Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Mason
C olin. There was no doubt in my mind for even a second who was behind this. It could only be Colin, probably with the help of his buddies from Victory Holdings.
“Whoa,” Hayden spoke beside me, gazing around at the wreck of my apartment in awe. “I mean, just…whoa.”
Whoa was an understatement. I took a few steps farther into the room only to have broken glass crunch under my feet. I’d paid a company to decorate the apartment before I got there, and one of the large, framed prints they’d put up on the wall had been yanked down and its glass broken. The rest of it leaned against the edge of the torn-up sofa a few feet away, like someone had checked to see whether anything was hidden somewhere in the frame.
“Somebody was clearly looking for something,” Hayden said, stepping forward to join me. “Or else they were really, really drunk or high.”
Colin wasn’t looking for anything. Or, at least, that hadn’t been his primary motivation. He might have tried to make it look like he was searching for either information or prototypes of my security tech, but really, he was trying to scare me.
“They weren’t high or drunk,” I said, picking my way over to the kitchen area, which was just as much of a mess, with ripped open cereal boxes, coffee grounds everywhere, and the fridge hanging open with its contents spilled out. “They were sending a message.”
“And what message was that?” Hayden asked following me as I kicked aside debris and made a path for us. “That they really, really hate you?”
I paused and turned back to him, knowing I looked stern and alpha-scary. “Yeah, that’s more or less what it is.”
Hayden’s expression registered surprise. “I was just joking, but clearly you’re not,” he said.
I nodded grimly, looking around at the trashed space. “My ex business partner wasn’t happy about me dissolving our previous company and setting out on my own.”
“So he did this to show you how pissed off he is?” Hayden said, picking up a half-smashed coffee cup by its handle where it sat in a puddle of damp sugar from the container that had been knocked over.
I sighed and rubbed a hand over my face, the initial shock of witnessing Colin’s revenge starting to subside. I pulled my phone out of my back pocket. “It’s more complicated than that,” I said, tapping to activate my phone and dialing 9-1-1.
“What, were you two lovers or something?” Hayden asked warily.
Emergency Services answered immediately, so all I could do was shake my head at Hayden before I had to launch into an explanation of the nature of my emergency. Unfortunately, I had to say some pretty unnerving things in front of Hayden.
“I have reason to believe that it isn’t an ordinary break-in,” I told the dispatcher. “I’ve been in the process of separating from a former business partner, and his new associates, I believe, are involved in mafia activity. This could be more serious than a couple of cat burglars.”
“Understood, sir,” the dispatcher said. “I’ll make certain the proper departments are notified.”
As soon as I hung up, Hayden blurted, “So the mob did this? You’re involved with the mob? My bestie, Ari, accidentally got involved with the mob a while back, and it was terrifying.”
Hearing Hayden more or less say he had experience with the mafia, well, sort of, was not what I expected.
“You need to get out of here,” I told him, shuffling across the messed up floor and grabbing his arm, intending to march him out of my apartment. “Whatever is going on here, I don’t want you involved.”
“Ouch,” Hayden said, his pinched face. “And after we had such a lovely day together.”
I huffed out a breath and slowed my steps halfway to the door. “No, that’s not what I mean,” I said, insides roiling for about fifty different reasons. “This is a crime scene. I’ve got someone out to get me. You’re a very pregnant omega. You don’t need this kind of stress right now.”
“Do I look stressed?” Hayden said, throwing his arms out to the sides.
Actually, he looked about as chill as it was possible to be in the middle of a crime scene.
Which only meant that he didn’t understand the seriousness of the situation.
But if I knew anything about Hayden, it was that he was stubborn as fuck, and even if I carried him back down to his own apartment, he would probably end up in my penthouse again before I did. It was probably better to keep him where I could see him, at least for now.
“Okay,” I sighed. “You can stay. But don’t touch anything. This is a crime scene.”
“I feel like I should say that the biggest crime is the generic way you’ve decorated the place, but now doesn’t seem like the time,” Hayden said, glancing to the one wall that still held artwork.
I smiled unexpectedly. It really was the wrong time for jokes, but having Hayden with me, even though every instinct I had was to shelter and protect him from Colin and his friends, made me feel more at ease. It made me feel like I could handle the escalation of the feud between me and Colin much better.
The cops arrived with surprising speed, which was a point in Barrington’s favor to me. They were knocking on the apartment door within fifteen minutes. They’d brought Mr. Granger, the building manager with them.
“I heard there was a break-in,” Mr. Granger said as he stepped into the room, his face going white as he saw the destruction, “but this is next level.”
“Have you been able to determine how the burglars entered the apartment, Mr. Canton?” the young, beta officer who was the clear leader of the small team of cops now prowling over my apartment asked.
I hadn’t had enough brain cells to think about it.
“There are no signs of a forced entry,” Hayden answered without hesitation, sounding so unusually serious that I was certain he was pretending he was part of a TV crime drama. “There aren’t many ways to get into a penthouse apartment either. I think whoever it was came through the door.”
I stared at Hayden, shaking my head slightly when he glanced to me with a proud, goofy grin. The thing was, he was most likely right.
“Has anything been taken?” the officer asked next.
“I don’t think so,” I said, “but I haven’t done a thorough check yet.”
“I can’t believe this happened,” the building manager said, looking ten times more worried than any of the rest of us. “Alton Towers has the finest security equipment and an around the clock security presence. I just don’t see how anyone could have gotten past our systems.”
I arched one eyebrow, wondering if Mr. Granger knew I worked in security. If I had known I’d be facing a break-in, I wouldn’t have necessarily picked this building for my temporary home. I’d already had plans to fit my permanent Barrington house out with the latest of everything I’d been working on. The fact that this had happened at all was pure luck.
“You should probably offer Mr. Canton a few month’s of free rent,” Hayden said with a casual shrug, arms crossed over his protruding belly. His shirt had hitched up on one side, and I caught a tantalizing glimpse of pink, stretched skin over the elastic waistband of his paternity jeans.
I frowned, half for his comment and half because I needed to do something to fight the incongruous lust that welled up in me at the sight of my omega.
I mean, Hayden.
“Yes,” Mr. Granger said, turning to me with wide eyes. “I’ll definitely give you a discount on your rent. And I can recommend several cleaning agencies who can come in and tidy up. I’ll even pay for them.”
I could practically hear the words, “As long as you agree not to sue,” hanging in the air as he finished.
“No one is touching anything,” a new voice said from the doorway.
We all turned to find a tall, female alpha in a detective’s uniform entering the apartment along with a few more officers.
“Det. Shirley,” the alpha said, striding over to me and holding out a hand. “Special investigations unit.”
“Det. Shirley!” Hayden said, bursting into a smile, like he knew the woman. “Great to see you again.”
Det. Shirley turned to Hayden with a surprised look of recognition. “Mr. Kipling,” she said. “What are you doing here?” her gaze dropped to his belly.
Hayden shrugged. “Oh, you know. Wherever the mob is messing with people’s lives, I’m there to get in the way.”
I nearly laughed out loud, which felt so wrong.
“He was just leaving,” I said, trying again to get Hayden to leave and go somewhere safe.
“No, I wasn’t,” Hayden said, eyeing me suspiciously.
Det. Shirley stared at him for another long moment, then looked at me and took a breath. “Okay,” she said, which summed up a lot.
She shifted her stance, then went on.
“I’m going to need you to tell me everything you know about the people you suspect did this while my team investigates,” she said. “Spoiler alert, you won’t be staying here tonight, or for a while as the investigation continues. But deal with that after you get me up to speed.”
I breathed a little easier. I liked Det. Shirley. Female alphas were controversial to a lot of people, but I didn’t care if she was a female alpha, beta, or wizard. She had the aura of someone who got shit done.
So I explained everything to her. I told her about how Colin and I had met, the sort of research we’d been working on, and the reasons the two of us had parted ways. I told her about Victory Holdings as well, or at least everything I knew about them.
“Wow. They sound incredibly fishy,” Hayden added his two-cents-worth from the dining room chair I’d cleared off for him when I started to notice standing for so long was getting to him. “It’s a good thing you didn’t go to that party they hosted. They would have—” He stopped and his eyes glazed over for a second before focusing on me again. “Hey, was that the weekend we?—”
“Shush,” I told him, not as serious as I should have been. Something about Hayden made even the most serious situation into an opportunity for banter and teasing.
Det. Shirly glanced between the two of us, fighting to hide a smirk. “Were the two of you together at the time of this interaction with Victory Holdings?” she asked. “Were you involved during the time when your former business dissolved?”
“Define ‘together’,” Hayden said.
“No,” I answered on top of him. I cleared my throat and said, “Despite the results, it was a one-night stand.”
“Three nights,” Hayden corrected, smiling proudly and rubbing his belly. That only hiked the hem of his shirt up more, and I had to look away.
My face heated so much that I wanted to sink into the floor. Det. Shirley looked at me like she knew everything that had gone on between me and Hayden last year.
But then she sobered me in a hurry by asking, “Does Mr. Gregory know that you and Mr. Kipling here are involved now?”
It felt like someone had pulled the plug on my stomach and drained its entire contents with sudden swoop. “I honestly don’t know,” I said, glancing to Hayden anxiously. “Despite the way it looks, this is all new.”
Det. Shirley nodded. “It’s really too early to make any assumptions, but if I were you, I’d beef up the security wherever it is you live, Mr. Kipling.”
“I live in this same building,” Hayden said, perking up a little.
“That’s convenient,” Det. Shirley said, actually smiling. “While this investigation is ongoing, I’m going to assign a few officers to man the building.”
“I can increase the security presence we have as well,” Mr. Granger said. “As long as it’s not too expensive. We have a pretty tight budget all around for Alton Towers, but clearly this is important.”
I stopped myself from flowing into a sales pitch for Canton Enterprises, but I was tempted. Even though my focus was a higher level of security, I had plenty of things in development that would work for domestic security.
None of that mattered at the moment, however. I moved to stand by Hayden’s chair. Every cell in my body shouted at me that Hayden was more important than anything, Hayden’s security, Hayden’s happiness.
“I’ll feel better knowing that you and the baby are protected in some small way,” I said quietly as Det. Shirley and Mr. Granger discussed security measures for the building while the cops and detectives took pictures of everything and consulted with each other. “But I won’t feel at ease until the people who did this are caught and locked up.”
“Ooh, that sounds very alpha-protective,” Hayden said, grinning up at me as he sat. “Junior likes having a big, strong, protective daddy.”
My face heated like the sun. The way Hayden looked up at me as he said that could have been about the baby, or it could have been him calling me “Daddy”. Either way, it had parts of me thrumming with excitement and possessiveness.
There was more business to take care of, but it was impossible for the entire investigation to take place and be completed that night. It was already past working hours, and it was a weekend. No one wanted to stay up poking around a wrecked apartment until the early hours of Sunday morning.
“Do you have a secure place to stay for the night and a number where I can get in touch with you?” Det. Shirley asked as we started to wind things up. It was past ten o’clock, and everyone was looking a little bleary.
“I suppose I could stay in a hotel,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck to fight off the tension headache the whole evening had given me.
“You could always stay with me,” Hayden piped up, standing, before I could go on to ask for Det. Shirley’s recommendations.
For some reason, his words, so earnestly stated, froze me. A wave of something both sweet and carnal flashed through my body, leaving me numb in some place and as hot as a live wire in others.
“You want me to stay with you?” I asked, even though I’d heard him clearly.
“Yeah,” Hayden said with an almost bashful shrug. “I mean, I live just downstairs. You wouldn’t have to go very far. You could zip back up here to grab clothes and things, or whatever you need. You’d be on hand in case Det. Shirley has any other questions while she and her team are doing their investigation.”
The way he rubbed his stomach and the expectant sparkle in his eyes said way more than his words did. He wanted me to stay with him.
I drew in a breath. Maybe I should stay with him. Maybe Hayden was scared, though fear wasn’t the emotion in his eyes as he asked his question. I could protect him, though. My alpha rumbled with the need to protect him. There was no telling what else Colin might attempt. If he got wind that I was with Hayden, he was just the sort to drag Hayden into our battle.
It was possible that by staying with Hayden, I might be the one to tip my hand and put Hayden in harm’s way. But even if that happened, chances were that Colin would find out about the omega carrying my child eventually. I wanted to be as close to Hayden as I could be when the shit hit the fan.
“Okay,” I said at last, blowing out a breath and scrubbing a hand through my hair. “I guess that’s the best option tonight.”
Hayden beamed with satisfaction once the decision was made. He followed me back to my bedroom, which was also trashed, and helped me pack a small overnight bag when Det. Shirley’s investigators gave us the okay to start moving and touching things.
It was almost a let-down how everyone simply packed up and left. The investigation would be ongoing, but since my apartment had been photographed within an inch of its life, there was nothing left to do there but to leave and lock the door behind me. Hopefully, I’d be able to start the clean-up tomorrow.
The elevator was packed with cops, Det. Shirley’s people, Mr. Granger, me, and Hayden, but at least that meant Det. Shirley could see which floor Hayden lived on when we eventually stepped off. It was a small thing, but it made me feel more secure.
“I’m glad there will be more cops around the building until this all gets sorted out,” Hayden said, reflecting my thoughts as he searched his pockets for his key card. “I don’t think anyone would want to break into my apartment, since this was definitely a targeted job, but you never know.”
I raised one eyebrow as I followed Hayden down the hall to his door. I wasn’t sure if he realized how much danger he might be in by association with me. I hoped he wouldn’t be a target, but the fact was that I had no idea what Colin would do.
A second later, Hayden unlocked his door and pushed it open, and my heart flopped down to my stomach.
“What the hell happened here?” I asked as we stepped into the small, messy apartment.
My first thought was that Colin had already discovered my connection to Hayden and gone after him. The place was a mess, with dishes and food left out on the counter, a pile of laundry on the old sofa off to one side, and a pile of half broken-down boxes in the middle of the room.
“Um, yeah,” Hayden said, shutting the door behind me and locking it once we were both inside. “Welcome to my very humble abode.”
My alpha growled and thrashed. There was no way my baby could live in a pigsty like this.