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“I did,” Xander agreed. “Call ahead next time.”
Ava-Rose grinned tentatively, then took off toward the driveway. Xander and I went back to the house together, where we found Dylan on the front porch, watching Ava-Rose go.
“Kingston and Gena have Rylan in the den,” Dylan reported. “Who the fuck was that?”
“A reporter,” Xander grumbled. “Maybe you could ensure that she’s escorted off our lands and sent on her way?”
Dylan nodded, then pulled his shirt off over his head. “You got it.”
We left him to finish undressing so he could shift. When I glanced back through the doorway, his blonde wolf was already trotting down the drive.
I replaced Kingston’s bat by the doorway, heart racing a little.
“If the Du Pont estate has one of those escape tunnels…” I started.
“Then we’d have an in. You mind putting some coffee on? I’m gonna go wake Denny.” Xander grabbed me around my waist and pulled me to him, kissing me hard and quick. “I think we’ve found our other way.”
Chapter25
Xander
Our other way came together quickly. We’d spent so long starving for information, for opportunity, there was little hesitation from anyone on our side.
We’d gone through the photos from Ava-Rose’s memory card. Most were creepy paparazzi-style shots. A few were of us—Felicity and me in our bedroom at the lodge. Others were of people I didn’t recognize. A couple kissing in a park. A silver-haired man in a rumpled white shirt and loosened tie, frowning at documents behind an apartment window. A young woman sitting on a curb, her anguished, mascara-streaked face lit with the glow of a nightclub’s neon sign. All had been caught unawares in intimate moments, like they weren’t real people, just characters in a story Ava-Rose had yet to write.
The final images on the memory card were of me and Felicity again—the ones from Morrow Manor that had ended up in theExaminerpiece. Last of all was an eerie shot of an open hatch out in the woods with wooden doors. Weeds and brush clung to the rusted handles.
If we were lucky, there would be something similar out in the timber beyond the Du Pont estate.
And for once, it seemed luck was on our side.
“Map,” Dylan announced proudly the next day as he strode into the dining room with a sheet of paper in hand. It still smelled like warm, fresh ink.
He slammed it down on the table where Denny, Kingston, and I were seated, discussing plans of attack. The map in question appeared hand drawn. It was labeled DU PONT MANOR in messy writing. A thick, black circle with a crooked arrow pointing to it bore an additional label: ESCAPE HATCH.
“Where’d you get this?” I asked him.
“Chatted up your reporter friend when she tried to turn around and come back toward the lodge last night.” He smirked. “I gave her my number before she took off, and she just sent me this. She’s very helpful.”
“I bet she is.” Dylan had gone out to follow Ava-Rose in his wolf form. If they’d exchanged words, he’d been naked the entire time she spoke to him.
Dylan showing his dick had just saved us the trouble of hunting for the Du Pont hatch ourselves.
“Good work, Dylan. This helps a lot. I think I want to do this tonight,” I announced. “Anyone have a problem with that?”
I glanced around the table. No one seemed opposed.
“Want me to rally up some betas?” Dylan offered.
“No. You, me, and Denny. That’s it. We get in, we grab Ryder, we get out.” I looked at Kingston, feeling a twinge of guilt. Gena’s presence had done a lot for his morale. Moving her in here was one of Felicity’s best ideas to date. But he still hadn’t recovered enough to try a prosthetic yet, let alone shift, which meant, once again, he’d be left out. “You’re gonna stay here to hold down the fort. Protect Felicity and Gena and Rylan. Got it?”
Kingston’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t think their escape hatch will be wheelchair accessible, huh?”
We stared each other down for a long moment. He broke first, cracking a grin.
Relief rushed through my chest. He really was getting better.
I laughed and shook my head. “They’d be in a world of trouble if it was.”
