Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

The private jet finally rolled to a stop in the private hangar at Boston Logan International Airport. Wade was on his feet before the flight attendant was cleared to open the door, retrieving his backpack from the storage unit in the back. His luggage was on the tarmac when he finally clattered down the jet stairs, waving a cheerful goodbye to the pilot and flight attendant on Marek's payroll.

A four-door gray Audi waited for him on the tarmac, the driver's-side door open and key fob handed over by the delivery person. Wade took it with a nod of thanks before chucking his luggage in the trunk and getting behind the steering wheel. He dropped his backpack on the front passenger seat, rifling through it for a can of Coke that he put in the cup holder.

Getting out of the airport was an exercise in patience that had Wade sighing heavily and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel in time to whatever song randomly popped up on his playlist. It was a better use of his hands rather than flipping off everyone who tried to cut him off. Wade often thought New York City drivers were the worst, but clearly, they had nothing on Massachusetts drivers.

His GPS was supposed to take him directly to the Ritz-Carlton, where Sage had made his reservation, but Wade detoured to the first Dunkin' Donuts that showed up on the map. He took the last exit before the Sumner Tunnel and drove only a handful of minutes before he saw the Dunkin' on the right-hand side. Wade parked, left everything but his wallet, cell phone, and the key fob in the car, and hustled inside.

Only a couple of people were in line, getting late-morning coffees, and when he finally made it to the register, Wade used his fingers to tick off his order. "I want a large coffee Coolatta, extra whip, a dozen donuts, two dozen donut holes, and all of your hash browns."

The employee blinked at him over the register, finger hovering over the screen to enter in his order. "Uh, all of the hash browns?"

Wade checked the time on his cell phone, calculated how long it would take him to get the food and then get to the hotel to check in before having to meet Ella at noon, and then sighed. "Okay, however many hash browns you can fry in the next ten minutes."

He knew from previous experience that if he asked for the bags of unfrozen hash browns to fry himself, they'd say no. Corporate entities were so stingy.

The employee gave him a long, disbelieving look before rapidly tapping in his order and telling him the cost. "What donut flavors?" the employee asked as Wade paid with his credit card.

"Surprise me. I like them all."

The donuts came first, and he sat with his boxes and bags of doughy goodness, cramming one after the other into his mouth while he waited for his hash browns. He'd eaten his way through nine donuts by the time his hash browns were handed over in a plastic bag. Wade mumbled his thanks around the donut holes he was chewing and left with his haul of food. He organized everything within easy reach on the front passenger seat, happy now that he had something to snack on.

Driving into Boston proper reminded Wade why he hated driving in cities and much preferred the subway or someone else behind the steering wheel. By the time he pulled into the valet strip in front of the Ritz-Carlton's entrance on Avery Street, he'd yelled at a dozen drivers and honked out a symphony. Sighing, Wade put the car in park and gathered up his backpack and the now-empty donut box. It was barely a thirty-second walk from Boston Common, and he could smell a lot of grass when he got out of the car. It made his nose twitch.

"Checking in?" the valet asked when Wade tossed him the keys after unlocking the trunk.

"Yup. I'll be back out for the car in about twenty minutes."

"Of course. We'll bring it around when you need it."

Wade hauled his luggage out of the trunk and wheeled it toward the hotel entrance, the doorman having already opened the door for him. He waved off a staff member who offered to take his luggage and only got halfway through the lobby before an older man whose hair was trending silver at his temples peeled away from where he was loitering near the front desk and came over to greet him.

"Mr. Espinoza, I'm Harry Adams, general manager of the hotel. I wanted to extend a warm welcome to you and let you know that if you should need anything, we're here to provide it," the man said smoothly as he gamely took the empty donut box before offering his hand in greeting.

Wade, having spent years around the kind of wealth most people could never even fathom, followed through with the handshake and an easy smile. He figured he had to be in the system, with Sage providing his information, for them to know him on sight. "Thanks. I'll be wandering around Boston for the most part and don't know when I'll be leaving. I hope that won't be a problem."

"Not at all," Harry demurred. "The presidential suite is yours for as long as you need it."

"Great. Mind showing me to it?"

Wade wasn't one to stand on ceremony, and the clock was ticking for him to get to his meeting with Ella. Harry and his assistant showed him to a private elevator, handing over a discreet black key card that Wade shoved into his wallet.

"That key card accesses the elevator and your suite. If you lose it, please let us know, and we'll promptly issue you a new one," Harry said on the elevator ride up.

Wade nodded, only half listening as Harry droned on about what the hotel offered. All he really cared about was if they'd have a decent selection of snacks.

The elevator slowed to a stop seconds later, and the doors opened on a small foyer. Harry crossed it and used his own card to open the door to the presidential suite before handing it to the woman who'd accompanied them. "Stephanie will be your dedicated concierge while you are here. Anything you need, she will ensure it is provided. All her information and what we can provide will be in the contact book on the desk."

The space was huge, easily bigger than the average New York City apartment. Windows overlooked the city and Boston Common, a fireplace was integrated into one of the walls of the living room, and Wade could see the spacious bedroom down the hall. The penthouse had a sparkling kitchen and a dining room with a table that could easily fit the core of his pack. The space smelled like cleaning chemicals and nothing else. He wondered if that was standard practice for whenever Sage traveled.

"Thanks," Wade said. "I need to head out for a meeting."

Harry and Stephanie were quick to say their goodbyes, leaving Wade to get settled. He wheeled his luggage into the bedroom and chucked it in the closet before dumping his backpack on the bed. He had his keys, wallet, and phone in his pockets, sunglasses perched on his head, and fifteen minutes to get to Faneuil Hall for his meeting with Ella.

Wade had a feeling he was going to be late.

Hurrying out of the suite, Wade took the elevator back down to the lobby. He had to wait a couple of minutes for the valet to bring his car around and then drove where his GPS told him to. The beginning of June felt like the start of the summer tourist season now that Memorial Day weekend was behind them. Lots of people were out on the sidewalks on the late Wednesday morning, all of them dressed for the sunny day. Despite the pedestrian crowd, the parking garage on State Street wasn't completely full.

Wade parked, locked the car behind him, and jogged for the exit, clattering down the stairs rather than using the rickety-looking elevator. He bounded onto the sidewalk and hurried toward where everyone else in the vicinity was heading: Faneuil Hall.

It smelled like chocolate outside, which was just unfair. The cobblestone square he ended up in was dominated by the redbrick and white-trimmed building of Faneuil Hall. People drifted in and out of its door for the visitor center, but Wade wasn't interested in history or a tour. He had his sights set on the statue of Samuel Adams near the center of the square. That was the spot where Ella had told him to meet her. Sage had done a deep-dive search on her, so Wade knew what the dire looked like.

Ella leaned against the base of the statue, eyes glued to her cell phone. She wore white jean shorts, a pink crop top, pink sandals, and rose-tinted sunglasses. Her blond hair was styled in waves and fell loose nearly to her elbows. The designer purse slung over one shoulder was all white leather except for the gold chain. She looked young for the pack rank she held, but Wade knew better than to dismiss her outright. One didn't become dire of a god pack without being able to handle themselves and the threats directed toward their alphas with lethal intent.

"Ella?" Wade called out.

Her head snapped up, revealing perfectly applied makeup that wasn't melting off from the heat. When she spoke, Wade was surprised to hear a thick Southern accent fall from her lips, as if she'd walked right off a plane from Atlanta, Georgia. "Who's asking?"

Wade came to a stop a little ways from her, lifting his hand in a casual wave. "I'm Wade. Sorry I'm late. I had to check in to my hotel first. Sage said you were contacting her on a secondary phone, and I didn't want to call it."

He didn't state what god pack he was from, not out there in the open. Ella's eyebrows arched over the rims of her sunglasses. "I was expecting one of your alphas."

"They're busy, and so is my dire. You get me instead."

Ella pursed her lips. "Well, I suppose you have rank enough to help us."

"Trust me, I can handle whatever problem you got." Wade glanced around at the groups of people scattered across the square. "Did you want to talk out here, or do you have somewhere else in mind?"

Ella put her phone away in her purse. "Not out here. It's too open. I only wanted to meet here because it's not anywhere they'd expect me to be. I hate the tourist areas of this city."

"Then where do you want to go?"

"We're getting an early lunch."

"Great. I'm hungry."

"You smell like you already had donuts."

"Eh, those were a snack. I could do with a solid meal. Lead on."

She led him barely half a block away to a restaurant that served up a menu full of fancy bar food. The interior was all dark paneled wood and a long wall of windows overlooking the street and the square they'd left behind. The place was casual enough, and since Ella didn't take off her sunglasses, they had no hassle from the hostess about being seated.

Ella requested a table as far in the back as they could get and away from the windows. Since it wasn't the weekend, the hostess was able to accommodate them, and they had at least two empty tables between them and the next group of diners. It probably wouldn't last, but it was fine for now. Wade took the menu he was handed and gave it his undivided attention.

Neither he nor Ella spoke, not until the waitress came by to take their orders. Ella got a Crab Louie salad and a hamburger, while Wade's order of a burger, two lobster rolls, a bowl of clam chowder, and two sides of fries could've fed at least three people. The waitress eyed them warily after taking their order but was polite enough when she brought back their drinks. Ella's fruity cocktail was rimmed in sugar, while Wade stuck with a beer.

"So," he said in a low voice. "There aren't any other werecreatures within hearing distance, and there's no active magic in here. You ready to tell me what's going on?"

Ella narrowed her eyes. "How can you be sure? You don't smell like a magic user."

Wade knew he probably didn't smell like anything to her except a mundane human. He'd learned to hide his soul and what he was years ago, able to pass as human when he wasn't. "Look, you asked for our help, and I'm helping. You gotta trust me if you want us to work together. You weren't forthcoming on the phone to my pack, but I'm here now, so what's going on?"

After a few moments of silence, Ella forced her shoulders out of the hunch they'd settled in and leaned forward, dropping her voice so low it was barely a whisper. Wade still picked up her words as clearly as if she'd screamed them. "Our alphas were taken hostage two weeks ago by a local mobster during a meeting over territory borders. We weren't willing to move our boundaries, and Niall took offense to our rejection. So he took our alphas and bound the rest of us who'd come along for the meeting from talking about what happened or from asking for help from those within the city who call it home. He said we had a month to accept his terms, or he'd kill our alphas."

Wade leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "But you were able to reach out to us?"

"Yes." Ella managed a fleeting, strained little smile, there and gone in a second. "The terms didn't say anything about asking the enemy for help, and I know my pack wasn't on good terms with yours before my alphas took over. You technically counted as the enemy for this."

Wade's eyes never left her face, seeing his own visage reflected back at him on the lenses of her sunglasses. "That sounds a lot like the fae."

Ella shrugged, fiddling with her fork before reaching for her drink to sip it. She didn't confirm or deny his statement, which made him wonder if the binding wouldn't let her talk about what this Niall was. "Niall didn't smell like fae. The people with him were mundane humans and a sorcerer. Nothing out of the ordinary."

"Except for how he got the drop on you and your alphas and kidnapped them."

Ella set her drink down with a grimace. "Yes."

"I hate to ask, but are you sure they're still alive?"

Her jaw worked for a moment before she finally answered. "No. We haven't seen them. But I'm not willing to say they're dead until I see bodies first."

"You're dire. Why not take over as alpha?" Cold rage wasn't a comfortable scent to breathe in as it poured across the table to him, stinging his nose. Wade hastily held up his hands. "Whoa, okay, I didn't mean to piss you off. I'm just saying, if you took over the Boston god pack even temporarily, that might break the spell he's got on you so you could talk about this problem with your allies. But I'm not a magic user. I don't know if that would work."

"I'm not—" Ella cut herself off, swallowing her anger and schooling her face into an expression of calm neutrality as their waitress returned with her salad and Wade's clam chowder. Neither moved nor spoke until the waitress had walked off. "I'm not taking the position that rightfully belongs to my alphas. Not when they aren't here to defend it. That's my job."

Her hissed-out statement actually made Wade relax a little. Loyalty was something he understood, and he didn't think she could be all that bad if she wasn't gunning for the role of alpha of a god pack. But then again, it could all be a ruse.

Ugh, he was thinking like Patrick.

Jono would say that was probably a good thing.

He shoveled a few bites of his soup into his mouth, not bothered by the heat of the chowder. It tasted great. "Who else knows your alphas are missing?"

"None of the packs under our protection, but that won't last for long. There's only so many times I can push off a mediation or a territory fight between packs."

Wade made a face at the mention of fighting. Most god packs allowed for disputes to be handled in a challenge ring, something his pack had put a stop to. While they couldn't stop all the packs under their protection from squabbling and getting into skirmishes, the outright murderous aspects of the challenge ring had been put to rest. Right now, the only thing their underground space in Hamilton Heights was used for was citywide meetings for all alphas.

Wade didn't think the Boston packs worked like that.

"Okay, so we can assume packs are getting suspicious. Any challengers in the god pack who have tried to take over?"

Ella stabbed at a shrimp and popped it into her mouth. "A few."

"Are they dead?"

She bared her teeth at him in a hard smile, incisors sharper than they would be on a mundane humane. "They probably wished they were when I finished with them."

Wade had a feeling Sage might like her. "And anyone else outside the packs? Night Courts? Covens? Hunters?"

Their waitress came back with the rest of their food before Ella could answer. The table wasn't big enough for all the plates, so Wade ended up piling the lobster rolls together on one and started on his hamburger first.

"I don't know," Ella said once their waitress left, sounding frustrated. "I've had our god pack searching for any sign of our alphas, but we can't outright ask people. The binding won't let us, and even if we could ask, it would put us in a bad position."

"Sounds like you're ripe for a takeover, either from a werecreature or something else."

"Not someone?"

Wade picked up a fry and dunked it in the ketchup he'd squirted on his plate. "In my experience, it's not always werecreatures gunning for the top spot."

They'd dealt with hunters and demons and all manner of gods for a period of time before the end of the world. The lure of power drew from all corners of this world and past the veil. The Boston god pack had a power vacuum their missing alphas had left behind, and in a city this big, the fight to fill it or control it was going to be messy when it spilled out of the shadows and into the lives of mundane humans.

"I think I need to know more about this Niall guy," Wade finally decided.

"My research is back home in our territory, but it isn't much." Ella hesitated a moment, catching his eye through her sunglasses. "I'd offer you a place to stay, but you said you had a hotel already, and I don't want to put you at risk."

Because that was a surefire way to bring down the wrath of his pack, and these days, no one wanted to face them.

"Nah, the hotel is fine. I'll swing by to get copies of your research and talk to some other people in your pack. I won't stay long in case Niall or someone else has your territory under watch. We can make plans to meet tomorrow morning. How about we do breakfast?"

Ella nodded, a cautious sort of relief loosening her body. "That could work."

"Great."

They finished their meal in a companionable enough silence. Wade paid for both of them, and they went their separate ways, pretending to be friendlier than they were upon leaving in case anyone was watching.

Yeah, he was definitely thinking like Patrick.