Wolf Shield Investigations: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  She accepted the soy sauce from Luke with a grateful smile that might’ve been a little embarrassed too. “Thanks,” she mouthed. He shrugged it off, used to her tantrums, one of the only constants in her life.

  Melody strode in from the patio. “They should be here any minute. The guy who runs the agency or whatever it is sent two of his team members to assess the situation. I felt like I was in the army or something, getting orders from a superior.”

  “You’re sure you need this?” Luke frowned, arms folded over his chest.

  “No offense,” Melody murmured, touching one of those thick arms. “Now that she’s a bigger deal than ever before, the studio wants to make sure she’s protected. It’s out of my hands.” The way he smirked told Serenity what he thought of this excuse.

  “It’s not like you’re going anywhere,” she assured him. “Don’t worry about it, okay?” What would she do if he walked out on her? Yes, he was an employee, but he was also the one employee she connected with, the one little bit of sanity left.

  He was the only person who didn’t ask anything from her.

  His eyes cut her way, and she couldn’t miss noticing the anger in them. He felt like he was being pushed aside, just like she guessed. “Yeah. Okay,” he muttered before going out to the patio to talk to the other two guards. Maybe he was explaining to them that they were about to be overruled—if this team the studio hired was any good and if they decided they could help.

  Both Lola and Angelica took their time eating, picking at their rolls, making small talk. Lola was picking little bits of masago off the top of her avocado roll with the tips of her chopsticks and poking them into her mouth. “What? A new diet?” Serenity snickered. “Why didn’t I hear about it?”

  “Hmm? Oh, no. I’m just, you know. Eating mindfully.” Another few bits of fish egg.

  She looked back and forth from one girl to the other. “You’re hanging around so you can see the guys that are coming over. Right?” When they both flushed, she rolled her eyes. “God, you’re so obvious.”

  “We just wanna see who’s coming to take care of you. What’s wrong with that?” Angelica was all innocence, her emerald eyes widening until they took up half her face. Her real color was a flat, dull grey, but colored contacts made up for that.

  “Just do me a favor and don’t make a big deal, okay? These guys aren’t here to flirt or mess around.”

  Lola held up a hand, eyes wide. “I promise.”

  Serenity knew exactly how much that meant, which wasn’t much at all. But what was she going to do? It wasn’t like she could argue.

  She got their promises just in time, too, since the doorbell rang not a few seconds later. Melody darted across the living room. “I’ll get it,” she twittered. “Remember, behave yourself.” Serenity bristled at this. There wasn’t much she hated more than being talked to like she was a child who didn’t know how to manage herself around grown-ups.

  What sucked the most was how she immediately wanted to do exactly the opposite of what she was told. The second anybody asked her to act a certain way, the rebellious streak her parents had always punished her for reared its ugly head.

  All she had to do was remember that message and how it had chilled her. That was enough to make her behave. If these people, whoever they were, were going to help her stay alive, she would do whatever it took.

  She reminded herself of this even as a pair of men who made the massive Luke look like a weakling strode into her house, as one of them looked straight at her and didn’t even bother to hide a sneer of what could only be disapproval. Or dismissal.

  She held his cold gaze, challenging him. How dare he walk into her house and look at her that way? Like he was too good for the place?

  And her life was supposed to be in his hands? Lucky her.

  His dark eyes narrowed. Melody was chattering on about how grateful she was that they’d come out so soon, what a relief it was to have them there. The other guy was at least polite enough to engage with her, but that was clearly too much to ask of this one. He ignored Melody, ignored everything in favor of staring at Serenity.

  Finally, she’d had enough. “Can I help you with something?” she called out, raising her voice so that it could be heard over her manager and over the girls whispering back and forth from their seats in front of the coffee table.

  He blinked and almost seemed to shake himself a little, like he had gone away for a second. Maybe that was it, maybe his thoughts had wandered, and he hadn’t realized he was staring like an obnoxious jerk. “Excuse me?” he asked, smirking a little.

  That smirk. It told her all she needed to know about the guy. He probably thought his body and his face—both impeccable, no doubt—gave him an excuse to act like a sneering, smirking creep. “You were staring at me.”

  When he chuckled, the muscles that were already outlined thanks to his thin black T-shirt rippled and flexed. It was almost a struggle to keep from staring at them the way he’d stared at her face. “And? I never would’ve guessed somebody who broadcasts so much of her life online would mind being stared at for a second.”

  Her heart sank even as her blood started to simmer. If she had still been holding her chopsticks, she might’ve snapped them in half. “I don’t normally have to watch somebody leering at me. There’s normally a screen between us. Have you seen enough?”

  He snickered, a sly smile tipping his full mouth upward at the corners. “Yeah. I think I’ve seen all I need to see.”

  “Let me show you around outside.” There was no reason why Melody had to practically shout, outside of the fact that she clearly wanted to change the subject and get this jerk away from Serenity before either of them said anything worse.

  The second guy with the blonde hair and blue eyes of a California surfer—if not the body, which screamed steroids and weightlifting—nudged his partner. “Come on.” There was a warning in his voice.

  That didn’t stop the sneering, snide son of a bitch from shooting her one last look before following the two of them outside. Only when the doors were closed could Serenity exhale, some of the tension leaving her tight muscles. She realized she’d clenched her jaw hard enough to hurt and massaged the joint with her fingertips to loosen up.

  “Oh, my God!” Lola hissed, fanning herself. “It jumped up, like, fifty degrees in here. I’m surprised I’m not sweating.”

  “I know! God, I’ve never seen anything like that before.” Angelica grinned up at her. “You’re so lucky.”

  That was the wrong thing to say. Serenity glared at her so-called friend. “Lucky? Somebody’s stalking me, and I need these idiots to come in and keep an eye on me. You think I’m lucky? I would change places with you in a second.” She snapped her fingers.

  “She didn’t mean it that way,” Lola explained in a soft voice. “It’s just that they’re super hot, and the dark-haired one really seems to have a thing for you. Your chemistry is ridiculous.”

  “Yeah, well, chemistry can be bad, too. It can cause explosions and kill people.” Serenity mused over this as she stared out through the glass doors, where her manager was busy giving these so-called security experts the lay of the land.

  A stalker might catch up to her and kill her, or this guy would be the one to do it. She wasn’t sure if she cared either way anymore.

  Chapter Three

  “Do you have any kind of security cameras around?” Zane asked, looking around with one hand on his hip, the other shielding his eyes from the sun while he took in the exterior of the house. “She’s wide-open up here.”

  And she was. The view was gorgeous, granting them a look across the Hollywood Hills and down into the valley below. Braxton tried to imagine what this must’ve looked like back in the day before so much of the land had been settled, back when it was all hills and mountains and desert with small settlements here and there and then, later on, when orange groves had been the thing.

  Now, the congestion below was ridiculous. This place was never meant to house
so many people at once. Yet there they were.

  And here was Serenity Starr looking down over all of them like she was something special from her house high up in the hills.

  The mousy little assistant or whoever she was winced in recognition of having fallen short. “Yes, that’s been on our list of things to upgrade. She has a huge social media following, millions of fans, and page views are through the roof, but until now, her profile hasn’t really been high enough to warrant upgraded security.”

  “I don’t care who she is,” Braxton muttered, looking down at all the opportunities for somebody to climb the hill and trespass on the property. “I wouldn’t want to live out here, practically in the middle of nowhere with the closest neighbor half a mile down the road, without some sort of security system in place. Anybody could climb up here.”

  “As I said,” the girl shrugged. “It’s been on our list. The studio has been pushing for it ever since she signed the contract, but everything’s been such a whirlwind since then—public appearances, interviews, fittings and screen tests and meetings.” Even as she spoke, her phone never stopped buzzing with incoming messages. Braxton noticed the way her fingers twitched, the way she jumped every time a buzz sounded. She wanted to reach for that phone, to see what was going on. It was an addiction he suffered from too.

  “We can take care of that,” he promised. He continued his assessment of the property. There wasn’t even a fence separating the property line from the surrounding area—nothing more than shrubbery. A lot of good that would do her if a stalker decided they wanted to get extra close.

  “This isn’t the first time something like this happened, is it?” he asked the girl, whose name was Melody. He’d managed to listen to that much, at least, but not too much else. She was cute in a quiet sort of way, with a pixie haircut and hipster glasses. Serenity had stolen his attention from her before she’d even managed to catch it.

  “No, she’s received threats before. I mean, practically daily. It’s gotten to the point where she laughs them off.” She held up her hands, shaking her head. “Hey, I don’t like it any more than you do, but it is part of the business. It doesn’t matter what you do. If you have a profile online, and people are able to look up your name, follow your social media feed, whatever, chances are you’re going to be harassed. Especially if you’re a woman. Even more so if you’re beautiful.”

  “Why does she keep doing what she does?”

  Melody blinked hard like she didn’t understand the question. “Why should she have to change her life just because men can’t control themselves on the internet?”

  He shouldn’t have scoffed. He knew he shouldn’t have scoffed.

  He scoffed anyway. “Like there’s no other way to make a living?” Even as Zane glared at him from across the impressive pool sitting between them, he wouldn’t back down. “I’m sorry. It just seems to me that anybody who insists on continuing in this line of work even with threats and harassment is sort of asking for what they get. Not that I don’t sympathize, not that I think it’s right for people to do that. I’m just saying.”

  Melody finally pulled out her phone. “Hang on a second. Let me give you an example.” She pulled up a picture and thrust the phone toward him. “Here’s Serenity, sitting poolside. She’s fully clothed. Flashing a peace sign. That’s it. Nothing more than that. Okay?”

  He looked at the photo, which had clearly been taken on that very patio. She’d worn a pair of jeans, a white button-down shirt, a straw hat, and shades. He shrugged. “Okay.”

  “Now, see some of the comments she got on that.” Melody brought a few of them up and started reading out loud. “Take off your clothes. Show me your tits. Don’t be a tease. What I would do to those…” She glanced up, her brows lifting. “Well, it gets dirtier from there. On and on, this is what happens. She can’t post a picture fully clothed without her body being commented on in the most disgusting ways. And this isn’t even an example of the more graphic comments she gets, which her assistant deletes.”

  “Like what?” Zane asked.

  “Rape threats, for one. Lots of rape threats. I try to keep them away from Serenity—hence the assistant—but she must see some of them. I mean, she’s not asking for this. Nobody asks for this. She could be wearing a full-length gown, and somebody would comment about how they wanna throw it over her head and bend her over.”

  “Got it,” Braxton growled. His wolf growled, too, sitting right in the forefront of his consciousness as he’d been ever since setting eyes on that girl.

  “People are disgusting, especially online and especially toward women. I’m friends with several authors, respected writers across different genres. Even the academics get emails suggesting all sorts of disturbing things.” Melody shuddered.

  “The internet is a cesspool,” he grunted. “And people love to take advantage of the anonymity they think it grants them.” He wanted to rip the fingers off those pigs, whoever they were. He’d track them down and make sure they couldn’t threaten her again.

  He’d take their tongues too, just to be on the safe side. Some people used dictation software. He’d be doing the world a favor.

  His wolf liked this idea—maybe a little too much.

  “What makes this latest message different?” Zane asked, casting a puzzled look Braxton’s way. Did his wolf feel what was happening? Was that why he looked so confused?

  “This one was personal.” Melody was unaware of the silent conversation going on in front of her, naturally, as she pulled up another image on her phone. “I took a picture of it. Serenity didn’t delete it either. It’s still in her account.”

  “Which account?”

  “Her private email.” Melody glanced up over the chunky rims of her glasses. “That’s red flag number one. Very few people know that address. There’s a junk address she uses for social media and a private one she’s had for years. It went to that account.”

  “Okay.” Zane joined them, looking over her shoulder when she pulled up the image of the email.

  “The second red flag comes in with the use of names, specific names of people she knows. Not celebrities, either—very low-level people in this world.”

  Braxton withheld his thoughts on the way she described actual, living people as being low-level. He knew what she meant and figured she didn’t mean anything by it, which was the only reason why he let it go without making a comment.

  Still, he exchanged a glance with Zane, who was likely thinking along the same lines he was.

  Instead of going any further down that particular road, he read the message. “This is personal,” he muttered, glancing toward the house with its huge windows that would allow anybody to see inside. Granted, he couldn’t see much beyond his own reflection at this time of day, but at night, it would be easy to follow her around the house while crouched in the shrubs.

  “Who are the three people named? Specifically.” Zane pulled his own device out to take notes. “I’m gonna need names and contact information so we can interview them.” He was talking like they’d already taken the case.

  There was really no reason for them not to. This seemed like a cut-and-dried situation. The girl had burned one too many people, and somebody wanted to make sure she paid for it. They might be home within a few days or so once Hawk dug through the logs, traced the sender of the email, and tracked them down. Piece of cake.

  Good, too, since the less time he spent in this world, the better it would be for everyone involved.

  “Who are the two inside with her?” Zane asked, his back to the windows. Though the girls were invisible thanks to the sun’s glare, their awareness of the newcomers was palpable. Almost tangible. He’d scented their arousal within moments of entering the house.

  But not hers, not Serenity’s. It was like she’d done all she could not to fall under the influence of the wolf the way women unconsciously did.

  “They’re nobody,” Melody whispered. “Hangers on. Angelica Morton is a tycoon’s daughter.
Parents pretty much live on a yacht somewhere. Lola Benedict was on a kids’ show when she was a preteen and had her own series of straight-to-video movies for a while there. Her agent was smart enough to get her a decent residual, and she basically lives off that and the money from reunion specials, personal appearances, and pageviews.”

  “Pageviews. What’s that all about? I understand Serenity started off making videos, doing posts promoting products?”

  “Yeah, that’s what she started out doing. As a pretty girl, people are gonna click on her videos just to see her and hear her. She was doing an online journal of life here in L.A., how she wanted to start a career, all that—the setbacks, how insecure she felt. Once she gained traction, she learned how to monetize the traffic. Offers from various products started rolling in. It snowballed from there.”

  “And you were with her this entire time?”

  “No,” she chuckled. “She did that all on her own. It was only when offers to appear in commercials and film came in that she decided she needed somebody to help manage her career. She did everything on her own up until that point. She’s a very smart girl.”

  “It doesn’t take much to create and upload videos, especially nowadays,” Braxton pointed out.

  Melody stopped being mousy. Her gaze was hard, unflinching as she turned her head to look up at him. “She was valedictorian of her high school class and attended UCLA on a full scholarship before graduating summa cum laude. Don’t let the looks fool you—or the shell she’s built around herself to help her survive out here alone.”

  “Point taken,” he murmured. There was more to this girl than met the eye too. He made a mental note not to underestimate her or how much she admired her client.

  Still, if Serenity was such a genius, what the hell was she doing with her life to live up to that genius? Nothing so far as he could tell. Eating sushi with her friends, lounging around the house.