Please, don’t let Riley be doing something too extreme.
Please, let her not do something too violent.
I glance at Jorge, who’s very pale, bordering on green, as he’s probably aware of where we’re heading.
If Mathew and Riley both made sure to keep him mostly out of the bloodier and more violent parts of their jobs, then it wouldn’t be unexpected if they kept the more dubious parts of the ‘information gathering’ from him too. Knowing that something is being done is of course very different from seeing it being done.
Fuck.
As we reach the end of the hallway, just past the doors to the shooting range, I grab Jorge’s shoulders, making him stop. “Wait here. I’ll take a look first.” He’s seen enough blood for one night. He’s seen more than enough of his mates’ violent side for one night.
He opens his mouth to say something but then gives a quick nod and leans back against the wall, taking deep breaths.
I walk down the hallway that goes off the main hallway, following the sounds of raised voices, until I reach a door that’s slightly ajar.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Mathew’s voice is hard and I hear metal scraping over stone floor.
That can’t be good.
I barge into the room, finding one of the guys we picked up, the fake security guard, on a chair in the corner of the room, half naked, his eyes wide in terror as he stares at Riley and Mathew.
In front of him, on the floor, are what look to be the remnants of his gear, cut into small pieces.
“I was making sure he couldn’t be tracked here.” Riley wipes her hands on her legs, picks up the knife that’s halfway across the room and goes back over to the guy. “We can never be too sure that they didn’t sew a bug into his clothes. Those Suits Syndicate bastards can be very calculating at times.”
She reaches out to the guy’s back, apparently wanting to continue her methodical cutting away of his clothes, but Mathew grabs her wrist before she can touch him.
“No.” His voice is quiet, his eyes dark, dangerous. “Don’t touch that fucking bastard. He doesn’t deserve it.” He slowly takes the knife out of Riley’s fingers, but when he turns to the fake security guard, his gaze not easing up, I step in.
Why did I think that Mathew was going to stop her? Of course, he’s just going to continue what she was doing.
The problem wasn’t the cutting away of the clothes of the terrified man, the problem was that Riley was touching the guy. Mathew was being possessive, that’s all.
“Both of you. In the hallway. Now!” I use enough of my Alpha powers that I’m sure they’ll listen.
They both grumble, but then hang their heads, following my orders. They know that I’m being serious and that if I have to, I will use more of my command, which will be a lot less fun for them.
As they pass me by, I hold out my hand, motioning for Mathew to give me the knife. With an unhappy glare, he hands it to me.
I follow them, closing the door behind me.
If I don’t keep my eyes on them the whole time, I feel like I’m going to be putting out fires like this for the rest of the night.
Which isn’t something I feel like doing...
4
Vera
I keep the kids entertained as Luca reunites with his family. From the corner of my eyes I can see them in the hallway, embracing, tears flowing. They’ve been apart for years and his family has a lot of questions for him.
He told me some of his story while we were out on the balcony, a very condensed version, I’m sure. But every word out of his mouth made me want to wrap him up in blankets more and more, keep him safe for the rest of his life, make sure he’ll never have to deal with anything bad ever again.
I have no idea how he survived for this long. The Hearts put him through tremendous horrors, all to make sure that they could keep him under control, while they were making plans how to use him to take down Mathew.
Luca reacting to Caleb and my pheromones a year ago seems to have been the moment that they started to finalise their ideas, set things in motion. And I hope that whatever the Hearts had planned, that us finding Luca last night will set them back for at least a little while.
If it wasn’t part of their plan from the start… That us finding him and ‘rescuing’ him wasn’t all part of their plan.
