Chapter 19 Vanessa
VANESSA
“This is where you’ll watch your last orientation video now that you’ve made it through your probationary first week,” the administrative assistant said as she led me to a side room barely bigger than a broom closet.
“It will take approximately two hours. We will know if you end it early, so please be professional.”
“No problem,” I said, tipping my head. “I just got this gig. I have no desire to ruin it already.”
“Good. Keep that attitude and you might go places here. Our patron values hard work.”
Oh, I was sure he did, but only when other people were doing it for him, never actually doing any sort of work himself.
Honestly, I was shocked my plan had worked at all.
It had only taken me three days to find out where our target was staying because several animal rights activists had been arrested for trespassing.
They claimed he had an illegal zoo full of neglected animals, but the authorities claimed to have investigated and found that to be untrue.
I knew better, however. When I saw the massive compound was seven hours south of where I lived, I did everything I could to find out every single possible detail about the building and landscape layout.
I’d never done anything like that before, but I’d become a woman possessed.
I looked up real estate records, permits, even YouTube videos of a few influencers who had rented out the place and shot a touring video like they actually lived there.
That had been immensely helpful—probably not what the creators had intended.
Leo was still incredibly reluctant to follow our haphazard plan, but at least he didn’t argue with me. That was a huge relief, because when he first talked about massacring the entire campus, I was horrified.
I wasn’t an idiot. I realized shifter life had different rules and morals than my human one, but it was still quite jolting to hear him talk so casually about murdering swaths of people.
I tried to chalk it up to him not realizing how many auxiliary personnel there would be in such a large place.
After all, he’d been a wolf for so long, he didn’t think about cooks, maids, nannies, drivers, groundskeepers or the like.
What had worried me most was that he hadn’t thought about any prisoners either, which went directly against his own experience.
Still, I tried to be understanding. I would never understand what it was like to go through what Leo had gone through, and I could afford him a little bit of grace.
“I’ll leave you to it,” the administrative assistant said blithely after hitting play on the remote.
I settled myself in for a banal onboarding tape and used the time to collect myself.
I had been going nonstop ever since Leo and I had made the deal.
Although I’d found out about Chadwicke’s ostentatious lair far sooner than I’d expected to, it had taken a lot of planning to put things in motion, including getting a fake ID.
For that, I’d had to reach into an old bag of tricks.
Back in college, I used to go to bars with the upperclassmen, watch them get sloshed, then drive them home before I walked back to the dorms myself, so I’d needed a fake ID.
It had been a bitch during the winter, but it had paid well enough to keep doing it and had helped me get through the year and a half of schooling I managed before it was all too much.
I was pretty sure Chadwicke’s operation preferred to hire undocumented and otherwise vulnerable people, that way his employees were far less likely to work with any sort of authorities. It was a tale as old as time, but I was still pleased when my gamble had worked out.
Granted, a huge part of my success was all thanks to the little old lady who was head of the groundskeeping team.
She’d tested my expertise at the beginning of the interview process by telling me to properly rehabilitate a neglected patch of foliage outside the southeast corner of the house.
I’d gotten distracted by an elephant plant I could tell was supposed to be truly beautiful but was suffering an awful case of root rot.
I’d tangled with that particular demon before, so I put my everything into fixing its environment and helping the plant.
It took up way too much of my time, and I was sure I had blown my chance at getting hired.
But apparently, the plant had perked right up the next day, and the woman had called me herself to ask about my technique. From that point on, I was a shoo-in.
Us plant people were funny folks that way.
And it turned out I was definitely right about Chadwicke paying more.
Although I didn’t know what that said about our state’s minimum wage when a lying, fraudulent, evil shell of a person wouldn’t even go that low when paying his undocumented or sketchy employees. Not anything good, that was for sure.
So, naturally, with more money going into my pocket, I was ready to really dig in and bury myself in my undercover position for two weeks or so if needed.
I hated that I was away from my cats for multiple days, as driving seven hours home and back just wasn’t feasible with my schedule, but I managed to arrange it so I was working two days on and then one day off, allowing me to drive back home for those gaps.
At least that was how it would have worked out if I had a car. Currently, the plan was to take a train to the city, then have Leo run to my place in his wolf form, grab my bike, ride it back to me, then run all the way back home.
Was it convoluted? Absolutely. But I wasn’t willing to leave my cats alone for more than two nights, and Leo wasn’t willing to let me be alone around the estate at all.
Although I couldn’t see him, I knew he was lurking somewhere just beyond the premises.
More often than not, I worried that he would somehow tip them off that something nefarious was going on, but as far as I could tell, everyone was getting ready for the party.
The exact same party that was going to make my two-week undercover session and all that planning moot, because it was absolutely the best opportunity for us to break into Chadwicke’s personal zoo and get Ricky out.
Maybe with the extra money I was earning I would be able to take a real vacation when everything was said and done. Wouldn’t that be lovely?
If we both survived, of course. While I was enjoying my first week of orientation and spending my time tending to a truly impressive range of gardens, landscape scenes, topiaries and the like, I was in an incredibly dangerous situation.
One slip up, and I could end up turning to stone.
Or with my organs pulled out through my nose.
Or any other number of horrific things that a sadistic, selfish, malevolent warlock would do to an enemy.
I needed to remember that, no matter how pretty the flowers were and how nice the air smelled.
Naturally, with so much on my mind, the video wrapped up sooner than I expected, and then I was opening the door to look around for the admin assistant. I didn’t see her anywhere, but after a couple of steps, I saw a different woman sitting at a reception desk the next room over.
Quickly, I peeked my head in, trying to be unintrusive.
“I finished up my video,” I said softly, allowing the slightest bit of accent into my voice.
While my mother had been fluent in Spanish, my aunt had not, so my vocabulary was pretty terrible.
However, I figured if I was playing the role of someone with a fake ID who was in a somewhat vulnerable position, having a slight accent would play into the stereotype more.
“Ah, Valencia, right?”
“Si.” I wanted to cringe at myself when I said that, but I managed to keep a straight face. It was a difficult line to tread between playing to the assumptions Americans might make about an immigrant and not being a total dick.
“Perfect. I’ll mark that off in your employee log. You’re free to go about your tasks for the rest of the day if you have any. If not, report to your team leader, and she’ll discuss your to-do list for the day.”
I nodded, then headed out. While I was excited to spend another day using fancy equipment and interacting with exotic plants, I needed to keep my wits about me. There was a whole lot I needed to learn in very little time, so Leo could be reunited with his pack again.
I didn’t know what that meant for me in the long run, but it was the right thing to do. Leo deserved to be happy.
Even if it meant I had to be alone again.
“Tire fixed. I’m back on the road and will be able to get back and get this stuff dealt with before any of the festivities start. Valencia, over and out.”
“Relieved to hear that,” my boss Haelena answered. “I would hate to lose all of that hot compost due to exposure. I can’t believe one of the tires blew. Thank God you knew how to change it. You can never be sure with your generation.”
Haelena was a lovely older woman, so I let the subtle jab slide. It wasn’t worth calling more attention to myself since the tire hadn’t actually blown, but I’d needed an excuse to pull down a side road and give Leo time to crawl into the back of the covered company truck.
I didn’t envy him, that was for sure. With his enhanced senses, all that decaying organic matter had to stink to high heaven. I could smell it even from the front with the windows rolled down.
One of the things we’d been most concerned about was how to sneak Leo into the compound without turning any heads, so when the opportunity presented itself, neither of us could pass it up, even if our noses really wished we could.