by Layla Nash
Before she could say anything else, Dodge said, loudly enough for Bridger to hear, “Ms. Lawson, we need to get moving if we don’t want to be late to meet with the client.”
“Oh my,” Bridger said before Persephone could react. “Who do we have here, with such a deep and commanding voice?”
Dodge made a face but forced himself into professionalism as he freed the phone from Persephone’s frozen fingers. “I’m Ms. Lawson’s new assistant. I look forward to meeting you, Ms. Bridger. If you’ll just excuse us? I’ll make sure Ms. Lawson has a return call on her schedule tomorrow first thing.”
The loan shark chuckled, and Dodge had to wonder if she recognized his voice. They’d crossed paths before when one of the dumb kids in the pack had a gambling problem he hid from the pack. Dodge had been one of the pack enforcers that Evershaw sent to pay off Bridger and warn her away from messing with the pack again. She hadn’t taken the helpful hints well.
But Bridger almost purred as she answered. “I look forward to it, young man. Persephone, enjoy that new client. I look forward to seeing more of your work. Do keep yourself out of trouble, dear. I’d hate for that curious nature of yours to get in your way.”
“Of course,” Persephone said, though her words came out more strangled than Dodge liked.
Dodge disconnected the call and shoved her phone in his pocket, wanting to grab Persephone’s shoulders to give her a shake. What the hell had she been thinking? Things had been going so well, and then whatever it was about the tiger’s cage...
“She knows,” Persephone said in a whisper. “She has to know. She wouldn’t have said – the curiosity kills the cat thing. She’s never said anything like that before, and normally she’s so much more – more – just friendly, and she wanted to mentor me and what if –“
“Easy,” Dodge said, catching her shoulders to steady her. His frustration evaporated in the face of her rising fear. “We don’t know that. She could have been trying to make you panic, see if you reacted with a guilty conscience.”
Which she almost had.
She stared at his chest, breathing too fast, and shook her head. “She knows.”
“It’ll be okay.”
Persephone glared at him. “How will this possibly be okay?”
He almost told her because he would make it okay. That she was almost part of a pack, whether she knew it or not, and that SilverLine didn’t let one of their members deal with trouble alone. That Bridger was a common enemy and it was time the packs did something about the trouble she created in the city. But at the heart of it... Dodge would make sure she was okay. He’d do anything to make sure.
But he damn well couldn’t say it.
He arched an eyebrow and checked his watch. “We’re early, but we’ll run some errands before we head to the restaurant to meet with Evershaw, and then we’ll figure out how to fix this.”
Persephone started shaking her head. “This doesn’t have anything to do with him, or with you. She doesn’t know you were there. Why would either of you help me with this?”
He could have told her that his wolf wanted her to be safe, or that the man loved the thought of her sleeping in his bed, wearing his clothes, living in his den. He could have admitted what he couldn’t even admit to himself: their lives were intertwined because she was his mate. It was the only explanation.
But it wasn’t fair to put that on her. She’d known about shifters barely a day, and nothing good had happened to her since meeting him. Dodge steeled himself and shrugged, going to the door to check the peephole. “We know Bridger. She’s... caused problems before.”
“She can’t be behind this,” Persephone said, but she no longer sounded quite so certain.
Dodge opened the door and checked the hall, then held out a hand to her. “Then there’s no reason to worry about talking to Evershaw about her. Right?”
She still hesitated, standing there in her living room. He waited. He knew he’d wait as long as it took.
Chapter 15
Percy
I wanted to hide in the apartment after Ms. Bridger’s voice hardened and murmured about curiosity killing cats. It had been fucking stupid to bring up the tiger, to have the conversation a second longer than necessary, and yet... I couldn’t think with Dodge right there. He just stood there, watching me, and I got nervous wondering what he thought. It made me blurt out something about the damn tiger and then Bridger must have known something was off...
I still couldn’t believe my stupidity even as we got in my car and Dodge started driving. I meant to drive, but he opened the passenger door for me and I got in automatically. Then my cheeks heated until he must have seen. I hated feeling so off-balance around him. He shouldn’t have had the power to make me feel so insecure and uncertain. I’d known him a day.
Although I’d almost slept with him, had been perfectly willing to get naked... until he wised up and walked away. Or maybe it had all been a game to him. Maybe it still was. He’d been sent to retrieve me for his boss. Maybe that was where his interest ended. Pretending to be interested in me physically, pretending to talk to me like he wanted to learn about me and share about himself, might have only been a way to pass the time. It hurt more than it should have, that maybe he’d used me. That he pretended about everything. That he might still be pretending.
He still had my phone. I clutched my purse and stared out the window. He hadn’t said anything since holding out his hand to me in the apartment, waiting for me to go to him. He didn’t just grab me and drag me out of there. It seemed like it was important to him that I choose to walk out of the apartment, even if I didn’t know why.
The mystery still lingered. He drove through the city and stopped at a popular coffeeshop for coffee and breakfast sandwiches. He handed me one despite my protest that I’d already had breakfast. Apparently toaster pastries didn’t count. We were back in the car for only a few minutes and a few turns when he cursed under his breath. I glanced at him. “What?”
“I think someone is following us.” Dodge exhaled but didn’t hit the gas or send the car careening into an alley to lose whoever might have pursued us. Instead, he made a reasonable left turn and kept going.
“So... why are you still driving like a grandma?”
He shot me a dirty look. “They expect you to go to a client meeting, so we’re going to a client meeting.”
“What client?” I wanted to turn around and search the streets behind us. “You’re not going to drag me back to Evershaw’s house, are you?”
“I have something else in mind,” he said. “Just – trust me.”
It was asking a lot, all things considered. But he’d been right about a lot of things, so one more seemed like a reasonable accommodation. Just the one, though.
“Persephone...” he started, then stopped. He shook his head.
I didn’t look at him, just in case it made him clam up completely. “What?”
“Nothing.” Dodge pulled the car up in front of one of the massive glass-and-chrome monstrosities in the financial district. “We’re here for the client meeting.”
“Who the hell is the client?” I stared up at the building as I hauled myself out of the car, and wished I’d worn a suit instead of the jeans and blazer.
“Friend of a friend,” he said. “He’ll let us hang out here until we have our lunch meeting.”
I shook my head but did my best to look like I was on my way to a meeting as he led the way into the fancy lobby and across the sleek tile to the bank of elevators. “You don’t really think someone is following us, right? That was just – just nerves. Right?”
Dodge hit the button for the floor and didn’t answer until the doors closed on us, alone in the small box. “I’m reasonably sure.”
“How sure is that?”
“There are at least four of them in two different cars,” he said. He squeezed my shoulder, maybe trying to be reassuring. “They picked us up a few blocks from your apartment, before the coffee shop. I wasn’
t certain until after the coffee shop.”
I sucked in a breath, ready to scream at how fucking unbelievable my life had gotten in just a few hours, but the elevator arrived at one of the upper floors and I didn’t want to make a scene in that fancy building. The doors opened to a large lobby with a receptionist desk and not much else in the waiting area. There weren’t any signs to indicate what kind of business it was, or what kind of client I might have been meeting.
I edged closer to Dodge as we stepped out of the elevator; his fingers brushed mine in a reassuring touch, not quite holding on but enough that it warmed me from the inside. Even if it probably didn’t mean anything to him, it meant something to me. I swallowed the knot in my throat as we approached the receptionist desk. I fully expected the bright-eyed woman with a pixie haircut to sniff in derision and send us away, but instead she beamed at Dodge. “How can I help you?”
My eyes narrowed as I watched her. Funny that she talked to him and not me. Sure, Dodge looked like sex on a stick even when he wasn’t trying to be distracting, but that didn’t mean...
He glanced at her and then at the halls and meeting rooms that arrayed out behind the barrier of her desk. “We’d like to speak with Smith. We don’t have an appointment but we’re happy to wait in a conference room or empty office.”
“Mr. Smith? Of course.” She smiled even more brightly and gestured at a few of the ultra-modern chairs that looked vaguely like medieval torture devices. “If you don’t mind taking a seat for just one second, I’ll see if he’s available.”
“Who is Smith?” I asked, after Dodge nodded to her and led the way to the seats. We both eyed the contraptions and then gingerly sat. I made sure not to wedge myself too far into the oddly bent seat, in case I got caught and needed the jaws of life to escape. “This doesn’t seem like the kind of place that accepts walk-ins.”
Dodge shrugged and frowned at the chair as he tried to figure out the armrests. “Smith is pretty good people. If he can’t make room in his schedule, he’ll let us squat here for a meeting until we can go meet Evershaw for lunch. We just need to kill time.”
Before I could come up with a sensible question on who this guy was, exactly, the receptionist bounced to her feet with a cheery, “Mr. Smith will see you, if you’ll just follow me?” and then led the way into a maze of halls.
I meant to let Dodge go ahead of me, but he reached to put his hand at the small of my back to guide me in front of him. I should have dug my heels in and refused. I didn’t like being in places like that unless I had the full defenses of a business suit and portfolio and at least a day to prepare interview questions and responses and appropriate small talk. This was too... sudden, too unplanned. Completely unbounded and out of control.
My heart jumped to my throat as the receptionist approached a sleek office with frosted glass walls, concealing whoever waited within. My recent experiences with Dodge and Evershaw and Deirdre meant it could have been “whatever” waiting inside. Dodge didn’t let me drag my feet, only nodding his thanks to the receptionist before going into the office and shutting the door behind us.
I hung back as he strode up to the silver-haired man who rose from the glass-surfaced desk. “Smith. Thanks for your time. We don’t need to distract you for long.”
“No trouble at all, Mr. Dodge,” the older man said. His tall, thin frame seemed incongruous compared to the intensity of his gaze as he studied me. “It’s a pleasure to see you again. How are Miles and Deirdre?”
Dodge snorted. “You know how they are, I’m sure. This is Persephone Lawson. She might be doing some work for us, to help out with... Silas.”
“Ah, yes.” The older man smiled as he held out his hand, his tall frame appearing even thinner when standing next to Dodge’s broad body. There wasn’t anything specifically wrong with him, but something still felt... off. Maybe his teeth were a little too pointy. “Very nice to meet you, Ms. Lawson. It’s too bad about Silas. Hopefully you’re able to assist. What skills do you bring to this unique situation?”
I blinked and moved slowly to take the chair he indicated, though I glanced at Dodge for a hint of whether we were really going to stay and converse with the guy. “Uh, I’m still playing catch-up on a few details. Originally, Mr. Evershaw asked me to develop a habitat for him. For – it. Silas. I’m a habitat designer for large cats and other predators.”
“A habitat designer?” Smith seated himself behind the desk but leaned forward, eyes flashing with an odd hint of silver. “Fascinating. I can’t say that I’ve met someone with that skillset. Tell me how you came to this unique career field.”
I glanced at Dodge but he shrugged like it was my decision whether to talk or not. I cleared my throat. “You don’t have to pretend to be interested. I’m sorry we barged in on you like this, it’s been an odd morning, and...”
“An odd morning?” Smith frowned as he sat up, his attention shifting back to Dodge. “Though I’m genuinely interested in your skillset and approach to habitat design, Ms. Lawson, perhaps that can wait. Mr. Dodge, care to explain yourself?”
His tone changed to chastise Dodge, as if Smith had expected to be told about a rough morning right off the bat. Dodge sighed but ran through the string of awful events that had occurred in the past day, skipping the part where I freaked out about Silas and Deirdre and jumping right to when Dodge found me at the animal sanctuary.
When Dodge mentioned Ms. Bridger, Smith leaned back in his chair and pressed his hands together at his chest, eyebrows arched. “Oh really.”
“Yeah,” Dodge said. A world of history and judgement fit in that single syllable.
I clenched the armrests of the chair, which thankfully was a great deal more comfortable than the ones in the lobby. “Okay, you guys have to help me out. She seems so nice, so helpful. She’s been mentoring me and she’s given me a lot of design freedom with the project. She’s doing this great charitable thing for animals in need. How is she such a terrible person?”
“Babe, she’s going to use the sanctuary full of predators to get rid of her enemies,” Dodge said.
“That’s preposterous.” I managed to laugh, shaking my head. “That’s insane. She wouldn’t...”
But when I looked between the two men, neither one laughed with me. Neither smiled. They just looked grim and resolute. They really believed... My stomach turned over and my hands started trembling as I brushed my hair back, just in case I had to ralph into the trendy stainless trashcan next to Smith’s desk. “It’s impossible. It can’t be...”
Dodge made a rough sound in his throat and reached for my hand as he edged his chair closer to mine. “Deep breaths. In through your nose, out through your mouth.”
“Here’s some water,” Smith said, retrieving a bottle of fancy name-brand water from a hidden fridge in the corner. He leaned against the desk as he stood in front of me. “I’m sure this is quite a shock, Ms. Lawson. Please know I’ll do everything I can to assist.”
“Who are you, exactly?” I sipped the water but couldn’t drag my attention from where Dodge’s hand gripped my wrist. “What do you do?”
“I’m a private investigator, of sorts,” he said pleasantly enough. But there was an undertone to his words that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. He definitely wasn’t telling the whole truth. If Dodge brought us there, though, then obviously Smith couldn’t be too bad? I just wished I had a few moments with Dodge to ask him about this guy and what the plan was. “I also take responsibility for some of the communities in this city. We can talk more about that later, of course, once we’ve resolved this little problem with Bridger.”
Dodge checked his watch. “We told Bridger that we had a client meeting this morning, so Persephone wouldn’t have to meet her or show up at the sanctuary. You’re our client meeting. We just need to buy some time before we meet Evershaw at Hangang over on 5th.”
“Of course,” Smith said. He smiled at me, as if to reassure me, but it didn’t do much to settle my nerves or my s
tomach. “I would ask to go with you, but I imagine Deirdre is still... upset with me.”
Dodge snorted and leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out to cross his boots. “That’s an understatement.”
“Wh-what is she upset about?” I asked, looking between them.
Smith winced, then offered a tentative smile. “I tricked her into helping Miles with something several months ago, and she has not forgiven me for the ruse.”
“Deirdre does not like being backed into a corner,” Dodge said, grinning. He looked far too entertained with whatever happened between the older man and Deirdre. “And then Evershaw made things worse a month or so ago when Silas was missing, before he got all fucked up. Evershaw asked Smith for help even though Deirdre told him not to, and Deirdre found out, so she’s... irritated about it.”
“I can imagine that would make for an uncomfortable encounter,” I said. “But I’m still not sure what it is we’re going to talk about at the restaurant? Is this about Silas or Ms. Bridger or something else?”
“Perhaps all of it,” Smith said. “And more. I may be able to assist with one aspect, at least. A... colleague of mine is a homicide detective. She may be willing to take an anonymous statement or otherwise investigate without getting your name involved in things, Ms. Lawson. With Mr. Dodge protecting you as she builds her case, you’ll be as safe as if the culprits were already... dealt with.”
Somehow, when he said ‘dealt with,’ I didn’t think he meant jail. I smiled at him and carefully withdrew my hand from Dodge’s grasp. “His job is to deliver me to Evershaw. I’m sure he has better things to do than worry about whether Ms. Bridger is trying to have me killed.”
Dodge tensed but let me go. Smith glanced between us and a hint of a smile slid across his face. “Of course, I’m sure you’re right. Someone in Miles’s pack would do the honors in the meantime. I would not trust anything Bridger says, Ms. Lawson, regardless of how friendly she might sound. If you’re amenable, I will speak with Detective O’Brien and have her contact Miles for a time to meet later.”