Chapter Twenty-Six
Alarms blared from Pierre’s computer. No. It couldn’t be.
Pierre tapped furiously at his keyboard.
“Pierre?” Louis was out of his chair and standing behind his twin. “Veilleux? The Faucherians?”
Faucherians?
“No, it’s—”
They both gaped at her over Pierre’s screen. She’d not seen fear in their eyes when they’d faced off against eight armed men. She saw it there now. Pierre had sent the malware.
“Fuck.” Pierre was out of his seat, tripping over his chair as he tried to get to her. “It’s not what you think, Melinda.”
She backed away. “It’s exactly what I think.” She forced the words out of her tight throat, her vision blurring with the sting of tears. “You sent the malware.” She stabbed her finger at him. “You’re the ones tracking my client. You used me.”
“Melinda, no. Yes.” Louis skirted the table, coming at her from the other direction, his hands held out in supplication. “Please, give us a chance to explain.”
“Explain? You can’t deny you sent the malware.”
Pierre heaved out a sigh, straightening to his full height. “No, we can’t. We did send it, and we are tracking your client, but Cordelia King is not who you think she is.”
Melinda pressed her lips together, willing the tears away, but they refused to obey.
MysticMage was Cordelia King? They knew her client’s real name?
Even she didn’t know that. It could have only come from one person.
Her client’s husband. They’d said Wolf Enterprises was in security, but they also, it seemed, did private investigating.
For wealthy people. Money could buy you a lot of support and a lot of skilled employees. It had bought them.
Louis took a few more steps toward her. “Cordelia King is an evil woman, Melinda. She’s the one who’s used you. Spun you a tale of a battered wife. It couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“She didn’t spin me any tale. I recognized the signs.”
“Did you? Or did you see what you wanted to see?”
“No, I—” Had she? Taken one look at the photo of a little old lady and jumped to conclusions? And what if she had? It made no difference. They’d used their malware to track her, moved in down the hall from her. Her instincts had been right. They had been stalking her.
Melinda shook her head. She didn’t want to believe it. Not after what they’d shared over the last four days. The nights spent together, wrapping her in their warmth until morning. Louis ordering her favorite comfort food. Pierre thinking to grab her mother’s teapot. Had it all been a lie?
“Why?”
“Cordelia King is a witch. An old, evil, time-traveling witch. She’s targeted the Langeais wolves for centuries.
” Pierre held her gaze. “Last Christmas she tried to kill Gabriel and had Annabelle kidnapped. Then she disappeared. We’ve been trying to track her down for months. You were our best lead.”
Melinda sucked in a breath. God, she’d been such a fool.
Played right into their hands. They’d… She couldn’t be here anymore.
Couldn’t look them in the face and not remember their intimate moments.
Not after this. She snatched up her laptop.
Manchu. She needed to get Manchu. And her purse, her phone, her passport. She headed for the stairs.
“Melinda, wait,” called Louis. “Please. We’re sorry. It was never our intention to hurt you. It’s just when we met you…”
Pierre stood shoulder to shoulder with his twin, a united front. “It’ll never happen again. We promise.”
Melinda froze, one foot on the stairs. Those words. She’d heard them countless times before. Her father had said them to her mother every time he’d beaten her. All lies. He hadn’t been sorry. It had happened again. And again and again.
Louis and Pierre crowded her in. Her gaze strayed past them to the door.
She was their only link to Cordelia. Would they let her leave?
She stared up the stairs where Manchu was probably curled up on the bed, oblivious to the drama unfolding.
She loved the little guy. He was everything to her, but…
She’d risk everything, including her client, if she didn’t get out of here.
She couldn’t do it. She had to leave. Now.
Sorry Manchu. I’ll come back for you if I can.
Her heart breaking, she slipped past Louis and was across the living area before either of them had moved. She flung the door open and raced for the lift.
Stunned silence and then, “I’m going after her.”
Louis. Footsteps followed her. Frantically, she pressed the lift buttons. The door swished open. Inside, she slammed down on the close door button, then the one for the lobby.
“Melinda,” yelled Louis. “Wait, please.”
“Let her go, Louis,” commanded Pierre.
The door closed, and the lift was moving.
She slumped against the wall and let the tears flow.
Let her go. A sob bubbled up inside her.
It had all been a lie. Everything. All along it had been them cracking the identities she’d set up for MysticMage.
She was the job they’d had in London. And she’d fallen for it, for their charm.
And for a minute there she’d thought they might tell her she was their mate.
Foolish, foolish Melinda.
The lift stopped and the doors opened on a busy lobby.
She wiped away her tears and forced herself to move.
She didn’t have time to wallow in her misery.
Pierre and Louis could change their mind.
She needed to be long gone before Louis convinced Pierre they still needed her.
Her passport was in the safe and she had no visa.
No purse and no phone. But she did have her laptop. With that she could achieve a lot.
She’d hole up in some random hotel. It would take her a few days, maybe a week, to get things sorted. Not enough time for Pierre and Louis to track her through their malware again. If they could at all. Her virus would have done a number on Pierre’s laptop.
There were numerous hotels on this strip—one of them would suffice. One night, just to organize everything online, then she’d disappear for good.
And Manchu?
Fresh pain bloomed in her chest, and her steps faltered. Maybe she could find a way to sneak back in a few days’ time and steal him away. After everything Annabelle and Stef had told her about shifters, she doubted it.
She pushed through the entrance, blinking back tears. I’m sorry, Manchu.
“Well, look what we have here.” Two men blocked her way. Two men with tattoos peeking out from under their collars. “Going somewhere, little hacker?”
* * * *
Louis slammed the door and stormed back into the suite. She was gone. Their mate was gone. He picked up a chair and threw it at the wall before rounding on his brother.
“Fuck you, Pierre. We should have told her!” Louis jabbed himself in the chest. “I wanted to tell her, but no, you”—he stabbed his finger at his brother, the pain of Melinda leaving fueling his fury—“you decided we shouldn’t.”
“You think it would have ended any differently had we told her?” Pierre shot back. “We betrayed her, Louis. Lied to her. Putain, we stalked her. Bought an apartment in her building, hacked into her security feeds and watched her make tea.”
Louis prowled back and forth in front of his brother.
He itched to throw another chair at the wall.
Better yet, turn wolf and shred the fucking sofa, the entire suite.
Anything to appease the agony threatening to swallow him whole.
“So, what, we just let her walk away? Why didn’t you let me go after her? ”
“She’ll be back.”
Louis gaped at his brother. “Why the fuck would she come back?”
“Think, Louis. Where is she going to go? She can’t return to London. She doesn’t have a valid visa to be here.”
“Melinda’s a hacker, tête de noeud, and she has her laptop.”
“And we have Manchu.”
Louis paused and glanced up the stairs. Melinda loved that ball of fur, but did she love it enough to risk coming back for him? After what they’d done?
“Give her some space, Louis. Let her think about things. She won’t go far. Probably to the café downstairs. This place is crawling with shifters. And warded. She won’t leave without Manchu.”
The landline rang, and Pierre snatched it up, his body tensing as he listened. He dropped the phone back in its cradle.
“What is it, Pierre?” From the look on his brother’s face, it wasn’t good news.
“That was the front desk. Melinda left the hotel with two men. It didn’t appear as though she went willingly.”
“I thought Gabriel said we could count on the shifters in this hotel?”
“We can. But there’s a dentist’s convention starting tomorrow. The lobby is full of people checking in. They couldn’t get to her in time.”
Pierre turned to his laptop, cursed and swiped the useless thing to the floor. “Get onto the security feed. See if you can track them to a car. I’ll call Gabriel for backup.”
Louis was already typing, hacking into the Ritz-Carlton’s security system. “I’m in.”
There she was, rushing out of the elevator.
He tracked her through the crowded lobby.
When she disappeared from that feed, he switched to the one at the front entrance.
There. Two men. He zoomed in. Above the collar of one man, the hint of a tattoo.
Putain. He slumped over his keyboard, his hands in his hair. The Faucherians had their mate.
Louis leaned in again, following their progress to an SUV, the license plate blurry, but visible.
He locked in on it. He could trace it through the city’s CCTV.
It wouldn’t be hard. The SUV was red. It was like they weren’t even trying…
He sat back. Because they weren’t. This was a trap.
To spring it, they were going to need backup.
* * * *
“Fuck you, Gabriel.” Pierre threw his phone at the wall.
It cracked and made a satisfying dent in the plaster.
His claws extended, he punched them through the sofa cushions.
Once, twice, a few more times until he’d shredded one, the floor covered with its stuffing.
For once, he could see the appeal of unleashing his temper.
“Pierre?” Louis stood, laptop in hand, staring at the destruction he’d wrought.
“Gabriel thinks this is the perfect time for them to send Isobella to the tenth century. He’s gathering the coven. Stef is with him.”
“But…Melinda? Our mate?”
Pierre’s gut curdled. “She’s to be the distraction.”
“It’s a trap, Pierre. We can’t go in alone. What about the backup Maxime was sending?”
“Gabriel’s taking most of them, too. He’s sending us Elliot and Alois.”
Four werewolves and no witches against Cordelia, and how many Faucherians? Did they stand a chance? Did Melinda? Their mate was human. Fragile. He hung his head. Louis was right. They should never have let her go.
“The Proulx brothers are good in a fight. So are we. And we have the smarts and tech on our side.” Louis nodded. “Oui, I think it’s possible, if we plan it right.”
Since when had Louis ever planned anything?
“Gabriel’s right, Pierre. This is the perfect opportunity to get Isobella back into the tenth century. We’re running out of time. She has to go. For all of us.”
Louis as the voice of reason? Oh, how their roles had reversed.
“She’s our mate, Pierre. We can do this. What other choice do we have?”