Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Islip out onto the balcony, shivering as the freezing air hits me. I am wrapped in Zero’s luxurious white coat, which trails through the thin layer of snow on the floor.
I may have developed a thing for wearing my celebrity Beta’s clothes.
Plus, banana pudding.
Icarus smartly marches behind me, saying just a shade louder than he needs to, “It’s romantic out here on the balcony. While everyone else helps Zero practice for his performance, I’m going to steal you away for some time alone.”
Then he closes the glass balcony door behind him.
He doesn’t say anything else, resting his hand between my shoulder blades. He guides me as far away from the door that leads to the bedroom as he can to the edge of the balcony.
No one would be able to tell that he’s putting on an act.
Except, I can tell the tension in his touch and how stiffly he’s holding himself.
His expression is shuttered.
In the lounge, Zero is playing a soulful song from his new album on an acoustic guitar.
I can hear Piper’s excitable laughter and Lionzio’s steady voice.
This is the moment that Icarus has been waiting for ever since he returned to the suite.
It’s the moment that I have been nervously waiting for as well, when he would be able to get me alone and have the talk, which he needed.
Please, let it be good news.
My stomach tightens. I feel sick.
I lean my forearms on the icy wrought iron railing.
The balcony is as elegant and decorative as the rest of the hotel.
I stare out at Haven, which looks chocolate box pretty under the powdery snow and gray clouds.
Main Street has been decorated with warm twinkling lights, and the rooftops and trees have been dusted with snow like icing.
The small town has never looked so beautiful to me.
So close but yet so far away.
I swallow the lump in my throat.
I am over aware of Icarus standing at my shoulder. The tension between us is hazy in the air like our misted breaths.
I can’t have that.
I’ve always been good at breaking tension.
“Why do you have a baby changing bag slung over your shoulder?” I ask, still not looking around. “Did you change Zoe earlier and decide that it went with your suit? Suave.”
Finally, Icarus relaxes, slinging the neon green dinosaur bag between us.
He rests his arms next to mine. “Indeed, I’ve long been jealous of Zoe’s crib too. Wait, I didn’t—”
I laugh, turning to my Alpha too fast and stumbling into him.
He steadies me, gripping me by the elbows.
Our lips meet.
Icarus gentles the kiss, dragging me closer.
I sigh, allowing myself to have this sweet moment in the cold beauty overlooking a town, from which Icarus and I have long been barred.
Yet we’re fighting to change that.
Nobody is going to keep us trapped in this hotel after tomorrow, right?
Icarus pulls back far enough just to whisper against my lips, “You’d make the best first Omega spy. Kissing is a good cover.”
I wrinkle my brow. “Right, that is exactly why I kissed you.”
It isn’t.
He kisses me again, before he whispers, low and urgent, “The heist is on.”
I tense with excited anticipation.
“Details.” I kiss down my Alpha’s jaw, looping my arms around him as we lean against the balcony. Feather light snow drifts down around us, as if it’s helping to hide our secrets as well. “When? Where? How?”
“I saw Hatton. You know, your brother has impressed me. He’s as much a schemer as you are.
” Icarus casts me an impressed look, while I pretend — while thrilling with the act as well — to nuzzle him merely because we’re having a romantic moment.
I work my hand toward the hard cock tenting his pants.
Even if the rest of the pack were to see us through the glass doors, they wouldn’t know that we were plotting.
“But I also spoke to the staff in the basement garage.”
I break off licking up Icarus’ neck in shock. “All of them? But haven’t you just put everybody at risk?”
He clenches his jaw. “I’ve given them the first true choice that they’ve had in years.
If we want to truly let the Omegas, as well as the Betas, have better conditions and a say in the running of the hotel chain, then they need to feel an investment in it from the very beginning.
I didn’t tell them the details, of course, or about anyone’s involvement but my own.
Do you want to know how many offered to help? ”
I shake my head, still reeling.
Icarus is Chief Alpha of the Sinner pack. He has been the protector to every Beta and Omega for years. He has suffered so fucking much for everybody.
I should have known that he would make this decision.
I don’t know any other Alpha that would think a HO’s opinion mattered on anything.
Icarus tips up my head. His intense gaze meets mine.
Snow lands on his eyelashes and halos his golden hair.
“Every single one.” Icarus’ face becomes soft in a way that it rarely is. “They’re all in, despite the fact that I told them they had no obligation to be. It was overwhelming.”
I brush a snowflake off his cheek. “You’re their Alpha.
They have seen you take beatings and isolation punishments for them.
You have cut up your clothes to make sure that the Omegas have something to nest with.
You’re dedicated to each and every one of them.
They trust you. If you say that you have a plan to save them, of course they believed you.
And of course they would want to support you any way that they could.
They would have your back because they’re family. ”
“I better not fuck this up then, had I?” Icarus’ cheeks flush, and he looks happy in a way that he rarely does.
“Standing in the garage, looking out over so many people and realizing that we were responsible for saving or condemning them, it made me realize both why we’re taking this risk but also, why it can’t go wrong. ”
I tilt up my chin. “Fuck that. No more keeping in our place because of being scared of flying too close to the sun and crashing into the sea, remember? It’s time to rise up.”
Dominant pheromones roll off Icarus in waves; his eyes gleam. “Chaos goblin.”
“Proud of it.” I lean closer to Icarus with a smirk. “And you love it.”
“When did I deny it?”
I kick the changing bag with my foot. “Where does this come in?”
“Careful.” Icarus stoops to pick up the bag, before grabbing me by the waist and turning me to face the balcony again.
He holds the bag in front of us to block any view of it from inside the suite.
“Are you about to reveal diapers?” I arch my brow. “Because I’m pretty fucking familiar with those.”
“More like a heist kit. But camouflaged. People are used to seeing you and me with this bag. Security, Ellington, or Maya wouldn’t question us about having it.
” He unzips the bag with the same efficiency as he writes schedules for staff shifts or Zoe’s routines.
“Your stethoscope is in here. The when of the heist is Christmas Eve. Midnight.”
I itch to reach out and peer in at my beloved safe cracking kit, only holding myself back with difficulty. “Zero will be in the middle of his set for the ball. People will be drunk, obsessed with their new matches, or mesmerized by Immortal’s performance.”
“Lashonda and the other servers will put on an extra distraction for you.”
Of course Lashonda would offer that.
“What about the other security measures?”
Icarus looks smug. “It’s lucky, Robin Hood, that your—”
“Maid Marian?”
“King Richard,” Icarus growls, “has the keys to the kingdom. I have access to the keycards that grant access to both the penthouse and the Frost private elevator. It will alert security, however, when I use it. And the private security company is hired in from outside the hotel. I happen to know that they will be tempted to leave the monitors at midnight to watch the climax of the concert since they are big Immortal fans.”
“Tempted by you.”
“What an accusation.” Icarus flashes his canines.
“By Michah, actually. You know how good he is with creating buzz when he wants to be. The alarms on the safe, however, they’re another matter.
Once you start to disable the security systems, it will send an instant notification to the team’s phones.
You’ll have precisely seven minutes from that time. ”
I clench my hands over the frozen edge of the railing, staring down at the lush, evergreen guest gardens that grow dizzyingly far below. “It’ll be close.”
Fucking close.
“You can do it.” Icarus sounds too confident in me. “After all, you’re an Omega safe cracker. You told me that you were talented. That this was your lifelong dream. I’ve set this up. Now, you’re going to do it.”
My heart swoops.
How much is he doing this all for me?
Because I told Icarus that it was my dream to be a safe cracker and not a rejected and abandoned Omega? That it has always been my dream to free my pack?
“I can do it,” I say, buoyed up by Icarus’ confidence in me.
As long as nothing unexpected goes wrong…
I don’t add that part. “But I still need to bypass the two final security measures. First is Maya’s fingerprint.
She recently had both that and her facial recognition added to the door of the safe.
I can’t even start to crack it, until they have been disabled on the panel. ”
“Easy.”
I roll my eyes. “You spend your time pushing paperclips around and not plotting bank jobs. Let me tell you that finger scanners aren’t easy, unless we could exploit the software that manages the scanner, and we don’t have the time for that.
I guess that we could lift an impression of Maya’s fingerprint but how… ?”
Icarus leans closer to me, and his eyes are twinkling with a life that makes me realize that he’s enjoying this.
But then, so am I.
I always thought that in different circumstances, Icarus would have been something terrifying like an Alpha General.
Or rebel leader.