CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Luke honestly didn’t know how his father did it. Didn’t know how, year after year, Vinnie got through the anniversary of his mating without losing his mind.

It was clear to see that, despite the smiles he gave Blair and Elle as all four of them sat at Vinnie’s kitchen table, the man wasn’t completely with them. Not mentally. He often pulled inward during the few days before, during, and after the anniversary, which was why Luke and his siblings always made a point of staying especially close to him during this time.

Damian would avoid venturing out in the daytime unless someone else was with their father. Tate, Luke, and Ingrid would regularly visit him. More, Elle always had a reason why she needed to stay in her old bedroom for several days. This year, it was that she’d redecorated her apartment and couldn’t stand the smells of fresh paint and gloss so wanted to give it time for the scents to dissipate.

Vinnie never called Elle on her bullshit or complained that people were keeping a close watch on him. He simply rolled his eyes or gave them knowing smiles. Perhaps because he was well aware that nothing he said would make them back off. Or maybe he understood that they needed this; needed to be certain he’d never fade away like he’d almost done once before.

Luke had always admired him for surviving Gaia’s death. Now, mated himself, he admired Vinnie all the more. No one could truly appreciate what it felt like to be bound to the other half of their soul unless they’d experienced it for themselves.

Blair was more a part of Luke than his own skin and bones, because her connection to him wasn’t simply physical, it ran far deeper. She was inside him, rooted deep. He couldn’t imagine it was possible for his heart to beat without her.

Hell, she was even a part of his scent. Vinnie’s own scent was still mixed with Gaia’s. Did that make it worse for Vinnie, being able to smell her every day? Or was it comforting to have at least that part of her?

Luke wasn’t sure if he himself could find anything comforting in such a devastating situation. Blair might be one half of his soul, but he honestly felt like he’d lose his own half if he ever lost her. She was his everything. Always would be. Not even death could alter that.

His cat would be just as empty without her. He would exist, not live. Luke doubted that the feline would find any joy in anything. She was his joy.

Their mating bond felt so much like a metaphysical extension of Luke’s mind that he knew he’d acutely feel the absence of it if it broke. He’d become used to feeling Blair through their link. Used to the echoes of her emotions taking up a portion of his awareness. For Luke to lose all that … no, he couldn’t understand how anyone managed to live through it. Yet, Vinnie had.

Luke wondered if his father felt a constant pull to give up the fight and follow his mate into death. After all, the struggle to survive it couldn’t possibly have ended when Vinnie “recuperated” all those years ago. The loss of a mate had to be something that haunted you every day.

Bree’s father had powered through the death of his own mate for her sake. But shortly after her eighteenth birthday, his health had begun to deteriorate until he’d eventually died in his sleep. Bree believed he’d only ever intended to hold out until she officially became an adult, too lost to exist without his mate.

Luke and Tate had worried that Vinnie might similarly “let go” once Damian reached adulthood. Fortunately, their father hadn’t. Still, they never gave up worrying that he one day would.

Blair stood, pulling him out of his thoughts. “Gotta use the bathroom,” she said. “I’ll be back in a sec.” With that, she left the room.

Elle’s gaze flicked to the chair that Deke vacated twenty minutes ago when he headed home. “Deke was pretty quiet.” She lifted her can of soda. “We can’t give him much longer to brood. Does anyone have any idea what could be playing on his mind?”

Luke rubbed the back of his head. “I think he’s been doing some thinking about the promise he made a few years ago, and I think the reason is that Bailey’s tempting him to break it.”

Vinnie dipped his chin. “I had the same thought.”

“I tried getting him to talk, but he blew me off,” said Luke.

Elle took a sip of her soda. “Personally, I hope he tosses his vow aside. It isn’t fair for him to be held to his word like this for so long. It has to be wearing on him at this point.”

“Possibly,” began Luke, “but that doesn’t mean he’ll go back on his promise. Personally, I’m not so sure he will. It would be out of character for him.”

Vinnie nodded. “Deke’s word is golden. I’ve never known him to break it.”

The sound of footfalls proceeded Blair re-entering the kitchen. She took the seat beside Luke once more and asked, “So, what are we talking about?”

“Promises.” Elle placed her can of soda on the table. “Which brings me neatly back to a question I meant to ask you earlier but then forgot … Do you think Noelle will keep hers?”

Luke’s cat bared a fang on hearing the woman’s name. Blair had called Les this morning and informed him that she’d agree to the meeting if Noelle swore she wouldn’t throw around any insults or cause a scene. Noelle had then taken the phone from Les and given her word to Blair that she’d remain civil.

Blair blew out a breath. “Once upon a time, I’d have said yes. She doesn’t make promises lightly. But she vowed not to try to come between me and Luke, and yet she used Macy to do just that, so …”

Draping his arm over the back of his mate’s chair, Luke played with her hair, knowing it relaxed her. “That was before you made it abundantly clear that her attempts would only result in her eventually losing you for good. She won’t want that.”

“I told her many times that I’d cut her out of my life if she didn’t support our mating when the time came.”

“But, as you yourself once said, she would never have believed that you’d choose me over her—which is how she perceives the situation. You’ve proven now that you truly meant it when you threatened to turn your back on her. She has no choice other than to admit defeat if she doesn’t want to burn her bridges.”

“Your mother is as stubborn as they come, Blair—I learned that early,” Vinnie cut in. “But I also learned that her attempts to run your life were fueled by the fear of losing you. I agree with Luke, she’s likely to keep her promise so she can mend things between you and her. Of course, there might also be a bit of spite behind her intentions. She wouldn’t want to give Luke the satisfaction of having you all to himself, which she seems to have convinced herself is his goal.”

“That I can definitely agree with,” said Blair. “Yeah, there could be some spite at play.”

“If that is the case, I doubt she’ll cause a scene or anything,” said Elle.

Vinnie rose from his seat and crossed to the fridge. He’d no sooner pulled out a beer than the cell phone he’d left on the table began to ring.

Elle peeked at the screen. “It’s Grams.”

“Put her on speakerphone,” said Vinnie before tugging off the bottle cap with his teeth.

Elle swiped her thumb over the cell. “Done.”

By way of answering, Vinnie said, “No, I don’t want more tea. I’ve drank enough in the past couple of days to last me a lifetime.”

Ingrid scoffed. “Oh, hush you, I’ll faff if I want to. Right now, I don’t.”

He retook his seat. “Then why are you calling?”

“There are three men down here asking to speak to you. Humans,” she added in a whisper. “Should I send them up?”

Vinnie frowned. “I’m not expecting anyone. Who are they?”

“One introduced himself as Beau,” she replied, her voice low, “but I recognize him. It’s Zayne Whiteford.”

Blair double-blinked, her head almost jerking back in surprise. She might have thought she’d heard Ingrid wrong if disbelief wasn’t lined into the faces of the people around her.

“I see,” Vinnie finally said. “Did you tell him you know who he is?”

“Of course not,” replied Ingrid. “I played the clueless old lady.”

“Good. I’m going to need a minute. Pretend you’re still on the phone to me—prattle on about an antique or something—and then escort them up.” With that, Vinnie ended the call and flicked his gaze around the table. “You three need to head to Elle’s room and stay out of sight.”

Luke bristled. “Wait, what?”

Vinnie stood. “My guess, since I don’t see why else he’d come here? Zayne was sent my way by anti-shifter extremists. I think, hoping for advice or intervention, he went to them after Alex broke into his LA home. Zayne likely thought it was Camden. They’d have been all too willing to assist someone as high profile as Zayne. One quick look at Camden’s personal information would have unearthed that he lives in a building my son owns. As I’m an informant for the extremists—or so they believe—they would have recommended that Zayne ask for my assistance.”

“He might have the bright idea that you’ll tell Tate to keep Camden off his back or something,” said Blair.

Vinnie dipped his chin. “Maybe. Whatever the case, the extremists must have tossed my name at him.”

“Or he could be an extremist himself,” Luke cut in. “Either way, I don’t want you alone with him and two other humans who are probably his security detail.”

“You’ll be able to hear the conversation from Elle’s bedroom,” Vinnie pointed out. “You’ll know if intervention is needed. But I highly doubt it will come to that.”

“Dad—”

“We don’t have time to dispute this. Zayne will be straight with me because he believes I’m of his ilk. But he’s not going to be so talkative in front of three random people who aren’t informants. He’ll want you to leave, and then you won’t be able to overhear anything unless I insist that you stay. And if I do, he’ll likely find that suspicious. More, he’ll probably just leave rather than trust that you’ll keep what you hear private, and then we’ll have no clue why he came. So stop arguing and scamper.”

Unable to deny that the man made sense, Blair nodded and rose from her seat. Elle did the same, though she looked close to protesting.

Luke swore, pushing out of his own chair. “Fine. But you tell him that your daughter is in the apartment. I don’t want him thinking that you’re alone here. And if I hear anything happening that I don’t like, I won’t stay out of sight.”

Vinnie accepted that with a dip of his chin.

Luke turned to Blair. “Come on.” He took her hand in his and led her out of the kitchen with Elle hot on their heels.

Inside her bedroom, Elle spoke. “You two should hide. Zayne’s bodyguards will probably search every room to confirm that Dad isn’t lying when he says that I’m the only other person in the apartment. They’ll also want to know exactly where I am and be sure that I’m no threat.”

“I mean this in the nicest possible way, Elle,” began Blair, “nothing about you says no threat so you might wanna tone down that predatory air of yours.” She always made Blair think of those female assassins you saw in movies.

“I’m not very good at playing harmless.” Elle’s eyes narrowed. “But you, well, you look as pure as an angel.”

Seeing where Elle was going with this, Blair said, “In the closet. Both of you. I’ll be fine,” she hurried to assure Luke when he went to argue. “You’ll know if I’m not, you’ll hear everything. You can barge out and deal with any problem that arises.”

He shot her a put-out look as she backed him toward the closet. “I do not like this, Blair. Not one little bit.”

“I’ll give you a blow job later, if that’ll help.”

He blinked, his glower easing ever so slightly.

Elle rolled her eyes. “Boys.”

Once the siblings were inside the closet, Blair shoved down her jeans, yanked off her tee, and pulled on Elle’s slinky robe. Her cell phone in hand, she pressed her ear to the bedroom door and listened.

“Wait a minute, the Zayne Whiteford?” she heard Vinnie ask.

“That’s right,” confirmed a smoky male voice.

“Wow,” said Vinnie. “Well wow. I, uh … Sorry, I’m a little starstruck,” he added with a self-depreciating laugh.

“It’s fine, no need to apologize, I’m happy to meet you,” Zayne told him.

“Not that I’m complaining, but why are you here? If it’s about an antique—”

“No, I’m here to discuss another matter.”

“Okay, well—Wait, where’s he going?”

“He’s part of my security detail,” said Zayne, all assurance. “It’s routine for him to scout out whatever place we enter.”

“The only person here other than me is my daughter. She’s a big fan of yours, actually.”

“I’d offer to meet her, but it’s imperative that no one realizes I’m here. That’s why I gave a false name to the woman downstairs.”

Blair moved to the vanity table, put her phone to her ear, and chatted away as if taking a call. It wasn’t long before the bedroom door swung open. A bald, bulky male blinked at the sight of her.

She let out a girlish squeal. “What the hell? Dad!” she called out, forcing her voice to tremble.

The human held up his hands. “It’s fine, no need to be scared, your father knows I’m here.”

“It’s okay, Elle, he’s just looking for the bathroom, he took a wrong turn!” Vinnie shouted from the kitchen.

“It’s down the hall,” Blair told the human, whose gaze dropped down her body as he swallowed hard. She widened her eyes. “Get out, jeez!”

Flushing, he mumbled an apology and backed fully out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Elle peeked out of the closet and mouthed, “Nice acting.” She and Luke then padded out of the closet on silent feet.

He dropped a quick kiss on Blair’s hair as all three of them gathered near the bedroom door, straining to tune into the conversation in the kitchen. God bless shifter-enhanced hearing.

“Sit down, please,” Vinnie invited. There was the sound of wood scraping tile, and then his voice came again. “So, how can I help you?”

“I have a … situation,” said Zayne. “One I believe you could assist me with.”

“Oh?” was Vinnie’s only response.

“Yes,” said Zayne. “I discovered that we have some mutual friends. I believe you … inform them of certain things regarding shifters.”

A long pause. “Your information is incorrect,” Vinnie told him, his voice tight, his tone wary.

“This isn’t some sort of set up to make you incriminate yourself. Search all three of us for wires, if it will make you feel better.”

Faint sounds of clothes rustling and hands patting reached Blair. Wood then once more scraped tile.

“What is it you want?” asked Vinnie, sounding guarded.

“I hear your son owns a few nearby buildings,” said Zayne. “I suppose it was you who urged him to lease apartments to shifters—it’s a fantastic way for you to keep your pulse on what’s happening in their world so you can adequately report important information to extremists. What brings me here is that one of those tenants has become a problem for me. His name is Camden Priest. He’s a white tiger shifter.”

“I know of him,” said Vinnie, his voice still holding a note of wariness as if he wasn’t quite ready to trust Zayne.

“He has information on me that could blacken my name and ruin my career.”

“What sort of information?”

“Have you heard of shifter poaching?”

“I have, yes,” Vinnie confirmed, sounding admiringly nonjudgmental. In his position, Blair wasn’t sure she’d have been able to keep a growl out of her voice.

“I have purchased the occasional item from poachers via a broker. The same broker attempted to fulfil my most recent order by using body parts from Camden. But it all went wrong. I don’t know exactly what happened. Only that the broker is now dead, her firm burned to the ground, and he must be to blame.”

“Why him?”

“Because one of my housekeepers called me while I was on tour. They informed me that a document had been attached to my wall—a wall that now also sports shifter claw marks. That document turned out to be a record of the orders I placed with the broker. The claw marks were definitely made by a tiger. I had an expert in shifters confirm it.”

Blair silently snorted. Some “expert” he was.

“Sounds to me like he was warning you that he knows of your involvement,” Vinnie told him. “He must hope it will be enough to make you leave him be.”

“Maybe that was all it was, and maybe he’s not interested in taking this further. But then maybe I’m wrong.” Zayne paused. “I can’t trust that he won’t come for me at some point. It could be that he would have killed me if I’d been home. I also can’t chance that he won’t take any information to the press.”

“I still don’t understand why you would come to me.”

“Shifters have no clue that you’re an informant, I’m guessing. The loners of their kind surely wouldn’t otherwise be comfortable with having your son for a landlord.”

“Shifters are unaware of my extracurricular activities, yes.”

In truth, shifters were very aware that Vinnie pretended to be a loyal follower of the extremists so that he could pass on what he learned to the Movement—a group of shifters who retaliated against anti-shifter extremists.

“Do you personally know Camden?” Zayne asked.

“I wouldn’t say I know him. I’ve spoken to him on occasion.”

“If you asked him to go somewhere with you, do you think he would agree?”

A short pause. “You want me to lure him to you?”

“As I said, I don’t trust that he will be content with merely delivering a warning to me. I need to be proactive in dealing with this situation; I need to take him out of the equation before he gets the chance to hurt me. I can’t do that by sending more poachers his way—that will spur him into leaking my part in it to the public, and my career would then be over. Besides, after what happened to him recently, it will be next to impossible for anyone to take him off-guard right now. Except someone he knows. Someone like you.”

Blair exchanged looks with both Luke and Elle. She hadn’t suspected that Zayne would concoct such a plan. Although he sounded calm and casual, there was a distinct note of apprehension in his tone. His world could so very easily fall apart, and he was seemingly prepared to do whatever it took to preserve it. Despite the gravity of his situation, she had the sense that he was more desperate to protect his career than his actual life.

“Would he be at all suspicious if you invited him to go somewhere?” pressed Zayne.

Vinnie puffed out a breath. “I’ve never taken him anywhere before, but I doubt he’d be suspicious. I could probably manage to convince him to head somewhere with me. What’s in it for me?”

“The kind of cash you’d never otherwise make in a lifetime.” He tossed out a number that made Vinnie whistle low. “I will bring the money with me to the drop-off point.”

“And where is it you wish me to drop him off?”

Zayne rattled off a location. “I need a few days to pull in more people and arrange adequate transport for him.”

“Transport?”

“Yes. I don’t intend to kill the tiger, Mr. Devereaux. I intend to sell him.”

Luke felt his back teeth lock. Zayne had spoken like Camden was a damn TV or something. It had become abundantly clear during the past ten minutes that this human was one sorry piece of shit.

“Can you have him to me by Friday?” Zayne asked.

“Three days … That’s doable,” Vinnie replied.

“Good. Here’s a number you can reach me at.” Zayne reeled off a phone number, adding, “Our mutual friends assured me that you could be counted on. I’m glad to see that they weren’t wrong.”

A few more things were said, and the humans left soon after.

Blair looked from Luke to Elle. “That I did not see coming.”

“Fair play to Dad for not whacking the little prick over the head with a cast iron frying pan,” said Elle.

When Blair went to follow his sister out of the room, Luke stayed her with a hand on her arm and tipped his chin toward her pile of clothes.

“Shit, forgot,” she muttered.

Luke waited while she redressed, his thumbs flying over the screen of his phone as he brought his brother up to speed. Tate’s responding text was one of pure indignation.

“Done,” Blair declared, flicking her hair out of her collar.

They returned to the kitchen, where Vinnie and Elle were once more seated at the table.

“Tate and Havana will be here soon,” Luke announced as he and Blair reclaimed the chairs they’d vacated earlier. “I texted him just now and told him about your visitor. He ain’t a happy bunny. He’s even unhappier that you spoke to Zayne alone.”

“It needed to go down that way.” Vinnie tapped his fingers on the table. “It was ballsy of that sorry excuse for a human to come here like this.”

“The extremists know you like face-to-face contact because you’re paranoid that the human authorities monitor your phone,” Luke reminded him.

“They do monitor it,” said Vinnie. “They simply monitor the wrong one.”

The Alpha pair soon arrived, their expressions hard, their eyes dark.

“Whiteford is one bold motherfucker,” said Tate as he stalked into the kitchen.

“Who just handed us a way to get to him that wouldn’t require us to get through mounds of security guards or break into a mansion,” Blair pointed out.

Luke nodded. “There’ll be no CCTV near the drop-off point. It’s a very isolated spot. We could get rid of him once and for all.”

Tate narrowed his eyes at him. “I sense a plan brewing in your head. What exactly have you got in mind?”

Keeping a hand splayed on his mate’s thigh, Luke relayed his plan.

Blair’s brows lifted. “That could work.”

“It could,” said Tate. “Camden will agree to play his part in it.”

“Without a doubt, but”—Havana pulled a face—“the trick will be getting his hyper-protective mate to agree.”

Yeah, there was that.