22. Cas

Three days.It's been three days since we've been in the same room as Lucy and I fucking swear it was the longest three days of my life.

Our omega had done a good job of pretending she didn't want to find what Liam took from her. She'd focused on the case instead, and the hours she worked were just as bad as her heat. Did this girl ever sleep? I fucking swear, if we didn't already decide on a rotation we'd be screwed.

But I loved watching her.

All I could do was sit back and admire the systematic way she attacked everything from all angles, constantly and consistently chipping away at the possibilities until she had something semi-decent to work with.

The way she gathered and discarded information seemed random at first, but eventually I'd been able to figure out what she was doing.

Her method was the difference between checkers and chess. Certain pieces could move in different ways and if you only knew how to move one space at a time, you would never fully understand why a knight moved the way it did, or how that was different from the bishop or the queen.

Lucy didn't work from the outside in either. She took everything and then sifted through it, looking for the gold. Her eye for inconsistencies and gaps in time was unparalleled. I could never do what she did, and definitely not the way she was doing it.

Apparently, Gideon Valor had a second phone that no one knew about and instead of trying to figure out where it was, she was trying to find out where he'd gone with it.

I probably would have turned his shit upside down if I'd known about it, but that would have tipped everyone off that I was looking for something.

Liam leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head, eyes fixed on Lucy. Nothing short of a nuclear bomb could distract him from watching her, even when she was sleeping.

He was a legacy on the hunt and the shift in his eyes were proof that this was it for him – they were so dark they were nearly black. Liam was surprisingly calm despite the fact that Lucy was doing everything but looking for what was missing.

It made me fucking nervous.

He wasn't the type to sit here quietly like it was all fine and dandy that his omega hadn't called him after three days of anxiously waiting for her to remember he existed. Not that he would ever admit he was worried, but I knew him better than I knew myself.

This guy was a goddamn nutcase when he wasn't putting on a show, making everyone believe he was as cool as a cucumber. Liam was the golden child of Valor and no one could ever believe otherwise.

But behind closed doors?

He was a violent, vindictive motherfucker and the only reason he could smile so pretty during the day was because he was burning off all his restless energy at night.

Until Lucy had turned our lives upside down, we would leave work and spend hours in the gym before going out to find some hot piece of ass we could share. If he wasn't fucking or fighting, he was meting out his specific brand of justice to alphas who didn't feel like the rules should apply to them.

A goddamn vigilante complex if you asked me.

I've never seen Liam sit still for so long in my fucking life and it was making me very uneasy.

Sure, we spent three whole weeks doing nothing but fucking Lucy for almost twenty hours a day, so he was probably fine – better off than he usually was anyway, but she never reached out unless it was for work.

He may seem unbothered, but I knew better.

What made this time different though was he wasn't asking me what he should do or how to handle it. He seemed pretty fucking confident she would call us before the dinner tomorrow since she was watching us just as much as we were watching her.

I really fucking hoped he was right.

An alarm went off and I turned my attention back to the laptop. Lucy fumbled around for her phone and snoozed the alarm. Then she yanked down the blanket and threw her arm over her eyes, that dark hair of hers a total mess and I couldn't stop thinking about it.

It was so fucking soft and silky. The color was dark enough to be mistaken for black and I wanted to bury my hands in it, tug on the silky locks until she was looking up at me, use it to guide her…

This was fucking ridiculous. I couldn't afford to keep losing track of my thoughts like this, not when Liam was wearing that sleepy look on his face 24/7 now. The man was ready to tear apart anyone who looked at her too long, not just alphas.

Not that I could blame him. This limbo was fucking rough and I honestly didn't know how much more of it I could take.

Still, just being able to watch her took some of the edge off.

My fingers twitched when she threw the blankets off to expose her long legs and the tiny shorts she was wearing. The shirt was way too big for her and it almost looked like she wasn't wearing anything under it when she stood up.

It was a band shirt. One I've never heard of and I looked them up just to see what kind of music they played. It was insane just how obsessed with her I'd become.

All I could think about was whether or not she was eating right, sleeping enough, and if she had everything she could possibly need.

Throwing back the energy drink, I wished she'd slept in a little more. It was barely ten in the morning and she'd gone to bed well after two, but I had no right to say anything.

Not yet, but soon.

The security company Valor hired a little over a year ago was next on her to do list and I'd gone through our system on a scale that probably had the guys thinking I'd lost my mind, but Lucy was worried about it for one reason or another and I wanted to make sure it was all ready to go when she inevitably asked for it.

She didn't know who owned it yet, but she would soon.

Liam wanted to be the one to tell her, but we couldn't reach out first. So, until she asked, we had to wait. Lucy couldn't think we were using the case to gain access to her before she was ready.

Once she called us though, that was it. There'd be no more pushing us away. Any excuse she might use to deny us as her alphas wouldn't work. I couldn't get her back just to lose her again, and I knew it would be even worse for Liam.

Which meant I had to tell her I was the one who found Gideon – before the police ever arrived at the building.

I watched Lucy walk to the bathroom, ruffling her hair sleepily as she went. She grabbed her toothbrush and stared at the counter for a minute, looking for the toothpaste. The alarm went off again as she brushed her teeth. Cursing as she ran back to her room, she grabbed her phone and turned it off, checking to make sure she hadn't woken up Frankie.

I couldn't fucking stand how cute it was to see Lucy taking care of her family and I kept wondering what she'd be like when she finally saw Liam and I as part of her pack.

If we had to go another two days without getting to hold her, I was going to snap. I could feel it. Knowing she was watching us just wasn't cutting it anymore. Not when I wanted to go in there and make her breakfast so she'd fucking eat something other than a single piece of toast with her six cups of coffee.

Lucy finished brushing her teeth and then studied her reflection like she couldn't possibly see what we did. She pressed her fingers into the skin under her eyes and pulled down, making faces at herself like an adorable little weirdo.

Then she stuck her tongue out and grabbed her hair brush, pointing it at the mirror with a glare. "Never get in a land war in Asia."

I covered my mouth to hide the stupid smile taking over my face. Did I understand what the fuck she was talking about? Not even a little bit, but I would still listen to her all fucking day if she let me.

"I didn't hire you for your brains," she warned her reflection. Lucy stared herself down and then sighed, dropping her gaze to the sink and aggressively brushing her hair. "Why can't I figure it out?"

"What's she talking about?"

"The Princess Bride," Liam muttered, closing his eyes like he couldn't stand looking at her anymore without being able to touch her. "The café Gideon went to is bothering her."

I leaned back and set one foot on the dash as I considered that.

It still bothered me that Liam knew what she was thinking so much better than I did, but I'd had the upper hand the last few days so I had to let it go. Explaining what she was doing with the computers and why was how we'd figured out the security company would be next.

When Liam told me she was able to multitask like no one he'd ever met before, I'd always thought he was exaggerating – the praise of a man completely mad with love for the idea of a person he just could not shake.

But I'd been wrong.

If anything, Lucy was even more brilliant than Liam had let on, and I've spent the last few days watching her like a man possessed. I could barely even sleep unless she was, and even then I kept waking up – worried someone would break into her apartment the moment I closed my eyes.

Thankfully, Liam and I had a schedule now and we shared the prized burden of watching her sleep. It was the only time she wasn't watching us on the traffic cameras. That was when one of us could sneak into the apartment across the hall from her, shower, and take a nap.

I was usually the first, since she didn't seem to mind when Liam wasn't in the car when she woke up. She probably just assumed he was off doing the work of the next Valor heir, but I was still far more pleased than I had any right to be that she wanted me around.

Constantly.

Lucy kept looking for me, and every time she saw I was still there, she looked so fucking relieved that I'd grin like a fool, telling myself it wouldn't be long until she called me.

But she'd held out far longer than I'd anticipated.

She needed to call us today. Not tomorrow. I didn't know what I'd do if she made us wait until then. Maybe I'd finally snap and break into her apartment again just to catch a tiny whiff of her scent.

"Why buttercups?" Lucy tossed her brush on the counter and pulled half her hair up into a poofy bun. "Buttercuppa Coffee…owned by Tinley. Princess Buttercup? No, that's not right. But the barista definitely wants Frankie to treat him like a princess."

I don't think I'd ever really understand the way her brain worked, and honestly I couldn't get enough of it. Everything she said was a fucking trip.

Then she put the other half of her hair up and sighed.

When Lucy yanked open one of the cabinet drawers like something might pop out at her, Liam leaned forward and crossed his arms over the steering wheel.

"What exactly did you take?" The curiosity was killing me and I couldn't keep pretending it wasn't.

"Something I gave her a long time ago." Liam didn't even blink as he watched her and I gritted my teeth, hoping he wouldn't do something stupid and fuck it all up for us.

"I'm never going to get used to seeing you up this early." Frankie popped her head into the bathroom and squeezed one of her buns.

Lucy dodged when Frankie tried to squeeze it again. "Did you know that buttercups symbolize forsaken love or unfaithfulness? That's why you should never put buttercups in a flower arrangement or give them as a love gift."

She was such a nerd and I fucking loved it.

"Do you think the café being named after that flower means anything?"

"I think you have a weird obsession with the language of flowers, and no one ever thinks about it as much as you do." Frankie smirked and squeezed Lucy's bun again when she glared at her. "I'm going to meet with one of my father's contacts to see if they know anything about the Steele or Tinley packs since they own the majority of the locations Gideon went to. I'll ask them about the buttercups too. Is there anything else you want me to look into?"

Lucy followed Frankie out of the bathroom and I clicked on the different cameras to follow them through the apartment into the kitchen where Lucy started a pot of coffee. "Yeah, actually. Can you contact the Grimm pack and see if they're willing to answer a few questions? They sell services to anyone, right? Maybe they know something about what Gideon was involved in."

Frankie got a to-go cup ready, her smile disappearing. "I can contact them, but they won't answer any questions about clients, and no I can't plant a bug without getting caught. They're pros, Lucy. It would be too risky."

Thank fuck Frankie knew enough about them not to try anything stupid. Last thing we needed was some bullshit with a legacy pack like them. That was a mess even I couldn't clean up without a lot of people dying in the process.

"Fine." Lucy poured coffee into Frankie's mug and then her own. "Are you going to take Cassius with you?"

I checked my phone but didn't see any messages from either of them. The last thing I wanted was to play babysitter right now. I may not be going through pheromone withdrawals, but I couldn't stand the idea of being any farther away from her than I already was.

Alpha instincts were practically impossible to ignore during courtship, and I honestly hadn't understood exactly what that meant until we'd let Lucy go.

It was so much worse than I could have ever imagined and the only reason Frankie was safe from us was because their relationship made it very clear they were nothing more than family.

"No, I'm not gonna take Cas. Pop is sending one of the Lopez bodyguards to pick me up." Frankie grabbed her leather holster from the hook on the wall and buckled it on. "He doesn't want to stir up the other legacy packs if he doesn't have to, and if they see me going around the city with that big brute at my side, people are going to start asking annoying questions."

"How much longer do you think we'll be able to stay out of the news?" Lucy poured cream into Frankie's cup and then screwed the lid on. "I need to finish this before people find out what we're looking for."

We watched Frankie unlock the drawer where they kept their guns and check that the safety was on before shoving it in her holster. "We picked a restaurant known for its rules about client privacy, but it's only a matter of time. People are going to hear about the meeting between Lopez and Valor sooner rather than later, and they'll wonder why we're there. I suggest you finish whatever it is you need to before then."

I didn't like that she was right about that. The security team was working overtime to make sure nothing got leaked, but it was a fucking miracle someone hadn't figured it out already. We were running out of time on every front and I needed things to start moving before Liam decided to take matters into his own hands.

Lucy watched as Frankie pulled on a blue sweater, yanking up the hood so she could put her leather jacket on over it. "Do I know this bodyguard, or is it someone new?"

Frankie took the to-go cup from Lucy with a grin. "It's someone new, but I sent you an email with his personnel file attached. You can track me through my earring too, just like you always do."

That was actually a good idea. Someone could take a phone, or break it. An earring would be overlooked by anyone who kidnapped her. We should definitely get Lucy one.

"Don't wreck the apartment again while I'm gone. It took us hours to clean it all up." Frankie squeezed Lucy's buns one last time before she could stop her. "I'll call you in a few hours to check in."

"You better." The way she glared after the alpha reminded me of a cranky cat who secretly loved attention but would never admit it. "And don't do anything stupid."

Frankie waved as she left and then slammed the door behind her hard enough to rattle the pictures on the wall.

Lucy looked up at the camera in the kitchen as she poured creamer in her coffee and I licked my lips, knowing she wasn't looking at me but it fucking felt like it. That look in her eyes was a promise and I was ready to cash in.

She planted her hands on the counter and looked down at her phone, staring at it for a long time before she picked it up. She swiped and then tapped, selecting someone's contact.

Two seconds later my phone started buzzing.

I stared at Lucy's name and tried to understand.

"Answer it," Liam murmured, his eyes on her and her alone. "Don't make her wait."

Why the fuck was Lucy calling me?