Chapter 38
I can’tfor the life of me understand why Myles would invite someone who wants to destroy Blunts to my fucking house, even in the midst of the crisis over Fleur.
“Because he’s paying for it,” Myles says, once we’re seated in my office.
It’s a reduced group: Myles, Theo, Bravo, Ten, Sutter, Mac, and me. Max is listening in on my earpiece. Maude and Javier rounded up half of the subbies and Doms and took them to the hospital. Fleur’s still not awake but Cappa needs reinforcements. They’re going until noon and then the “second shift” will go over. I’ve suggested to Maude and Javier that they bring Cappa back here at the end of the “second shift” but Javier just shook his head sadly.
I can’t even check the app to see how Cappa’s doing. He’s not allowed his phone or monitoring band in the hospital room.
“Paying for what, exactly?” I ask, sipping a cup of tea Emily slipped into my hand as she herded us into my office. True arrived, Emmy set up her laptop and put Livvy in her rocking swing, and they got on with what they needed to be doing. My sweet little girl who follows her Daddy’s rules, even when her Daddy’s struggling to focus on anything other than the crisis at hand.
“For the moment, I’m paying for recon and surveillance,” Sutter says. He’s in one of the guest chairs in front of my desk. Theo’s in the other one. Bravo’s next to Mac on the couch. Myles and Ten are leaning against the two doors. “Depending on what the recon and surveillance dredges up, we’ll see what else there is to pay for.”
I look from Sutter’s bright eyes to Myles’. Myles is looking at the floor, his hair falling around his face but I know he’s aware of my gaze.
“Who’s being surveilled?” I ask.
“The three members of the Wolfpack that Theo doesn’t have enough on to arrest,” Myles says without looking up.
How does he find out this shit? He’s not a member of Blunts. He hasn’t been involved in any of the management committee meetings. If I read his message right, he only got back into the country six hours ago. Bravo’s the only person I’ve talked to about making the Wolfpack even “gone,” but Myles is arranging fucking surveillance on them?
“Do you have my house wired?” I ask.
“Yes,” Myles says easily. “And parts of the club now, too. You need to up the security in the staff areas. It was too easy for me to get upstairs once I got into the Spa for pool maintenance.”
I grind my teeth.
Sutter lifts his coffee-cup at Myles. “No one ever notices the pool man.”
Myles nods. “Logan, I’m never going to do anything with the information that would hurt the club, any of its members, or the house submissives. I’ll agree to wipe all recordings after thirty days. But things are going on there that affect the people I care about. I need eyes and ears in there.”
I could argue with him but I doubt there’s any point. Myles is going to do whatever he wants to do.
“I thought it was four members of the Wolfpack,” Sutter says, when everyone comes to the same conclusion about arguing with Myles.
“We can drop Jared Carr,” Theo says, leaning an elbow on my desk. “He turned himself in last night after the grapevine ran red. I had a long talk with him off the record. He didn’t know what he was getting into. Gave me some insight into how Drew approaches potential recruits. It’s not directly relevant anymore but I’ve uploaded the recording of the interview into the cloud account Jiro set up. Drew was using the prestige of Blunts to prop up his alpha theory, so we may need to do some damage control in the local clubs where he was recruiting.”
There are nods all around.
“Jared’s not a problem,” Theo continues. “The guy seems genuinely freaked out about all of it. He thought the Wolfpack was an inner circle within Blunts. That’s what Drew and Emmett told him. They played on his desire to belong. He’s been a guest at the club on and off over the past two months. He seemed more disturbed than turned on by a lot of what he’s seen. He was part of the crowd during Shannie’s scene. Drew primed them, telling them Shannie needed help to get out of her head during the scene. He was told what to say and when to say it. Jared’s only mistake was not checking with Ty and Hart that what Drew told him was true but how many of us would interrupt a scene, particularly a scene we’d be told was difficult for the submissive, to question what we’d been told by another master? Ty approached Jared afterwards and criticized his behavior. Jared immediately apologized. I confirmed that with Ty. I think Jared’s sincere. Drew invited him back to the club for the Nursery opening. Jared says he intended to confront Drew that night about what happened with Shannie but before he got a chance to, he witnessed the confrontation between Drew and you, Logan. When he heard the full extent of the claims against the Wolfpack, the guy was beside himself.”
“He know where Drew is?” Ten grunts.
Theo shakes his head. “But I’ve uploaded all known addresses not just for him but also his family into the cloud.”
“Drew’s missing?” I ask. This is news to me.
Theo nods. “I had uniforms go around to all known Wolfpack members and give them a friendly scare. If they’re going to lawyer-up, I want to know now. Emmett did but he’s fucked. His lawyer’s already talking with the district attorney about a plea if Emmett testifies against his fellow wolves. Uniforms staked out Drew’s condo overnight. He didn’t come home. No car in the parking space. Quick canvass of the neighbors—no one’s seen him in days.”
“He was at breakfast the morning after the Opening,” Ten says.
Theo twists around in his chair to look at Ten. “Did you see him leave?”
Ten shakes his head. “I didn’t notice. I only remember him being there because he stopped by the table to talk with Fleur and Zuki while I was in the buffet line. I think he scheduled a scene with Zuki.”
“Fuck.” Theo whips out his phone. “Pick up, pick up,” he whispers as it rings. When a female voice answers, his face relaxes. “All okay?”
Whatever he hears reassures him.
“Did you have a scene scheduled with Drew this week?” Theo asks into the phone. “Good, good. No, if he or Emmett call you, don’t answer. Call me.”
Theo listens for a moment. “Yeah, that’s fine. Did you hear Drew schedule a scene with Fleur at breakfast the other morning?” There’s a pause while he listens. “Did she say anything else?”
He squeezes his eyes closed as he listens to her answer. “Thanks, Zuk. No, she’s not awake yet. I’m sure you’ll hear about it before I do, knowing the subbie network. Yeah, yeah, me, too. See you tomorrow, okay? If you need anything before then, call me.”
After he says goodbye and hangs up, he rubs a hand over his face. “Zuki’s safe. She canceled her scene with Drew as soon as Chess’ email circulated saying that Drew and Emmett were no longer members. She wasn’t a fan of the man. She heard Drew try to schedule a scene with Fleur outside the club. Fleur refused. She said she was off the clock and going home after breakfast because she had commissions to work on.”
“He knew she’d be leaving the club,” I point out.
Theo nods. “It’s not proof but?—”
“It’s proof enough for me,” Ten says. “Anything else? I’m going to start with known addresses.”
Theo shakes his head. “I’ll start an database search for his plate as a person of interest but until I have enough evidence for a warrant, my resources are limited.”
Ten nods. “You can reach me on the burner. No other contact.”
Theo sighs. “Don’t do anything if you find him. Surveillance, right?”
Ten grunts.
“Ten, right?” Theo presses.
Ten grunts again, turns, and walks out. The front door slams a minute later.
We all look at each other. Except Myles, who seems fascinated by the pattern of my office rug.
“What’s the price for a hit?” Sutter asks after the silence stretches.
Bravo starts shaking his head.
“That’s not on the table,” Myles says. “Detective D’Andrea has a badge. Logan and Mac have licenses. Bravo and Henry take government contracts. None of you are killing anyone.”
It takes me a moment to hear what he’s said. I narrow my eyes at him.
Myles lifts his head and meets my gaze for a moment. His eyes are more lupine than anything Drew’s “Wolfpack” could have imagined.
They might fancy themselves hunters but there’s a real hunter among us and it’s not any of them.
“Did he just say what I think he said?” Max asks in my ear.
“Yes,” I murmur. “We need to have a word with him.”
“Uh-huh,” Max agrees.
The meeting breaks up slowly. Mac collects Livvy and Bren and heads out to open his daycare. I offer Theo our bed since he looks like he’s about to fall over but he says he’d rather sleep in his own bed. When he declines, Myles takes me up on the offer and trudges upstairs to sleep. Bravo asks if Yummy can stay the day with us before leaving to coordinate surveillance of the other two Wolfpack members with Henry.
Leaving me in my office staring at Sutter.
He leans back in his chair, crossing his long legs in front of him. He’s wearing business clothes today: a tailored suit, crisp white button-down, and a red tie. He should be heading into a marketing meeting for probiotic yogurt or something, not sitting in my office asking the price of a contract on a man’s life.
“You don’t like me very much, do you?” he asks after enduring my scrutiny for a minute.
“We didn’t exactly get off on the best foot, did we?” I respond. “I care about Blunts. For all its flaws, it’s my second home. It’s full of the people I love. My family. I feel a very personal sense of responsibility toward the house submissives. Threatening to disband my family and rob my friends of their employment and place of belonging doesn’t sit well with me.”
Sutter chuckles. “I could tell. I notice you did something about it, though. Faster than I expected.”
“Did you know about the Wolfpack when you threatened me at the museum?”
“I threatened the club, not you. I’m all for dramatics but let’s keep things in perspective. And no, I didn’t know about this bullshit ‘wolfpack,’ as they call themselves but I knew that some of the Doms at Blunts had very unhealthy attitudes. If you’d asked me for a list—which I notice you didn’t do—Drew and Emmett would have been on it.”
“After you threatened me,” I say emphatically. “I wouldn’t have trusted you to tell me the truth about who you thought was a problem.”
“Do you trust me now?”
“No but I’ll take that list.”
“Ten’s on it,” Sutter says, nodding at the door Ten exited out of.
I nod. “I’m aware of his issues. We’re addressing them. Next.”
“Karl Van Haas and the man who calls himself Shedo, although I believe his real name is Jun Hayakawa, on the committee. Among the general members, Cole Ward and Hart Garibaldi. They all made disparaging remarks about age-play and the people who practice it in Saoirse’s hearing.”
“I’m sorry they intimidated her,” I say as I write down the names. Karl and Shedo are no surprise. They’ve been in Ten’s corner all along. Hart’s an unknown. He’s a junior member, only at the club on weekends, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a one-on-one conversation with him. He failed to protect Shannie from the Wolfpack, so he was already on my shitlist. Cole, on the other hand, I’ve scened with more than once, although all before I met Emily, and he was on my goddamn paintball team just a few days ago. If he had issues with age-play, he could have said something.
“Although Karl and Shedo are resistant to age-play, they’re not bad Doms,” I tell Sutter. “I think highly enough of Karl to trust him with the discipline of a submissive who is still exploring the depths of her masochism. I don’t know Hart very well but I already have concerns about him that need to be addressed. Cole’s a friend and I’ll have a damn word with him.”
Sutter nods. “Not everyone will accept age-play. I accept that. But there needs to be greater tolerance. Saoirse was just starting to let her little out and the attitude of the Blunts’ Doms towards age-play set her back months. She was so repressed when she met me, that it took more than a week for her to introduce me to her stuffies. During that time, she stayed over at my place several times and I took her on a weekend to England. Can you imagine any little being without her stuffies for that long? Just because they made her too afraid to show me—me, her daddy—her littleness for fear of being judged.”
Knowing how important Peter Aloha Bunny and her other stuffies are to Emily, no I can’t. It makes my chest ache to know that my club brothers did that to Saoirse with their cruel, careless words.
“I can only apologize on behalf of Blunts and promise that there is change coming. It might not be as fast as you want but it is happening.”
Sutter steeples his hands in front of him and taps his index fingers against his chin. “For all that we got off on the wrong foot, I believe you, Logan. And I was surprised at how quickly you started cleaning house. Surprised and impressed. So maybe we can agree to a stay of execution. Let’s call it a probationary period.”
As tempted as I am to use my pen like a dart and see if I can stick a bullseye right between his eyes, I ask calmly, “How long would this probationary period last?”
He spreads his hands. “Up to you. You’re the catalyst of change.”
“Two years,” I respond, knowing that I’m trying it on.
He scoffs. “Six months.”
“A year, that’s the shortest it’s reasonable to ask for an institutional, cultural change.”
“I’ll give you a year. I’ll have some stipulations. Let’s call them milestones. I’ll email them to you.”
The dart idea seems better and better. “You do that.”
“Our littles are already friends, you know,” Sutter says, his smile cracking wide.
That doesn’t make us friends. I’ll have to get past the whole threatening to dismantle my second family thing, first.
“I appreciate your help with Fleur,” I say, a little grudgingly.
The smirk slides off his face. He sits forward, letting his hands dangle between his knees. “You’re welcome. I’m sincere in my desire to help. Since Myles is involved, I can guess where things are going. I’m not ex-military the way you and he are but I’ve been hunting game since I was old enough to hold a rifle.” He sits back and tips his head. “Hunting a wolf instead of a deer? I don’t reckon it would be that different.”
I’ve never hunted deer, or wolves but I suspect it is very different. It breaks something inside you, to kill another human being. It’s a Rubicon you can’t ever come back from. A wound that never heals. It’s always there, you always know there’s something you’re capable of doing that other people aren’t. Something deeply, deeply wrong, no matter how right the reasons.
I’ve seen a lot of those “two kinds of people in the world” memes but the true two kinds of people in the world are those who have murdered and those who haven’t. I’ve come to terms with being among the former. I never want to encourage anyone to join that particular clique.
“How do you know Myles?” I ask instead of addressing the elephant in the room.
“I have a family problem, which is also a corporate problem since my business is a family business. Someone who knows someone recommended Myles to me as ... well, a fixer. I need some corporate espionage done on the very down low. After interviewing Myles, I put him on retainer for a year. As we were talking, I realized we share certain interests. I mentioned I’d just joined Blunts. With a man like Myles, it’s important to be scrupulously honest. A whiff of dishonesty and I’d never hear from him again. I told him about my intentions for the club?—”
“Did you hire him to help you?” I interject.
If Myles accepted that assignment, I’ll strangle him.
“No. Myles told me he wouldn’t do anything to risk not being accepted in your circle of caregivers and littles. I understand and respect his boundary.”
“Playgroup’s great but it’s not a substitute for Blunts,” I say. “I’ll accept your whole probation thing because I believe I can turn Blunts around but I’m warning you, I will fight you tooth and nail if you try to shut down my club.”
“I believe you.” Sutter’s smirk slides back into place. “Nothing like a game against a worthy adversary, right?”
If he thinks he’s my Moriarty, he can fucking well think again.
“Sure. Are we done?” I ask.
“Not quite. I’d like to formally hire you and your partners to investigate Andrew Selman and his wolfpack.”
“Why? You’ve already got Myles on retainer.”
“A number of reasons including client confidentiality. I have a feeling we’re going to need it before we’re done.”
I can’t argue with that. “I’ll work up a cost estimate and email it to you. Ten doesn’t work for us but if he’s going to hare off tracking wolfpack members, I’d like to get his costs covered somehow.”
“I don’t need a cost estimate,” Sutter responds with a wave. “I’ll put you on retainer same as Myles. Thirty grand to start. If you anticipate going over that in a week, email me.”
He slides his business card across my desk.
Sutter James, CEO
Whitley James Wineries
Winterwyne Entertainment Group
Who the hell is this kid? CEO at twenty-two? Throwing around thirty-thousand-dollar retainers? He’s bullshitting; he has to be. If he’s not, I need to get Max on him and make sure he’s not fronting a drug cartel or something.
“Okay, I’ll email you my terms of business. Any issues, call me.”
Sutter nods. “That’s fine.” He stands and sticks out his hand. “I look forward to having my own P.I. on retainer.” He chuckles. “My very own Daddy P.I. Talk soon, Logan.”
After I shake his hand—reluctantly—he shoves his hands in his pockets and strolls out of my office.