Chapter Three
Melinda let herself into her flat, keeping a wary eye on the closed door down the hall. She disabled the internal alarm and leaned against the door, the adrenaline rush subsiding, but her body still buzzing. Her new neighbors were hot.
A rub of fur wound its way through her legs, and she picked up the little ginger cat and snuggled him against her face. “Have you been a good boy, Manchu? Watching over my flat while I was out?”
Manchu bunted his head against her chin, purring his little heart out.
She removed her shoes, reset the alarm, then carried her preferred male company into the kitchen and set him up with a dish of cat food.
While he tucked into it with feline gusto, Melinda set the electric kettle to boil.
She needed to calm down. Jumping to conclusions wasn’t the wisest thing to do. Tea. She needed tea.
From the cupboard, she took out her teapot.
She rubbed her hands over it, the clay cool against her palms. It’d been her mother’s, and was the only thing she’d kept from her past. Etched into her memory, her mother’s gentle smile as she’d poured tea for them both.
A shared moment of quiet in their turbulent lives.
The ritual, the steeping—it never failed to calm her—as though the act of making tea, the familiar scent and the turning of the teapot wiped away the bad memories, the grief and the anger. If only for a brief minute or two.
Melinda poured boiling water into her pot and swished it around, heating the clay.
She repeated the process with her cup, then discarded the water.
From the tin of jasmine tea, her mother’s favorite, she scooped in the fragrant leaves and covered them in boiling water.
Twice she rotated the pot, aiding the infusion, before pouring more boiling water into it and letting the leaves steep.
Calmer, with her cup of tea in hand and the scent of jasmine in the air, Melinda unlocked the second bedroom, punched in her alarm code, switched on the light and plopped into the chair in front of her screens.
Sipping at her tea, she brought up her surveillance—the kitchen, the living room, the hall, the front door.
She found only Manchu—stretching on the couch, shifting to the windowsill to watch the traffic below, wandering into the kitchen to check his empty food bowl.
No one had got past her security and into her flat.
She ran a scan and waited for it to confirm all was clear in her cyber world.
It took a lot of expertise to get through her firewalls and security measures, but…
She eyed the silent monitor on the left, no longer connected to a router.
Whoever was after her client was good. Or had hired someone who was good.
The scan came back clear. She relaxed in her chair.
With a tap of a few keys, she hooked into the building security again, specifically the camera in the corridor outside her and her new neighbors’ front door. All clear. She paused, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. Should she…?
She typed in a few more commands, brought up the building’s stored footage files, and clicked on today’s, fast-forwarding until she spotted herself leaving.
A minute or so later, the door down the hall opened and her new neighbor stepped into the corridor, waiting for the lift to return.
On one wrist, the leather cuff. On the other, that expensive watch.
The time stamp clicked down, and the second twin stepped into the corridor with the same leather cuff, but his left wrist was bare. He headed straight for the stairwell. Perhaps Mr. No-Watch liked his pastries a little too much and used the stairs to burn off the extra calories.
She skipped ahead to her return. There. One after the other, they strode down the corridor. Again, no concern for the cameras watching. Like any regular person. Or someone who was deliberately ignoring them, pretending to be unaware of their presence.
Had they followed her or not? The timing of their departure and return could be a coincidence.
She occasionally ran into Joe from apartment thirty-three.
He worked a nine-to-five job in an office, took the metropolitan line to work.
On one of the infrequent times she’d had to catch the Tube that early, they’d shared the same car.
Mr. Patel, across the hall from the hottie twins, rarely left his flat, but his son would stop by with his wife and two kids on the weekend. She’d shared the lift with them a few times, spotted them having lunch in the café down the street a time or two.
It wasn’t unreasonable to expect to run into her neighbors, other people from different floors in her building, too, in the local area.
But that watch, the expensive platinum Roger Dubius Excalibur, bothered her.
This apartment block wasn’t in a shady area of London, but it wasn’t somewhere someone who could afford to spend that amount of money on a watch would live.
And the timing? So soon after the malware attack?
Melinda clicked out of the file and into another one, the one from last week.
She skipped through the footage, watching their comings and goings.
Back another week, then another until she found what she was looking for.
On a Monday, three weeks ago, according to the time stamp, she’d left the building at eight.
She’d had an appointment with a client at the women’s refuge.
At eight forty-six, the twins stepped out of the lift carrying overnight carryalls and laptop bags slung over their shoulders.
She back-tracked through the footage, searching for them earlier.
No. That Monday was the day they’d moved in.
She flicked through the footage again in case she’d missed something—removalists, them arriving with boxes, bags, anything.
Even if they’d bought the apartment fully furnished, they’d have personal items—clothes, books, stuff. Nothing.
She returned to the Monday footage, flopped back in her chair and stared at the frozen image on the screen. Two men, both in snug jeans and shirt. All they’d brought with them was an overnight carryall and a laptop bag each.
It reminded her of the day she’d moved in.
Her laptop bag slung over her shoulder, she’d carried all her worldly possessions in an old shopping bag.
Not much—a practical change of clothes, toiletries, her mother’s teapot, a few photos.
She’d wanted nothing else from her haunted childhood.
The memories were baggage enough. Melinda had arrived with little more than they had because she’d made a deliberate choice to leave everything else behind. What was their excuse?
She scanned for Wi-Fi networks, ignoring the familiar ones of her neighbors.
Nothing new popped up on the list. A hidden SSID?
To the uninitiated, disabling the broadcasting function on your SSID made it secure.
It wasn’t. Not against someone like Melinda.
She initiated a program, let it run its scan and picked up two, but they were ones she already knew about.
It could be they hadn’t set things up yet, or used public networks. It could be something more sinister.
After ensuring her own system was secure, she brought up the newest identity she’d created for her client.
None of her alerts had triggered this time.
Everything looked as it should. Finally, an identity that was holding.
MysticMage had warned Melinda the person she was hiding from would stop at nothing.
That money was no object. It used to surprise her what money could buy—private investigators, police officials, silence. Not anymore.
A knock on her front door interrupted her, and Melinda checked her security feed.
What the hell?
Standing at her door, his fist raised to knock again, was Mr. No-Watch.
Louis stood outside Melinda Cheng’s door.
He’d already pounded on Mr. Patel’s—the old man was nearly deaf—and invited him for their little party.
And Joe, the advertising rep in apartment thirty-three.
If Melinda were watching, or checked the security feed—which no doubt she would—hers wouldn’t be the only neighbor’s door he’d knocked on. Nor the first.
The wait was interminable, and he fought the need to fidget. He knocked again. Finally, he picked up the soft footfalls of her tiptoeing toward the door. Humans were always so loud, even when they were trying not to be.
The soft scratch of metal on wood signaled the peephole cover sliding across.
He lifted his head, letting her get a good look at him.
She’d most likely recognize him as the man she’d met in the elevator.
To other werewolves, there was a world of difference between him and Pierre, but humans rarely noticed.
If she was observant, she might recollect him being in the patisserie down the street.
Her scent wafted to him, and he breathed it in. The subtle hint of deodorant, something soft, and peaches—her body wash? Shampoo?—and a healthy dose of wariness. Smart fille.
Putain, he wanted her to answer. To open the door so he could look his fill, take in every little nuance, her every micro-expression, not the brief side glance he’d received in the patisserie.
He needed more. A few minutes at least. Just him and her.
Something about her dragged him in. She called to him. To them.
“What do you want?” she asked through the closed door.
Her voice was sharp and edged with tension, but it washed over him like manna from heaven, sending goosebumps skittering across his skin.
“Ah, salut,” he said. “I’m your new neighbor from down the hall in apartment thirty-five. My brother and I moved in a few weeks ago.” What would she think when she realized they were twins? Would it shock her? Excite her, maybe?
He resisted a smile at the clack of keys on a laptop. She was checking the security feed.
Louis gave the peephole his best smile, the one he reserved for women he wanted to charm. Or coax into their bed. “I wanted to introduce myself.” Sometimes his charm didn’t work. Sometimes it was Pierre’s intensity, his dominance.
Her indecision burned through the door. Then the beep of an alarm being turned off and the slide of the deadbolt being pulled back. The door cracked open and dark eyes behind black frames peeked out. His heart pounded in his chest.
He lifted his hand and waved. “Hi, I’m Louis.”
The door opened a little further, glossy black hair spilling over her shoulder.
His lungs seized, and his heart pounded so loud he thought he might have a heart attack. The pull toward her was so much stronger now they stood face to face.
His wolf rushed to the surface, clamoring to be free.
It took everything he had to hold it in, to keep his canines from punching through his gums and to push back the dark, coarse hair spreading across the back of his neck.
Every instinct called for him to swoop her up in his arms, to wipe the wariness from her eyes and kiss the tightness from her lips.
How the fuck had Pierre stopped himself from pressing her up against the wall and smothering her in his scent?
It was a good thing he was standing in the corridor where anyone could come along at any moment.
That it’d been Pierre, not him, in the elevator.
He wasn’t one for delayed gratification. That was Pierre’s style, not his.
This situation called for patience and subtlety. Putain. He wasn’t known for either of those.
He took a step toward her. She stiffened. He backed off, and with considerable effort, pulled himself together. “My brother and I are having a few of the neighbors over for a drink on Saturday night. A sort of introduction. We would like you to come.”
“I don’t—”
“I’m making mojitos and noix grillées épicées au miel—how you say—roasted honey spiced nuts.” He did a chef’s kiss. And because he couldn’t help a little teasing, a little sexual innuendo, he added, “You’ll want to taste my nuts, I promise you.”
She rewarded him with a flare of heat and a quick drop of her gaze to his groin, then a flush of her cheeks. “I’ll think about it.”
Then she closed the door in his face.
“Alor, it’s at seven. On Saturday. Apartment thirty-five.” He waited, but although she remained behind the door, she didn’t respond. “Nice meeting you. Perhaps when you come by on Saturday, you can tell me your name.”
Louis sauntered away. As much as one could saunter with the stranglehold his jeans had on his impossibly hard cock. He didn’t once glance at the security cameras, but she had to be watching. He smiled. Wary, but interested. Perhaps despite herself, but her scent didn’t lie.
Pierre was waiting for him when he entered their apartment, the security feed open on his laptop. “Alor? Will she come?”
Louis flopped onto the sofa beside his brother. “I don’t know. Maybe. I hope so. I… Pierre, what’s happening here?”
Pierre set aside his laptop. “Did you feel it, too?”
“If by feel it you mean the overpowering urge to make her mine…then oui, I felt it.” He met his brother’s gaze, and a certainty settled in his bones. “She’s ours.”
Pierre growled. “Ours.”
“It could be awkward, her working with the enemy.”
Pierre sucked in a breath. “Oui.”
“We charm her while we deceive her.”
Pierre grimaced. “Not the best way to start, but it could be worse.”
Oui. Maxime was proof of that. Poor connard. Though, given this situation, Maxime might not be drinking away his sorrows alone for long. “She is our mate. That has to count for something.”
Pierre cocked an eyebrow. “Tell that to Maxime.”
“There’s two of us.”
“Oui.”
It had always been their advantage—working together.
Hell, they did everything together—worked, lived, fucked women.
This was a dance they knew all too well.
But this time, the stakes were higher. Melinda Cheng was no random hookup in a nightclub.
A one and done, killing time while they waited for their mate. She was their mate.
Louis held out his fist, bumping knuckles with his twin. “She doesn’t stand a chance.”
Melinda Cheng was theirs, and nothing, no security system, not their mission, or Cordelia King, was going to keep her out of their arms.