Again, stop fucking worrying. She’s not pack. You can’t let her into your little swirl of overprotective thoughts.
“Car will be outside in fifteen,” I said.
“I’m definitely not waiting up here.”
She strode to the elevator without waiting for me, her heels clicking on the tile. They’d let her put on shoes before she was taken out of the condo, and she’d chosen heels. To get arrested in. This woman was something else.
It bothered me immensely that I hadn’t known she was the one Ambrose had been with all along. They only saw each other once a week or less, but he always came home with a quirk to his lips, his body relaxed. Before we’d put a halt to our relationship, I’d always done my best to please him better than she could the next night—jealousy razed through me at the thought of her beingbetter.
Once we’d stopped sleeping together, the jealousy had been worse. There were no opportunities to prove myself.
But I wasn’t jealous enough to try to ban him from relationships outside the pack. It wouldn’t be fair.
“Are you coming?” Leighton asked, her foot blocking the elevator door from closing.
I hadn’t realized it had arrived.
I joined her in the elevator and crossed my arms over my chest. Being in close quarters with her had me sucking in breaths of her scent, vanilla cream lingering in my nose. It bothered me how she had traces of scent from the men who had arrested her.
They shouldn’t have touched her.
I shouldn’t have let them.
And those thoughts were preposterous. Leighton was a grown woman—an alpha, who could take care of herself.
Ambrose’s words echoed in my head.“He’s an adult. He can handle himself, baby.”
He’d been talking about Dash, but it was dawning on me that I went overboard on protecting more than just the one packmate. My desire to protect also extended to Leighton and the omega.
Not allowed.
We stood in tense silence all the way down to the lobby. The security guard had to let us out at this hour, the front doors locked. We waited on the street. At this time of year, even the middle of the night was warm enough to be comfortable.
Leighton kept reaching into her pocket for her phone, but she didn’t have it. The device had been left behind at the apartment.
“Get some sleep before looking at your phone when we get back,” I said.
She palmed her pocket and glanced at me. Her expression was pinched with stress. “I’ll have a lot of messages.”
“Yes, and they can all wait. As far as they all know, you’re still in police custody without access to a phone.”
“There are circumstances—”
“I will personally stop any circumstances from entering your space until you’ve slept.”
The hired car pulled to a stop at the curb, a familiar driver waiting behind the wheel. I opened the back door for her and she slid across the plush leather. I gave her address to the driver and raised the clear partition, giving us some privacy to speak freely.
“This situation is more complicated than I want it to be,” Leighton admitted. “My mother isn’t the only influence I have to deal with.”
Kiara’s family was another, but there might be even more. I wouldn’t know because I hadn’t given her the opportunity to let me in.
“So, let me help you.”
Offering help was the wrong move. The right move was to cut ties and get my pack out of this fucking mess. They’d get over the heartbreak.
Or maybe not.
Dash had never gotten over Leighton’s brother, not until meeting Kiara and seeing Leighton in a different light. Who could say that his wallowing wouldn’t happen again? Seeing him alive—and not a husk of a man living on alcohol, sex, and a hyperfixation on various hobbies—was enough to warm me to this dark bonded pair.
