“Can you look after…” I realise I don’t even know his name yet.
“Luca.” The man’s voice is quiet and tense.
Luca. I like that name. It suits him.
“Can you look after Luca and make sure the kids are okay? Make sure they don’t see any of… Ehhh… This.” I nod to the rest of the room.
“Of course, my love.” He helps me to my feet and gives me a quick kiss. He meets my eyes for a long moment, sending encouraging pheromones.
I want to wrap my arms around Luca. I want to wrap him up in my pheromones. I want to let him know that he’s safe. That I’ll protect him for the rest of my life. But it’s clear that I can’t be that person for him right now.
Something about me has scared him from the start. I don’t know what it is, but watching me fight those guys didn’t make it any better, probably made it worse…
I pull Jorge’s shirt on, it’s big enough to work as a dress for me. Now I’m at least somewhat covered, in case we’re getting company, of any type.
I kneel down next to the guy who hit his head on the sink and feel for his pulse. He’s breathing and has a pulse, he’s just out. He’s going to wake up with a really bad headache, if he doesn’t lose too much blood before then.
“The one outside is dead. The others are only out.” Caleb kneels next to me, his hand on my back. “You should have taken them out immediately. You shouldn’t have put yourself in danger like this.” His pheromones are tinged with frustration, but from the sadness in them, he also understands why I did what I did.
“I know.” I lean against his shoulder. “Let’s see if we can make them talk once we get them back home. They’re probably the best leads we’ve had so far.”
I’ve got plenty of questions for them and I’m sure Mathew will have too. My pheromones flare in satisfaction. Progress. We’ll finally have some real progress in our mission to take out as much of the Hearts as possible.
And I even found another mate.
Luca.
“They’ve reached the edge of the city. It will take another ten to twenty minutes until they’re here.” Miles leans in the doorway, keeping his eyes on the alley. We have no idea when the Hearts will show up to transport their ‘cargo’, they could arrive at any moment and it’s only the four of us in here.
“The people I called should be here in a minute or two.” Jorge pushes himself up to sit next to me on the table.
Luca is in the room with the kids, that seems to calm him down the most and it will hopefully keep the kids calm too.
I don’t like that he’s out of my line of sight, especially since the tension is still so high in the room. My protective instincts keep trying to get me to stand up and join him. But I can’t. For both our sakes.
We only have to wait another few minutes. We only have to make it through the next minutes and we should be safer after that.
I want to get out of here.
Get the kids somewhere safe.
Get Luca somewhere safe.
Take a shower so I’m no longer covered in blood and hopefully won’t scare my new mate any longer.
And then get as much information out of the Hearts bastards as possible.
Caleb tied them up, just to be sure, but I have no idea when they’ll wake up, or even if they’ll wake up. Though I do hope so. It would be a waste if they died before I could ask them questions.
“Headlights.” Miles steps inside so he’s out of the doorway, harder to spot from the outside.
“Fuck.” Jorge checks his phone. “Not anyone I asked.”
“That means they’re Hearts. Get into place.” Caleb grabs his knife and gun, standing next to the door, out of sight but in a place where he can quickly kill anyone who enters.
Jorge rushes to the door where Luca and the kids are behind, giving three short knocks. The sign that the Hearts are here and that they have to be as quiet as possible.
At least we could convince Luca that we’re a much better option than going back to the Hearts. But with how scared he is, I don’t know how much he really believes it or if he just agreed because we’re here now and we clearly don’t have a problem killing people.
