“I’d appreciate if you stopped talking about her like she’s crazy.”
That was Ambrose coming to my defence, surprisingly. Leighton already had her mouth open though, her green eyes flashing with irritation.
“Oh, you lot are so fucked. On second thought, I don’t want to be around for this shit show.” Liberty snapped her laptop shut and stood with it under her arm. “How did you get away from Tobias Connolly unscathed after dark bonding his sister? That’s all I want to know.”
Leighton failed to hide her wince. “See, that’s another minor complication.”
“Weren’t you sending a live stream of us somewhere?” I asked. “I thought it was here. To her.”
Liberty was more than a housekeeper, if she was Leighton’s emergency contact who could ferry a doctor in at the drop of a hat.
“About that.” Leighton’s attention swung to Ambrose, and she grimaced. “The only one who I could trust to record every second of a live streamed call was… Well…”
Ambrose cursed as she trailed off, grabbing his phone from his pocket. “Sixteen missed calls,” he grumbled.
Liberty cackled, knowing exactly what was going on even as I didn’t have a clue. “This is perfect. I’ll start researching the Connollys and handling clients. Call me with updates, Leigh.”
She strode out of the condo as Ambrose stared at his phone with increasingly sallow skin. Leighton pressed a hand to her temple, rubbing it. I was still in the dark. I was used to it—Father kept me in the dark about everything, all the time. But with Leighton and Ambrose, I really didn’t like it.
“Who is it, and why is everyone freaking out?” I asked.
“Ambrose’s pack lead. His name is Dash.”
“Why is that bad?”
“That’s… a long story.” Leighton cringed. “And I’m not even sure where to fucking start.”
ELEVEN
DASH
Having Leighton Winston in my fucking DMs was a perfect way to ruin a goddamn Thursday.
OK. The day had already been ruined by Ambrose’s sudden anguish and Mercury’s subsequent freakout as he tried to find our packmate. But ‘Winston’ popping up in my video calls was a surefire way to make everything worse.
The only Winston I wanted calling me was her brother, and that was never going to happen.
He was happy with his pack, as everyone said. Well, I sure as fuck wasn’t happy and it was impossible to get over it when his older sister was everywhere all the time. For a corporate fixer, she definitely didn’t stay in the shadows enough.
“Call me back, asshat. That’s not a fucking request,” I barked into the phone after Ambrose failed to answer for the fifth time in a row.
Pretty sure Mercury was out calling the cavalry to find him, at this point. Apparently, he was at the house of some woman he was seeing. I didn’t know why Ambrose felt the need to keep a relationship a secret. We were an open pack.
Maybe I was the problem.
Maybe he thought my constant wallowing would chase her off before she got a chance to fall for him.
Fuck, he might be right.
It had chased off every woman I’d ever tried to date. Not that there were many. I clung to hope for my scent match for so long I didn’t bother trying to find anyone else in a serious capacity.
Clicking a few buttons on my PC keyboard, I popped up the grainy feed from the recorded video call. To her credit, Leighton knew a lot of shit about me. She would have known I’d keep a recording, while a call to most people would end up lost to the ether, requiring a hack to retrieve. One she may not have had time for.
“Tobias Connolly has an omega sister,” I murmured, tapping my pencil against the shitty desk I kept in the back room of the Dirt with Dash studio. “And Leighton dark bonded her. Did she want me to blackmail her? Why would I keep this to myself?”
She already owed me a favour—a fucking big one. Keeping this for her was going to add to the tally.
Humming, I grabbed my bag off the back of my chair and strode from the room, letting the door slam behind me. I avoided the staff by going out the back door and down the multiple flights of stairs. By the time I got to the bottom I’d worked up a sweat and was greeted by humidity out the ass when I stepped outside.
