14. Seraphina
14
SERAPHINA
I skipped my Wednesday evening workout because the boys let me know it was go time to bust Hart.
I didn’t know what they’d learned from their interview with him this morning. While they’d kept in communication with me as promised, they’d been ghosts on campus.
It was a solid strategy. The OFS campus at large didn’t need to know there was a private security firm sniffing around the staff, and the girls didn’t need to be slicking their panties every time Loki, Blaze, or Hawk wandered by.
The latter made the twinge of disappointment I felt as each day passed without seeing them easier to endure.
Nothing I’d seen while working on my project of tracking Hart’s movements and digging into his real estate holdings had turned up anything untoward, but the connection to that rapist Stone and the phone calls from our campus were shady as hell.
The rat bastard was up to something.
I’d tried to drop a few subtle hints to Paige that maybe she should start limiting her time at his office hours and that she should definitely stop fawning over the guy, but she’d just shushed me, patted me lovingly on the arm, and handed me a mango boba tea before we walked into Hart’s class.
At least I was able to obnoxiously slurp those tapioca balls while he lectured.
In addition to skipping tonight’s scheduled workout, the pent-up adrenaline I hadn’t expended by having another round of vigorous sex with my not-biker Alphas after they’d left their scents on my sheets made me a tad impatient to get things underway.
So, by the time Loki, Blaze, and Hawk had snuck their way into the science building for our rendezvous at Hart’s office, they’d already missed the fun.
“Lamb,” Loki growled as he marched through the door he’d expected to find locked. Blaze and Hawk ducked in behind him. “We said six o’clock in the faculty lounge down the hall.”
I knelt behind Hart’s desk, meticulously putting the few files remaining in his drawer back in place before I closed it with a quiet click. “Yes, but as you know, Hart left campus thirty minutes early today because he has a continuing education dinner tonight at my mother’s favorite French restaurant near the Palisades. And I can traverse campus a lot faster than you guys can, since I don’t have to be sneaky about it.”
No, anyone who saw me slinking around in a dark purple sweatshirt, black-camouflage-print pants, and a ball cap with a taco on it that I got at a local minor league baseball game when I was eleven wouldn’t have looked twice. That was just Seraphina on her usual bullshit.
The boys wore their Sentinel uniforms this evening, except their plain long-sleeved gray T-shirts were missing the company logo.
I would ignore the fact that they also hugged those sculpted chests so tightly, I could make out every little dip and groove.
“So,” I went on, “I figured I’d just knock this part out real quick so we’d have more time to snoop around his house where the good stuff probably is.”
Blaze smothered a laugh when Loki glared at him. “Well, did you find anything interesting in your search, Princesa?”
I stood up and dusted off my pants. “No. It was as you guys suspected—your interview probably spooked him, and he cleaned this place out before he left for the day. No laptop, no phone, no personal paperwork whatsoever. All that’s left in here are a few medical journals and copies of graded tests from last semester’s final exams. And before you ask, I checked the desk and the bookshelf for hollow parts that could indicate a hidden compartment and found nothing.”
They stared at me for a beat. “Well, okay then,” Hawk said, shooting me his adorable smile. “I don’t think we need to do our own sweep, do you Loki?”
Loki grunted. “No, I trust Seraphina knows what she’s doing.”
He might as well have knelt at my feet and declared his undying love. “Thank you,” I said diplomatically even as I fought the blush that threatened to out me. “Then let’s get moving to Hart’s house. We can head down the back stairs, then I’ll give you guys a ride to your vehicle.”
Blaze’s dark brows bounced upward. “A ride to our vehicle?”
I shrugged and moseyed to the door, grabbing Loki’s hand as I passed. “Follow me, please.”
He shot the others a smug grin and let me drag his gargantuan ass through the door and out into the hall.
After making our way through the darkened corridor where the science faculty officed and slipping down the rarely used stairs at the rear of the building, I led the boys to the location of my borrowed golf cart, which was parked behind some rosebushes. When I released Loki’s hand to slide into the driver’s seat, the guys jostled one another like middle schoolers to race to grab the seat next to me.
“Nice try, asshole,” Loki grumbled, grabbing Blaze by the pants as he shot past Loki in front of the cart.
Blaze twisted and shoved Loki into the roses. “Don’t be greedy. You got to hold her hand.”
Loki swore and shot a long leg out, tripping Blaze as he made his move. Hawk used the chaos to sneak around the back of the cart and slip quietly into the seat next to me, grinning like a loon. “They always do this,” he whispered in my ear, his breath warm on my cheek and his comforting clove-and- man scent blooming. “Wanna leave them here?”
I swatted his bicep. So firm . “Stop that. We’re a team.”
He sighed. “You’re right. Give them a love tap.”
I inched us forward, rolling silently until the bumper nudged Blaze in the ass as he attempted to crawl on top of Loki. “All aboard,” I announced. “The Sera train is departing in thirty seconds.”
Blaze laughed and rolled effortlessly to his feet, his boots silent on the dirt beneath us. He gave Loki a hand up, and Loki threw an affectionate arm around Blaze’s shoulders as they walked around the golf cart and crammed themselves into its tiny rear-facing backseat.
And then we were away, streaking through the grounds in the low light of the setting sun toward the deserted visitors parking lot.
Loki drove us into the heart of the city. Sentinel issued its operatives custom-made SUVs similar to those my brothers and dads drove for Bryce Solutions. Except while ours were all-black American cars, theirs were gunmetal gray imports. We all had the same taste in tinted, bullet-resistant windows and center consoles that contained fun toys.
Hawk rode shotgun while Blaze lounged in the back with me, looking unruffled and hot, very unlike a guy who’d just tussled in a rosebush. He brushed his thick black hair out of his face, eyeing me with an unrepentant appreciation that stoked a warm little fire in my belly. His nails still had black nail polish on them, but they were looking shinier and less chipped than the night he’d fucked me in the MC clubhouse.
“Pull into the alley,” I said to Loki as he turned onto a picturesque street in the middle of Whitetail Hills. “The trash pickup in this neighborhood is through the alleys behind the houses, so all the backyards have an access gate. We can approach Hart’s house that way.”
Hawk turned in his seat to give me an inquisitive look. “How do you know all this, Little Flame? Our research said this is a wealthy area, but it’s still not the type of place where packs of the OFS caliber live. I suspect you have not fraternized with the inhabitants of Whitetail Hills.”
He wasn’t wrong. The types of extremely wealthy packs that my family considered our peers were concentrated in the Palisades.
I gestured in the vicinity of the block behind us. “A terrible pack that used to live over that way is the reason my brothers met their omega. I know about this area because I’ve heard the story many times.”
Loki rolled to a stop next to a pair of green trashcans and killed the engine. He met my gaze in the rearview mirror, his eyes appearing almost silver in the darkness. “Your brothers’ omega who works with them at Bryce Solutions?”
No trace of disbelief in that question, which was a first. Most pack-oriented folks were horrified by what Dylan got up to, and they didn’t even know the half of it. These boys had probably been desensitized to the idea of omegas in the field by their unfortunate run-in with yours truly.
“She works for her family’s hardware store and occasionally moonlights with her dad’s security consulting company,” I replied. “My dad has tried to hire her many times, and she’s one of the few people who have ever told him no.”
Blaze snickered. “Bet your parents hear no from you quite often, Princesa.”
I shrugged innocently. If he only knew. “But,” I went on, “pretty much the whole state knows that Dylan was involved in the bust of the omega auction scheme two years ago.”
“We definitely heard that news,” Hawk said. “Bryce Solutions and their heroic takedown of several very prestigious packs engaged in trafficking underaged omegas. Our employer was so jealous of all the PR you guys were getting.”
“And this omega, Dylan, became a minor celebrity among the guys at work,” Blaze added. “People had a hard time believing that a pack of your brothers’ stature had bonded with an omega who was beta born, late awakening, and—” He poked me and shuddered dramatically. “— middle-class .”
I swatted his hand away.
Hawk laughed. “Then those assholes all saw her picture and declared they wanted her to step on their necks.”
I snorted. “Yeah, Dylan’s a hottie. She also climbed through a second-story window in a pack’s house a block away from here and ran off with their seventeen-year-old omega, rescuing her from a life of abuse.”
They sobered. “Ah,” Loki said, still pinning me in place with his gaze through the rearview mirror. “That’s how you know how to help omegas in danger, isn’t it, Lamb? How you know about the women’s center in New Mexico?”
“Yep. I’m trusting you guys with this information, but Dylan and her family have saved a lot of women and girls over the years. I’m an OFS omega, so I didn’t know how bad it was out here. But I bet you guys did, huh?”
Loki cleared his throat. “Not exactly. We haven’t dealt with pack abuse or omega trafficking in our short tenure at Sentinel. Not until now, anyway.”
I gave him a small smile. “No time like the present to learn. My brothers were hired by that abusive pack to find their supposedly kidnapped omega, and it ran them right into Dylan. She set them straight. They’ve never looked back, and the omegas of this city are a little safer for it.”
Loki returned my smile. “Let’s go see if Professor Hart has any clues for us so that we might also be of some help to any omegas who are caught up in whatever this scheme is.”
We exited the car in silent, synchronized movements. We fell in line, taking care to tread silently as we approached Hart’s back gate. Loki led us, and I’d weaseled my way into second. Hawk was behind me, and Blaze brought up the rear.
“Hawk, confirm security cameras are down,” Loki whispered as he pushed open the gate.
“Confirmed. Our drone scrambled everything within a half-mile radius, but we only have about thirty minutes.”
“That’s handy,” I mused as we crept through the small well-kept backyard. The yard was as pretentious as the man. Expensive, untouched patio furniture situated under a tall, covered pergola. A pristine grill. Landscaping that had been installed by a professional and looked like it cost at least fifty grand. “You have a signal jammer drone?” I asked Hawk.
He winked at me. “What, you guys don’t?”
“I’m sure we do, but I only get to play with the toys Jere issues me.” I’d have to ask Cam later about our drone capabilities.
We paused in front of the French doors that led into the back of the house. It was a two-story Craftsman-style home, common in the neighborhood, and a whole lot of space for a divorced bachelor.
“Lamb, would you like to do the honors?” Loki asked.
“Of course,” I said in my most professional voice. I wasn’t giddy at the prospect of getting to show off my skills or that Loki trusted I could handle the job, no sir.
I slipped to the front of the line and whipped my lock picks from my belt pouch. I made quick work of the deadbolt—oddly easier than the golf cart’s ignition—and then I slowly opened the door.
The telltale beeping of the alarm system activating its countdown greeted me in the dark kitchen. The boys drifted in behind me like sexy ghosts, and I located the alarm’s keypad next to the dining room table.
I punched in the code I’d memorized on the way here, and the system disarmed.
“We need to move,” Loki announced. “We have to hope Hart is too busy peacocking in front of his colleagues at the dinner tonight to be checking alerts from his alarm company on his phone.”
“I’ll head upstairs with Sera, if you guys wanna clear downstairs?” Hawk suggested.
“Fine,” Loki said.
Blaze gave me a devastating pout at the prospect of us not being partners. I blew him a kiss, and Loki shoved him to move him along.
“We’ll meet you up there,” Loki said. “Remember, we’re looking for anything that links him to Stone and the MC, anything related to Ackers Pharma, and anything else that sets off your Spidey senses.”
I saluted him. Hawk snickered, snatched my hand, and led me up the stairs.
Ten minutes later, Hawk and I had cleared the sparse guest bedroom and Hart’s bedroom, which had also seemed barely lived in, and had finally reached the real prize—the home office.
“Hawk,” I whispered as I stood in front of the large bookshelf that took up an entire wall. “C’mere. Is that who I think it is?”
He set down the stack of papers he’d been rifling through and prowled over. He pressed in behind me, his hard chest brushing up against the back of my neck. His spicy scent caressed my whole body, and a warm hand landed on my hip as he leaned over me to study the photo I’d found on a random shelf next to a 3D model of a DNA helix. It was a photo of a middle school baseball team in Tiller, Texas, from 2001.
“Yep, that sure looks like Stone and Onyx in the back row,” he replied. He snapped a picture with his phone. “They’re young, but we have their childhood pictures in our files.”
“And there’s Hart, right in the middle of the front row,” I added, pointing at the blond boy with a smarmy little smile. “I mean, I suppose this just confirms what you already knew about their connection.”
“This is even better, Little Flame,” he replied. “We knew Hart and the McKinney brothers lived on the same street as kids, but that didn’t mean they were friends or interacted at all. This confirms they at least had some face time—they played on the same baseball team.”
Loki and Blaze slunk into the room. “You two look cozy,” Blaze said, grinning. He wasn’t wrong—Hawk had me plastered to his front and definitely dipped his nose into the crook of my neck at the exact moment the other two arrived. “Are you working, Hawk, or getting high on our sweet Sera’s scent?”
“I can multitask,” he retorted. He released me with a heavy sigh and gestured at the photo. “We’ve got a baseball team photo of Hart, Stone, and Onyx here, and so far, the only paperwork on the desk are bills and brochures for lab equipment.”
Blaze seized the opportunity to take Hawk’s place at my back, smelling all woodsy and masculine as he looked over the photo. He hummed, and then a big, calloused hand landed on the back of my neck, his thumb working at a sore muscle there.
I moaned softly. “Feels nice.”
Alpha pheromones saturated the air. Loki and Hawk stood over the desk, but their heated gazes were on Blaze and me.
Damn it. We were getting distracted.
I tapped Blaze’s hand, and he released me without protest. “There’s only one locked drawer in the desk,” I said, making my way over to it. “Want me to get my picks out again?”
“I’ll take this one, Lamb.” Loki knelt next to the top drawer on the right side of the desk and pulled his tools from his belt. I tried not to moan again as those long, nimble fingers popped the lock in record time.
He opened the drawer. A single manila file folder lay there.
Hawk set it on the desk and flipped it open. The rest of us crowded around him, vying for a look. I couldn’t see anything over the tall bastards, so I elbowed Blaze in the ribs. He chuckled and took a minuscule step back before tucking me neatly against his hard chest.
“It’s a shareholder agreement,” Loki said, his icy eyes scanning the page. “For a company called the Families for All Institute.”
“Hart’s a minority shareholder, along with someone named Candi Jenkins,” Hawk added as he read along.
That name rang a little bell in my head, but I couldn’t quite place it.
“And the majority of the funding for this is coming from outside the US,” Hawk went on. “That name looks… Russian?”
“There’s a separate copy of the whole document in Russian,” Loki confirmed as he flipped through the pages.
“Does it say what this institute does?” I asked.
“In vague terms,” Loki replied. “This says, ‘The purpose of the company shall be to develop products and processes to promote family growth for beta citizens and matters incidental to or in support of such endeavors.’”
Blaze whistled. “I mean, it’s not a smoking gun, but our client is missing a fertility drug, and helping betas have kids seems to be this company’s entire mission.”
“And this tracks with Hart’s weird-as-fuck obsession with having a ‘legacy,’” Loki added.
Uh. “His obsession with what ?” I asked.
“We've been meaning to tell you to change your schedule so you no longer have to be in the same room as this guy, Princesa,” Blaze said. He squeezed his arms tighter around me with a little growl. “You were right about him—the vibes are off.”
Hawk held his phone over the document, scanning each page to Sentinel’s secure server. “I’ve almost got it all uploaded,” he said. “And we’re about to run out of time. Hart’s dinner was over five minutes ago, and our tracker shows he’s on the move. The security cameras on the nearby houses are also about to cycle back online.”
“This is our lead,” Loki said, banging his big fist on the desk with finality. “We’ll dig into this institute and its investors. There’s no way this company isn’t who hired Stone and orchestrated the break-in at the lab.”
“For sure,” I agreed. “I’m ready to get the hell out of here?—”
A loud pounding sounded at the front door. “Hart! Open up!”
We froze. Blaze’s arms went rigid around me. Loki swore. Hawk and I exchanged a wide-eyed look.
I shook free of Blaze’s embrace. This was not the time to panic.
“We’re going with Plan B,” I announced. “Let’s move.”