10. An Offer
An Offer
Tony
The phone rings three times, and she still hasn’t answered. Matty, my partner, is in Virginia, so we’re in the same time zone. It’s been a long time since the two of us were in the same time zone. I check my watch. She does have a baby, so sometimes I’m ignored for nap time.
“Tony!” she answers with excitement. “It’s my second favorite private dick. I haven’t heard from you in a few days. I did see the credit card purchases from Puerto Rico though.”
“Matty, listen, this is important…” I didn’t call her to catch up. I’ve stumbled upon some extremely troubling information. That being the case, I’m suddenly very offended. “Wait. Your second favorite dick? Who’s your first?”
“The dad from Veronica Mars.”
“Oh, yeah, ok. He’s my favorite, too. Matty, I need you to listen though. This is serious.”
I can hear her step into another room and shut the door.
“Did you find her?” Matty was my friend before she was ever my partner.
I’ve trusted her ever since she told me my hair looked better a little grown out, and she’s never led me astray since.
When I took this case, she told me she thought something was fishy, and I agreed, but when I got more information, I found myself growing more and more curious.
Then I woke up with the plan fully formed for how I might start.
I have trouble letting things go once I sink my teeth into them…
“Yes, she’s here in San Juan. Same hotel.”
“Hot damn! Pay day! They’ve been paying all your expense invoices, too, as soon as I submit them. When this is all done, you could probably put like ten grand towards the severance! Only like, one hundred grand more to go! You’re closer to being free, Tony!”
Matty may be excited, but my chest is tight, and I can’t work out what’s got me so hung up. There’s something happening. Like it happened in the future, and I’m feeling the effects even here in the past.
“Hold on, there’s more.”
“Fuck you. There’s not more.”
“Goddamn, Matty, don’t you have a baby around? Language.”
“Babies don’t care if their moms say fuck, and more to the point—I fucking knew this case was going to get dicey. It’s been three months, and you haven’t taken your nose off the ground. I’ve never seen you this relentless and single-minded.”
I’m going to pretend she didn’t say that.
“It’s not just me who’s after her,” I tell her. “She ran into a man, an FBI agent named Special Agent Dave Aparat. He works for international crimes. I think she’s being set up.”
While I’ve kept most of the details from Matty, she knows how the omega funds her adventures. She knows about the thievery.
“Tony…you need to get out of there. Now.”
“I know.”
“I can hear it in your voice that you don’t fucking know. Call the client and explain everything right now, and then leave. I can get you on a flight tonight.”
I’m nodding because I know she’s right, but I have my eyes squeezed tight because I don’t want to face this.
I don’t want to leave before I smell her pheromones.
Every alpha and omega has a unique scent profile, and being a bloodhound and a man who thrives on collecting information, I’m especially wild about scents.
I know it’s unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but the animal in me is so insistent it feels like life or death.
“I’ll call him,” I say in direct opposition to my hindbrain’s desires.
“You don’t have to. I’ve dialed him into a three-way call. I don’t trust you, and I hope you forgive me.”
The line goes dead silent as Matty connects me to the client, Roman Livingston.
“This is Rome.”
“Hello Alpha, this is Miss Walker. I’ve got Tony on the line with the Bloodhound Detective Agency.”
“Roman, can you hear me?” I ask, like a good hired man.
“Yes, sir. Do you have news for me?”
I take a deep breath and don my professional mask.
“Yes, I’ve located Omega Kelya, she’s—” I’m about to launch into it, but Roman cuts me off. “Oh good Fate! I knew you were the alpha for the job! What wonderful news for today! Fate is smiling on us. I can feel it.”
Oh, I forgot he’s a religious man. Alphas from large, old clans tend to believe in Fate. They say Fate dictates scent matches and pack formations. They blame it for everything. For a pragmatic man like me, it always throws me off when alphas talk like this.
“How is she?”
“She’s good. Alive and well.”
“You have eyes on her?”
I know she’s out with some man, but I haven’t lost her.
“Yes.”
He laughs joyously. It’s a little manic sounding, and I wait for him to finish.
“Good for you. Good for you.”
Good for me?
“Listen, Roman, I—”
Again the man cuts me off. “When will you bring her back?”
I make a weird noise, shake my head, then tell him, “I’m sorry, but the details of our contract don’t include taking her anywhere. I have some audio and visuals. I have her information…”
“Ok, great. No problem. Now that you have all that—bring her to Saint Kane. I’ll pay whatever you want.”
I’ve been standing in my hotel room this entire time, but this makes me need to sit down.
Saint Kane is a desert city hours outside of Las Vegas.
It would take two flights at least to get to Vegas.
The picture of tying up the little omega in my ropes, throwing her over my shoulder, and carting her through the airport flashes in my mind.
“Name your price,” he says with a sober tone after my silence persists.
The frustrating and strange part is that he doesn’t want to know where we are. He doesn’t want anything I have on her. He just wants me to “bring her in.”
“I’m sorry, but kidnapping isn’t really—”
“Tony! I’m not asking you to kidnap her. Tell her whatever she wants to hear. Bring her to me. What do you want? Another $100,000? $400,000?”
The man just casually quadrupled his own offer. I can practically hear Matty on the other end losing her mind.
“I’ve never transported someone—”
For the umpteenth time, Roman cuts me off.
“Five hundred thousand to bring her to the airport in Las Vegas.”
Absolute silence rings in my ears.
This would transform my life, and Matty’s. She left her husband a month ago and is struggling financially. I could get my house back after being able to pay the severance in full…
This money would finally end my financial situation with Emmanuelle and her alphas. I would be free.
“What do you say?”
A crack forms in my skull from the conflicted depths of my thoughts.
I could bring her in. I know I could do it.
Whether by force or coercion. I could use that time to satisfy my own needs and smell her.
I could also take care of the FBI trail.
I know how they think and what they need.
I have all the equipment…I didn’t spend six years working with the cops and learn nothing about the Feds.
Roman sounds like he’s dangling a carrot as he says, “As soon as you land, I can wire the money. Can you bring her in, or not?” He takes a frustrated breath. “If it’s not you, I’ll take what information you have and send someone else…”
The alpha in me completely takes over my body to shout, “No!”
I yank the phone away from my face and growl, pushing the animal side of me away.
This is something only feral alphas or alphas in rut experience. Or bloodhounds driven mad by their scent trail.
“I mean, no need. I’ll do it. I’ll bring her in. Give me a week.”
“Great! I knew I could count on you. I’ll have my beta talk to your beta.”
He clicks off the line.
“Tony…” Matty’s voice is uncharacteristically soft on the other line.
I kneel next to the bed and push my forehead into the side.
“I know.”
“This is a bad idea.”
“I know.”
“I’ll have my beta talk to your beta,” she mocks.
It gets a laugh out of me. A defeated, tragic laugh.
“These clan alphas are such assholes.”
I can’t believe I agreed to this, but I couldn’t leave Kelya to the Feds or whomever Roman decided to hire next. She’s mine.
I stand up, resigned to what I need to do, and grab my wallet and room key. With no plan, only headless instinct, I march out of the hotel. My inner alpha knows what we need. I don’t question the instinct. I need ropes—hemp and nylon—if I’m going to capture the notorious omega.