With that in mind, Kami exhaled a shaky sigh and began with the top right desk drawer. It opened easily. Didn’t the man lock anything? Of course, his office had been locked, but there were so many people with keys to the offices that it was a laughable form of security for a company that actually specialized in selling security solutions to their professional clients.
After a few moments of moving things around in the drawer, Kami moved to the one below it. The L-shaped desk offered several drawer options and she looked at all of them. There was nothing. No clue. No hint. No answers as to what was really going on inside the company lately.
Kami was expecting nothing when she opened the last drawer. It was the one in the middle. The one that was traditionally filled with pens and pencils and a letter opener or some other nonsense. But when Kami tried to open the drawer it was locked. Not only was it locked, but she couldn’t actually see the lock itself until she slid out of the chair onto the floor and squatted beneath the desk. Finally spying the tiny, round, metal locking mechanism, Kami felt a thrill of excitement.
Jackpot.
She pulled her keys from her pocket. There was no chance that she was going to have a key for Devon’s desk drawer. That would have been ridiculous. But that did not mean Kami didn’t have a few tricks up her sleeve.
Carefully choosing the small pocketknife she kept on the keychain, she opened the nail file. It was very narrow. She had no doubt that she was probably going to bend her handy little nail file. This was not exactly a stellar lock-picking tool. But that did not matter. None of it did. Well, nothing but Kami’s need to see if there was something inside this stupid desk that might explain what was going on with Devon.
Slipping the nail file into the tiny lock, Kami patiently wiggled and turned the slim metal until she felt the lock give. It wasn’t much of a lock. Just a standard desk drawer lock placed in a strange spot beneath the drawer as though being hidden was half of the security measures attached to the silly thing.
The desk drawer popped open. Kami scooted out of the foot well beneath the desk and climbed back into the chair. Her hands were shaking when she reached into the drawer. There was a big manila folder in there. Was this the answer? Could it be so simple as to pull out a document that would totally outline every problem in the King family that was potentially affecting Kami without her realizing it?
She had nothing to lose. Right. Another glance at the clock told her that it was almost five o’clock. She still had plenty of time. She had other offices to clean, but she technically had all day to do it and Kami was uncommonly quick. Of course, then she had to clean all of the bathrooms in the building and that job sucked. But it still didn’t take her an entire shift to do that.
“Last will and testament.” Kami read the words carefully lettered onto the tab of the manila folder in Devon’s familiar block printing. Then she paused because those words were very disconcerting. “Who died?”
Then she remembered that Devon’s father had died several months ago. Perhaps this was his will. Kami had always figured that it was pretty simple. Someone died and their wife inherited everything. Although when people were really super rich the kids seemed to get lots of money too. But Kami didn’t have much practical experience with such things. When her grandparents in Mexico had died, her parents had been struggling to avoid having to pay off their debts.
“Last will and testament,” Kami repeated.
With a shrug she opened the folder and looked at the sheet on top. After reading through about two paragraphs Kami decided this was utterly pointless. She could fumble through some of it. The language was horrible. It was thick and full of legal jargon that made her wish she had taken Latin at the parish school she had attended during her very young years.
So the will was kind of strange. A few pages in there seemed to be a listing of assets and it only involved the company and its assets. Did that mean everything Devon owned actually belonged to the company? That seemed bad. Kami wouldn’t allow that sort of thing. It would be just like continuing to give all of her wages to her father. He currently charged her ninety percent of her earnings for rent and her keep, even though there were plenty of times when Kami had to buy groceries with the meager ten percent left over because her father’s work truck needed a new tire or something like that.
Was that how Devon lived too? No wonder the guy had been grouchy lately. Except they were talking millions of dollars here. Kami skimmed the document in the folder until the very end where it had listed a net worth of Mr. Mackenzie King. She tried to read the number, but there were a lot of zeroes and she could not even conceptualize how much money that was. Ten million? A hundred million? Did the Kings actually have a billion dollars? Was that an actual thing?
“What are you doing?”
The office door swung open at the same time Orion King stepped into Devon’s office from the hallway. His appearance was so absolutely shocking that Kami did not react. She could not. She was stunned silent and feeling strangely frightened and vulnerable.
“I asked you a question!” Orion barked. “What in the hell are you doing going through my brother’s desk?”
This was not the time to freeze like a little mouse. Kami forced her hands to move. She closed the folder and shoved it back into the desk drawer. When she pushed it closed, it locked. That was good. That was really good because Orion was coming toward her as though he wanted very badly to know what she had been looking at.
Kami flung herself backwards and spun the chair around so that it dumped her out on the opposite side of the desk from Orion’s approach. She pressed herself against the bookshelves and inched toward her rolling trash can caddy. Her heart was hammering against her ribs and she felt as though she were in danger of panicking at any moment.
“Why are you in here?” Orion snarled the words. He was leaning toward her as though he were going to lunge her direction and snap her neck.
Kami dragged in enough air to speak. “I was cleaning.” She snatched up her duster to lend credence to her story. “I start cleaning this floor every day at four-thirty.”
“Oh really?” Orion snorted. “You think I believe that? Do you often clean while you’re sitting in a chair going through our desks?”
“What? No!” Kami’s mind was spinning. She needed an explanation. She hated this. She had a right to be here. She did. And it was insulting that Devon wasn’t here to defend her or at least back her up and tell his brother to back off. He’d done that in the past. “I usually start with Devon’s—I mean Mr. King’s—office because he’s almost always here. This morning he wasn’t and I decided to start in the same place anyway.”
She was rambling. Forcing herself to stop talking, she gripped the duster and wondered if it would make a decent weapon against a man like Orion King. The guy was meaner than hell. Kami hated him. He was rough and rude and talked to the cleaning staff as though they were ants in need of stomping. He was tall and dark with swarthy skin and curling black hair that did nothing to soften the hard planes of his face. At six foot two or three he was tall, but he was also broad shouldered. Kami had seen him drinking things like Absinthe in his office like it was some kind of sports drink. The guy could obviously hold his liquor and that was something else that Kami did not like at all.
“You need to get out of here until my brother comes into work. You got me?” Orion curled his lip at her.
Kami bit her lip. That wasn’t the way her job worked. She was supposed to be cleaning offices while the occupants were out. If Orion had a problem with it, then maybe it was time for Devon to start backing her up on this stuff. As far as Kami was concerned, he owed her big time.
“I’m supposed to clean while offices are empty.” Kami even managed to speak the words without letting her voice wobble. “If you’ve got a problem with it you need to call my boss or talk to your brother. He’ll tell you that I have permission to be in here.” Kami set her chin and glared up at Orion. She was so short and he was so tall and she felt l
ike she was about to get crushed, but she was tired of these rich people pushing her around. “Go ahead.”
With those final words Kami turned around and began sweeping the duster over the bookshelves in long strokes that were careful to keep the gathering dust off the spines of Devon’s book collection.
“You’re sassy.” Orion seemed to be announcing this as though he were condemning her.
Kami did not turn around. She did not look at him. He was not her problem. She needed to stay focused on her job. Clean. Dust. Wipe down the desk and oil everything so that it gleamed. She needed to treat the leather on Devon’s chairs too. That was her scheduled extra task for the day today.
With that in mind, Kami finished her dusting and dug around in her cart for the leather conditioner. She could not allow herself to look up. She could not let Orion King know that he was getting to her. He was now standing in the doorway leaning insolently against the doorjamb with his arms folded like some kind of royal pain in the ass. His arrogance was revolting. How could his family even begin to tolerate him?
Kami forced her brain to focus on the task at hand. She squeezed leather conditioner onto the rag and began to work it in circles into the expensive leather of Devon’s office chairs. She would do that for every single office today and the idiot occupants of those offices would probably not even notice. They might even be disappointed that their leather chairs would not wear out so quickly and necessitate the purchasing of more chairs. That was a thing with rich people. The desire to buy something new all of the time. Kami knew that. Sometimes Devon acted like that. Usually about his clothing. Sometimes Kami felt it endearing. Today she was feeling as though she could not stand this familial trait.
At some point she glanced up at the clock. Five-thirty. Then five forty-five. She was actually ahead of schedule, but Orion didn’t know that. He kept looking at the clock too. Then he would exhale a heavy sigh and continue to watch her as though he honestly believed that she needed watching.
Fine. Let him watch. At some point she was going to be done. Then she would move into his office and start cleaning. Maybe she would put some kind of stain on his chairs so anyone who sat in them would get a discolored butt out of the deal. Tempting, but Kami needed this job. It was becoming more and more apparent with each passing second that the change she had anticipated in her life might be a little less than what she had dreamed.
Chapter Four
Devon sank gratefully into his leather desk chair. It was still precipitating outside. He could see it plastering moisture on his windows. The result was some strange mix of rain and snow that could not decide if it was going to freeze or not. Dallas didn’t get a lot of snow. Even the mere possibility was probably going to be enough to shut down the whole city. They were probably cancelling school and telling people to stay home and avoid going out on the streets. And that was nothing compared to what would happen if there actually was any accumulation of something that resembled snow. That would require an entire shutdown of the city itself. Not even the mail would get through despite all of their hereditary bragging about delivering in all weather.
With a long exhaled breath Devon placed his palms flat on his desktop and reveled in the sense of familiarity. This morning had been hell. Of course, it was only ten o’clock in the morning anyway. Theoretically he wasn’t really that late. But when you were used to coming in between four and four-thirty to work, you most definitely felt as though half the day were gone at ten o’clock.
Unfortunately, Devon had barely been able to turn on the flat screen television hanging opposite his desk before Orion came flying into his office with a disgruntled expression on his face. Orion was the last person Devon wanted to see, but Devon did need to give him the latest report on Zane’s absolutely insane activities in and around Dallas.
But Orion seemed to have something specific on his mind. “We need to talk about that ridiculous cleaning woman.”
Wait. What? Devon pushed himself back in his chair and gripped the arms of the executive chair in his hands. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to enlighten me. What on earth are you talking about?”
“The cleaning lady!”
There was no doubt in Devon’s mind that his brother was referring to Kami. He just could not figure out why. “Yes. There are lots of cleaning ladies in this building. I believe it’s kind of part of the building management plan. We don’t actually hire and fire them, you know. You have to go through their supervisors.”
“Then I’m calling her supervisor and telling them to fire her ass!” Orion snarled in an angry voice filled with self-righteousness. “That woman was in here snooping around at four o’clock this morning!”
“Hang on. I’m sorry.” Devon held up both hands and shook his head at his brother. “I’m not even beginning to buy the idea that you were here at four o’clock in the morning. Try again.”
“Fine!” Orion rolled his eyes. He was looking very irritated. “It was probably closer to five. I don’t know. I just know that I saw a light under your door and when I came in here she was sitting at your desk reading some kind of report or something. She shoved it back into your drawer when she realized that she’d been caught.”
Devon was struggling to figure out what this meant. Kami was unique. Orion just didn’t realize it. But Devon could not imagine why Kami would think that she needed to dig through his desk drawer to look for anything. She was probably just angry with him for not being here on time this morning. They had a standing agreement. He had not thought to text her when his plans changed because of Zane.
“You’re not taking this seriously enough!” Orion pointed at Devon and stalked closer. Kicking the door closed behind him, Orion folded his arms over his chest and then glared at Devon as though this was going to somehow instantly make Devon sit up and take notice.
“You were wrong about Zane,” Devon told Orion.
As Devon had hoped, this totally derailed anything Orion might have been thinking about Kami. At least for now. Orion shook his head and looked irritated. “You’re full of shit. You know that? I was wrong? Nice choice of words. Care to explain yourself?”
“Zane is playing vigilante all over Vickery Meadow.” Devon let that sink in for a moment. “In his wolf form, of course.”
As Devon had expected, Orion’s mouth actually fell open. “No shit.”
“No shit.” Devon sighed and wished that he didn’t feel like they had to get a handle on Zane’s violation of the family secrecy policy. “He’s chasing teenagers all night long, scaring the crap out of them, tailing them home, and then I don’t know what he does with that information. But I can tell you for sure that Gemini King—the man you blame for pretty much everything bad—was nowhere around. Zane did not even mention him. There was not one thought about our illustrious half brother who might be possibly a fan of terrorizing regular old civilians.”
Orion’s expression darkened. If that was even possible. The man already looked permanently pissed these days. “So that’s what you mean when you say that I’m wrong.”
“I suppose. Yeah. You’re always trying to blame Gemini for just about anything that happens. I thought that you should know Gemini isn’t behind the recent sightings of that horribly named Bigfoot Wolf thing. It’s Zane.”
“And what do we do about that?”
Devon shrugged. “I don’t know. Talk to him? Leave him be? He has a reason for doing what he’s doing. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s totally passionate about this. He feels like this is what he’s supposed to be doing. Do we actually have the right to argue with him about that? It’s his purpose. Not ours. It isn’t like he’s asking us to participate.”
“He’s a shifter! People are going to know what we are. He’s exposing us because he’s got some weird vendetta against teenage vandals.” Orion made this sound like a no-brainer. “So yeah. I think we need to crack down on whatever Zane is doing. And I think we also need to get rid of that cleaning lady.”
“Seriously?”
Devon grumbled. He rubbed his hands down his face. “You’re still worried about that? The woman cleans the office every single morning. I’m usually here. I’m sure it threw her off that I wasn’t because I think that’s happened maybe once or twice. You know me. I’m like a freaking machine. I get here at the same time every single day and if I leave I do it in the middle of the day. I’m a workaholic.”
Orion snorted and shook his head. “I can’t argue with that. You’re probably one of the worst when it comes to that kind of thing,” Orion agreed. “But that doesn’t mean it’s okay for this woman to be poking around in your desk drawers. I’m calling her supervisor.”
“Orion, that woman—as you call her—has been cleaning our building for ten years. She’s been a good employee and she does her job. Why are you going to make a big deal out of something that I’m not worried about? I don’t have anything important in my desk. Why would I do that? The documents that might need protecting are in the safe in my room at home. That’s because they’re important. I don’t store important hard copy documents in my office. Besides, how often do we have hard copy important documents?”
“That isn’t the point!” Orion sliced his hand through the air as though that were the end of it. He had spoken. It was over. It was done. He was right. Devon was wrong. The guy was such an ass. Then he suddenly yanked Devon’s office door open and leaned out into the hallway. “Hey! Cleaning lady. Get your ass in here now!”
“Oh my God, Orion!” Devon shot to his feet and glared at his brother. “Her name is Ms. Delgado. You don’t have to behave that way about it! Please at least pretend or try to be respectful. The poor woman deserves better.”
“That’s debatable in my book,” Orion retorted.
Billion Dollar Wolves: Boxset Bks 1-5 Page 74