Snowed in with My Protector (Alpha Mountain)

CHAPTER 1

FALLON

Sitting in the darkness of my hotel room with only colors from the muted television lighting up the space, it feels like someone is watching me. Logically, I know how ridiculous that sounds, but it’s a feeling I can’t shake. I’ve been watching the news all day. It’s been like a train wreck I couldn’t look away from.

Maybe that’s because I’m the reason Luxe Notes is on the news and trending, but not for the reasons my bosses want us to be trending.

“Serves them right for lying to everyone,” I mumble under my breath. “I’m sure those who bought into their lies feel like fools right now.”

Hell, I know I do. I am a fool. I thought I was working for an ethical company, one that wasn’t swayed by money to the extent that everyone else has been. I thought it was about the love of bringing luxury to people in the right way because scent is an intrinsic part of the human experience. That’s at least the bullshit I bought when I was a consumer and then when I perused the company like a dog with a bone.

I pull the hair elastic from my hair and run my fingers through the tangled mess before pulling it all back up again. It’s a nervous habit, one I couldn’t stop right now even if I wanted to.

Fear churns in my gut as I watch the stock of Luxe Notes drop as the screen starts to show the evidence I leaked to a reporter two nights ago. Again. I’m not even sure how many times they’ve shown the proof of what the company I’ve been loyal to for years hides behind their nice, wholesome public persona.

It’s the same evidence that changed my entire life when I found it. It feels like I stumbled across what I was never supposed to see a year ago, but it hasn’t been that long. It’s only been a matter of days.

How can your entire life change in the matter of minutes?

I thought I learned that lesson when I was a young girl, and my mom died. Everything changed then, even as I was surrounded by the linger scent of mom’s perfume. I was young and Dad tried to shield me from the ripple her loss caused in the rest of my life, but I still felt it.

There was no one to shield me when my boss was sick, and I was asked to pull up some information on my boss’ computer that their boss needed. Mr. Carlisle, someone I hadn’t had much interaction with, had called me out of the blue just as I was about to pack up and leave the lab at Luxe Notes.

“Ms. Eades,” he barked when I answered, already sounding annoyed, “since Dr. Hamilton is out of the lab, I need you to pull some reports from his computer and send them to me.”

I swallowed hard, trying to keep the waver out of my voice, “Of course, Mr. Carlisle. I have a pen and paper right here. If you tell me what you need me to send, I can do that right now before leaving for the day.”

He huffed out a breath, like I was annoying him because I wasn’t a damn mind reader and didn’t already know what it was he needed. I swallowed down the snarky words that wanted to come out and tell him my crystal ball wasn’t working because I knew it would only get me in trouble. Mr. Carlisle was intimidating as hell, and my job was too important to me to put it at risk.

He rattled off some information at me and I jotted it down, hoping I could find all the reports without needing to contact Dr. Hamilton, who sounded a little like he was on the verge of death when he called me earlier. I had assured him everything in the lab was fine and he should focus on getting better.

“I want them within the hour,” Mr. Carlisle demanded before hanging up on me.

Even though I was wasting precious time, I stared at the phone for a moment, wondering why such a rich man was so mad at the world.

“Maybe he’s rich because his foul mood scares everyone and makes him seem like a strong businessman when really he’s a grumpy bastard,” I huffed out my displeasure before glancing around and letting out a relieved sigh because no one was around to hear me.

Being a workaholic seemed to be a good thing in that moment.

I went into Dr. Hamilton’s office, which was enclosed by glass walls allowing him to appear accessible to the lab while keeping everyone working under him in his sights. It felt strange to sit at my boss’s desk. Even though we had to log into individual programs, like the email, the computers weren’t password protected. Why would they be when we were expected to share all files and research in our little department, and you had to pass through more than one security checkpoint to get to the lab in the first place?

I always found it a little odd, but at the same time our IT department and people far above my pay grade were in charge of things like that. I didn’t see it as something I needed to question. Since I used my work computer to note the blends I was making along with the extraction techniques I was experimenting with, I had nothing to hide.

As I started to pull up the reports Mr. Carlisle needed, which, for the most part, were easy to find, my eyes kept going to a folder on the desktop labeled ‘JANUS’. It was like I couldn’t ignore it, especially being familiar with the two-faced God. I should have ignored its existence, but I couldn’t.

In the attempt to preserve Dr. Hamilton’s privacy, I didn’t open the file right away. I did open up the file’s history and noted that it was normally hidden. I murmured, “Why would you hide this?”

Once I had sent off the reports Mr. Carlisle needed, I really was going to walk away from the computer and forget all about the strange file, and how eerie it was sitting in the chair my boss normally occupies. Really. I was.

But then I clicked on the file. Because I couldn’t keep well enough alone and my curiosity was going to haunt me. What I found in that file was a mix of reports and documents, all of which blew the public persona of Luxe Notes out of the water.

There were results from animal testing which made my stomach turn. I wanted to believe that they weren’t related to the company I had given so much time and effort to…right up until I noticed that they were still using a certain extraction tag, one of mine. Honeysuckle is a difficult flower to extract fragrance from and I had devoted a lot of time to coming up with a way that would be sustainable and ethical. I was mostly successful, and it was difficult as hell. I always labeled my samples as PITAHS and that didn’t change even when I had completed my work.

And right there staring at me were the testing notes and results for PITAHS-27. On bunnies.

I wish that was all I found, but I couldn’t stop there. I had to see it all. When I got to the reports about acquiring materials, I had to look away. Because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

The same orchids I could see on my workstation from Dr. Hamilton’s desk, the Sky-Blue Sun Orchid, the one I was promised was ethically sourced because of it’s critically endangered status, had been stolen from a horticulturist working to improve the population of the flower in Australia. Stolen. A flower.

It wasn’t until my tears start hitting Dr. Hamilton’s desk that I even realized I was crying. I brushed those tears away while wondering if we had been lied to about every other fragrance extraction source that made its way into the lab. Was anything we worked with ethically sourced?

Or was it easier and cheaper to steal? Or pay off warlords? Or abuse the people we told the world we were helping?

My hands shook as I pulled a thumb drive that I used to back up my data out of my pocket, thankful I had slipped it there when Mr. Carlisle called me. It took almost no time at all to copy the file over, but it felt like an eternity. I knew there were cameras in the lab, but I wasn’t sure about the office I was sitting in. With so much…sensitive information coming to Dr. Hamilton’s desk, I thought it might be a dead zone as far as cameras go, but I couldn’t be sure.

It was hell trying to act normal as I shut down the computer and walked back to my station on wooden legs before grabbing my things and heading out. When the security guard stopped me, I thought for sure they—and thinking of a faceless, nameless ‘they’ was jarring—already knew that I had found out the secrets the company would be desperate to hide.

“Are you okay, Fallon?” Scott was looking at me with so much concern that it made my knees buckle.

I shook my head and tried to force a smile on my face, but it felt brittle and I’m sure it looked less than enthusiastic. “I’m okay,” I forced out. “I think I might have caught whatever Dr. Hamilton did.”

Instead of pushing, Scott took a big step back and nodded. “Feel better.”

Then I practically ran from the building. I had no idea what to do, but it felt like the thumb drive was burning a hole through my pocket. Then I remembered the news article done on Luxe Notes not long after I started working for them. I pulled over, since I had only been driving in circles, and searched for it.

Echo Bardot was the person who wrote a beautiful article extolling all the positives about Luxe Notes and how she saw them becoming the next big thing in luxury fragrance. She wasn’t wrong except for the fact that she was unknowingly spreading lies.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t difficult to get in contact with Echo and she agreed to meet with me in an hour. The moment I did, I told her everything and watched as her eyes got bigger and bigger. Then I gave her the only evidence I had, the thumb drive. She told me she would have to do some digging to see if she could confirm the information, but I was too tired to assure her.

Before we parted, she grabbed my hand, her eyes imploring, “Please find somewhere else to stay Fallon.”

My eyebrows pulled together as I fought against the reality I had been dropped into and the exhaustion it brought on. “I don’t understand, why should I?”

Echo glanced around and dropped her voice even though we had already been practically whispering to each other. “When I run with this story, it will be putting corporate money on the line. A lot of it. When money gets involved, people will go to untold lengths to protect their assets.”

I shrugged one shoulder as my gut clenched. “Once the bell is wrung, it can’t be undone. Why would they care who leaked it?”

Her eyes bored into mine. “They always care.” Fear, true fear, skittered up my spine. “Please, stay at a hotel even if you’re doing it just to humor me. And get some cash, only use cash.”

“Okay, I promise.”

She relaxed slightly and then we went our separate ways. I called in sick the next morning and haven’t been back to work and now it seems like all hell is breaking loose.

My phone beeps and I’m a little surprised to find a notification from my home security app since it’s the middle of the night and I’m not at home. When I pull up the video, thankful as hell that I had sprung for the internal cameras now, even though I didn’t see the need when they were first pitched to me, I freeze. Three men have entered the house before splitting up, one of them heading straight to the security panel and disarming the alarm.

I only get another 30 seconds of video before it’s cut off, but it’s more than enough to tell me that Luxe Notes knows I’m the one behind their fallout. And they’re not happy.

I stand up and collect my things quickly, the need to get out of here, out of Seattle, riding me hard. The only problem is that I’m not sure where to go.

“If you’re ever in trouble, call Higgins Security in Denver,” my brother’s voice floats through my mind. I thought he was ridiculous at the time to give me such wild instructions or maybe joking. His gaze was intense and his voice serious, “I mean it. Higgins Security. Remember it. I hate being overseas and not being able to keep you safe, but Blake and his team are good at what they do. They’ll help you.”

“Okay,” I said mostly to appease my brother before being deployed, again. “If I need help, I’ll call him.”

He nodded and relaxed a little as he held his hand out for my phone. When he handed it back, he smiled, “Now you have the number. Just in case.”

I had no idea that I would need it; never could have even dreamed I would. Now here I am, and I’ve never been more grateful. If my brother trusts them then I will too.

Which is why I barely wait for the sun to start coming up as I sit on a bus heading to Denver, before I make the call, hoping that whoever Blake Higgins is he can save my life.