Chapter 5 - Jasper
Jasper stared down at his hands. He still wasn’t entirely sure what had come over him when he’d made that decision.
It had been the only option, the only way he felt certain they would be able to keep Nikki safe.
That didn’t stop the guilt and self-loathing from slipping over him.
He knew what he’d done, and he knew that Nikki would never forgive him.
But he still felt like he had made the right decision.
He glanced back up at the stairs. It had been over an hour since Nikki had stormed up there. He could still see the anger and hatred on her face. He doubted he’d ever be able to unsee it.
It was for her own protection, he told himself.
That didn’t still the writhing guilt.
Footsteps thumped down the stairs, far louder than he would have expected from such a slender frame. He twisted to look at Nikki, who glared at him. The cut on her forehead still looked nasty. She grabbed her purse and slung it over her shoulder.
“I’m going out,” she said, already storming toward the door without glancing at him or waiting for approval.
Jasper stood. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Nikki froze. She turned toward him, her face a mask.
“You’re joking, right?” she asked, her voice becoming dangerously flat again.
He smothered the guilt once again and kept his expression even. “I want you to stay here until the wedding. Once that’s over, that’s a different story. Until then, I don’t want you leaving the house alone.”
“This is—”
“For all you know, Lucas is outside the house right now, waiting for you to go out on your own so he can drag you away,” Jasper snapped.
Even as he said it, he felt that twinge of self-loathing. On some level, he knew what he was doing was wrong. He knew she would never forgive him. He had made a mess of this, and he knew it. At the same time, he didn’t care. As long as Nikki was safe, he would take her hating him.
A long moment passed while she glowered at him, apparently too furious to articulate anything. He took in the stiff shoulders, the chin tilted up in indignation, her fingers curled into fists. The rage radiating off her was almost palpable. He kept his expression neutral, waiting.
She sighed, her shoulders sagging in resignation, her fingers uncurling. She glanced away, unspeaking. He thought she might walk away in silence.
Finally, she said, “I need to go home to get clothes.”
“I can get them,” he said.
“No,” she said. “I don’t care what you think. I’m not letting you rummage around my apartment—in my closet, no less—on your own.”
“Lucas could be staking out your apartment.”
“He could be staking out here, for all you know!” she exclaimed. “He would have seen us walk off together.”
He exhaled, frowning. He didn’t like the idea of her leaving until she had the security of that marriage. He couldn’t stand the thought of her being hurt or worse. But he was already making her life complicated. The least he could do was capitulate on this request.
“I’m going with you,” he said.
She wasn’t finished yet. “And there’s my job. I can’t just abandon it for days on end. I’ll get fired.”
He frowned. “I don’t think that’s—"
“The library is about as safe as it gets,” she said, eyes burning. “All I have to do is scream, and everyone is going to come running to see what’s going on.”
Sighing, he let out a low breath, one hand rubbing a temple. “Fine,” he growled. “But I’m walking you there and back.”
Her lips thinned, and she jutted her chin. He waited for her to argue.
“Fine,” she said, rounding back toward the door. “Now I need to go to my apartment before I go to the library, so we should probably get going.”
She marched off, not bothering to see if he was behind her.
***
Camden, Franco, and Cillian all listened with shock as Jasper relayed the story.
“So much for things going well,” Cillian muttered after Jasper was finished.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Franco said, arms folded. He tapped his finger against his opposite bicep. “You would think that we would have found some trace of him before now. Are you sure there haven’t been any traces, Camden?”
“Our patrols haven’t picked up anything like this,” Camden said. “No sign of danger at all, let alone any of Sier’s previous crew.”
“Apparently, they aren’t looking hard enough,” Jasper growled.
“They’ve been searching the area fastidiously,” Franco said. “Some areas, we’ve even had them go over twice. If they had seen anything, someone would have caught it.”
“All right, so what are we going to do?” Cillian asked. “Because it doesn’t seem like there’s a good way of finding someone who’s that good at covering their trail.”
“Have people go where he tried to abduct Nikki,” Jasper said. “Your best trackers. Have them search the entire area for some sign of the asshole. Make them keep at it until they find the fucker.”
“I can’t promise the second bit,” Franco confessed. “But I can at least start on the first. I have a couple of guys I trust. If there’s any trace of him, they’ll be able to find it.”
“Good,” Jasper snarled.
Camden began pacing, rubbing his chin. “We need to figure out what his game plan is,” he said. “Because I doubt it ends at kidnapping Nikki. There has to be more going on than just that.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Jasper said. He didn’t add that, in his opinion, Lucas going after Nikki alone was a good enough reason to send everyone hunting for him.
“If we can figure out his plan, then we can probably get a general idea of where he might be hiding, too,” Camden continued.
“So how do we figure out his plan if we can’t find him?” Jasper asked.
“I can do some recon,” Cillian said. “See what I can come up with. Odds are he’s been sniffing around for a while, so I can imagine someone might have seen him, even if they didn’t recognize him at the moment.”
That would work, with the way Lucas had targeted Nikki. That had felt too planned out for it to be a chance. How long had he been stalking Nikki in order to find the perfect time and place to strike? The only reason it hadn’t worked was that Jasper had arrived on the scene.
Granted, Jasper was just as guilty of following Nikki as Lucas, albeit for far different purposes.
The fact that he hadn’t noticed Lucas following Nikki sent new ripples of alarm through him.
Jasper wasn’t as good a tracker as Cillian, but he was still skilled at it.
He should have noticed someone following Nikki.
If Lucas had managed to conceal himself that well, it meant they had a much bigger problem on their hands than they realized.
“This is just what we need,” Camden growled, rubbing his face. “We’ve got enough to deal with right now.”
“How’s that?” asked Jasper.
“Donovan’s stirring up trouble again,” Camden explained.
A collective, exasperated groan filled the room.
Though most of the pack had no issue with the women learning self-defense, a handful of the pack felt differently.
These outliers didn’t think it was a woman’s place to fight, even if it was to protect themselves.
That was the men’s job. Some of them were powerful pack members, physically strong, and they had been high-ranking under the previous alpha’s command.
Out of all of them, Donovan was the most vocal.
It wasn’t as though Donovan had been outright antagonistic since Camden had taken over, but he made a point to constantly question Camden’s choices and make snide remarks that, though he pretended they were supposed to be asides no one could hear, always intentionally carried.
He showed up in the pack house more frequently than one might expect, as if wanting to throw his weight around or make himself heard.
He would talk loudly about how Camden’s uncle, the previous alpha, had done a better job, or how he would have done something differently than Camden.
Tiny little digs that would constantly grow and fester.
The biggest problem with Donovan was that he had a small following. All of the dissenters had rallied behind him. Jasper couldn’t understand it. Donovan only seemed to like provoking Camden.
“What’s he doing this time?” Franco asked.
“Something about wanting more openness to the pack,” Camden explained. “He wants more town meetings and transparency, despite the fact that we already hold meetings every other week to go over things that don’t affect security.”
“Why don’t they just leave if they’re going to be this disgruntled?” Cillian asked. “Do us all a favor.”
Camden shrugged. “As long as they want to stay, they’re welcome, so long as they don’t make any real trouble. I’m not going to kick them out for complaining.”
Cillian grunted, but didn’t argue. At that moment, they all knew they had more problems on their hands than a few unsatisfied pack members.