me behind schedule, but hopefully, I’ll get caught up again and make a little progress. I want everything ready to be loaded when Tressa, Chaos, and some of his brothers come to get our things collected and moved.
As I’m changing into comfortable clothes that I can breathe in, so I can start repacking and going over the inventory, my thoughts wander then sway to Stealth and whether or not he’ll be one of the brothers that comes. Not that it would matter; there’s no way a man like him would ever be attracted to me. He’s cover-worthy material, and I’m… not.
“Except he’s not fully man, he’s a shifter, a yummy wolf, and you know how the books say they find their one. Their true mate,”my brain whispers.
“Shut up,” I mutter out loud, back talking myself. There’s absolutely no sense in getting my hopes up. Too many of my dreams have been crushed for me to ever believe that anything good like that could or will happen to me.
* * *
“This is for the birds,”I mutter, taping another box closed and making sure it’s marked to go into the right room. So far, I haven’t seen anything obviously missing, but I’ve only made it through half of the ones that were stacked in Tressa’s office. “Time to take a break and relax. This shit will be here tomorrow.”
And thankfully, I’m off tomorrow since there’s still so much to do. Right now, I’m going to grab a shower, then put in an order for Chinese food while I watch my favorite movie.
