3. Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Gage
I had barely opened my laptop when Levi appeared in my office, lips thin. “I thought you said you were good!”
“I am good,” I answered through clenched teeth, not glancing up as I typed in my password. I was too edgy to sit, instead leaning over my desk and letting my legs shift as they pulsed with restless energy.
“Really? You’re good?” The door swung shut behind him with a slam. “I have a client who might sign a quarter million dollar contract this month, Gage. I need to know you’re not going to bite his head off, literally or otherwise.” Levi tugged at the sleeves of his button-up. “We need that money. The Initiative needs that money.”
A petty voice inside me wanted to point out how much money my brother would have for The Initiative if he wasn’t wearing designer clothes, twenty-thousand-dollar watches, and driving a car that cost more than most people make in a year. But Levi never did anything without purpose, and I wasn’t interested in hearing him explain the strategy behind his expensive bullshit.
“Like I said, I’m good.”
“Then what the fuck did you just do to my new assistant?”
I removed my hands from the keyboard before my claws could do any damage as my fingers began shifting. His assistant? My wolf was throwing a fit at the idea of Abigail being my brother’s anything .
“I didn’t bite her head off.” But I almost bit her pretty little neck.
“You scared the shit out of her. I’ll be lucky if she tells me before she quits and drives back to Minnesota.”
An hour ago, that was my best-case scenario. Now, I was crawling out of my skin at the mention of it.
Anger faded from Levi’s face, replaced with a pity I was growing to despise. “Be honest. Is your wolf giving you that much trouble?”
Yes, but not for the reason you might think .
“Levi, I’m going to say this as nicely as I can.” My voice thickened with a snarl. “Get off my dick. Don’t you have CEO shit to do?”
His gaze hardened and he met my snarl with one that was all alpha. We were both alpha wolves by birth but in the Silver Bullet pack, he was on top. He could use that essential power that would make even the fiercest shifter weak in the knees.
“Don’t push me, Gage. You know I want you here, but I’m not afraid to send your ass back to Alaska if that’s what you need to get your head clear, and your wolf settled.”
Fuck Alaska. Fuck the pack. The last thing I needed was a bunch of touchy-feely pack elders trying to fix something that wasn’t fixable. I’d seen the inside of enough sweat lodges—and enough naked old guys—for a lifetime.
So, I had a few PTSD episodes. A few of them daily, every time that God awful buzzing started in my head. What guy wouldn’t after watching one of his closest friends gunned down with silver bullets? After being imprisoned and tortured for months?
I twisted away from Levi, staring out the window at the rain-soaked trees. One deep breath turned to three, then I was counting out my exhales in intervals of seven seconds. It was one of the few tricks I learned in Alaska that kind of helped.
Levi was patient for the two minutes I collected myself. He wasn’t all bark and no bite, but he knew when to use teeth. Now was not that time.
“I was an ass.” I swiveled back around, meeting his frosty gaze. “I promise, I’m doing fine. Better than fine.”
Until two weeks ago when you dropped her file on my desk. Because if I was being perfectly honest, I knew she would be different before she ever set foot in here. “I’ll play nice with your big client. Professional to the max. Not a peep from me except to mutter some tech mumbo jumbo to impress him.”
My brother shook his head, still scowling. “You have to play nice with Abby too.”
“Nope. I’m not going to roll over like a good boy to protect her delicate feelings.” After all the shit I’d been through, I didn’t deserve this. The Goddess up there had it out for me.
“Suit yourself.” Levi stood, smoothing his hands down the front of his stupid, overpriced shirt. “You’re fired.”
“What the fuck? You can’t fire me from my own business!”
“Technically, I can. You said you didn’t want to do any of the ‘paperwork shit’ so on paper, I’m your boss.” Levi braced his arm on the door frame. “Someone has to do the paperwork shit. That’s why I’m keeping Abby.”
A sudden, furious jealousy took hold of me, swirling into a dreadful image of Abigail pressed against my brother. “Oh, so she’s your little human pet. I get it.”
Levi studied me as I growled, eyes unfocused. It was never a good sign when an alpha did that. He wasn’t studying my body language or the “fight me” sounds my wolf was throwing out.
He was searching the pack bonds, finding one out of hundreds of soul threads that belonged to me and tapping into it, reading me from the inside out.
A good alpha kept out of pack bonds, except to guarantee the safety of each pack member, and to tune in to their needs. As far as I knew, Levi ignored them.
How much would he see when he got a mental grasp on mine?
I froze, panic clawing under my skin. The buzzing began again, fainter than usual, but insistent. I should challenge him, fight him right now before he saw—
But I knew from the look on my brother’s face that it was too late. His brow sagged, lips pursing, and he was suddenly too interested in readjusting the band on his Rolex.
I didn’t dare breathe until he spoke, thankfully not saying what I hadn’t admitted yet.
“She just drove across the country for this job,” he said softly. “It would be callous to fire her because you have an ego problem. I need someone to do this job today . We’re swamped and no matter how good we are at security, the business will tank if someone doesn’t help me catch up on all this administrative shit.”
I fumbled for any kind of rebuttal and came back embarrassingly empty. This was a ridiculous outburst, even for me. I had no explanation for my behavior that didn’t put me on the spot and I sure as hell wasn’t about to tell Levi my recent revelation in case he didn’t know.
No one could know but me. It would only make this so much more complicated.
Levi needed Abigail for the time being. I could appreciate his dilemma. I might need her too.
And as much as I wanted to see her go, I didn’t want to put her in dire straits. I wasn’t that big of an asshole. So, playing nice seemed to be the only option. Maybe not nice, but I wouldn’t make her cry on purpose.
I told Levi as much.
“Conference room in thirty.” His expression saddened as he left the room, muttering, “I really miss you sometimes.”
A dense numbness settled onto my shoulders, creeping down my chest like icy vines. It continued until my hands were lifeless on my desk, too heavy to lift onto the keyboard. Somewhere, beneath this fog, there was a storm brewing. Anger, despair, helplessness. Emotions that Arlo—our pack mother and wannabe therapist back in Alaska—had forced me to put words to.
“If you want to tame them, you have to name them.” She was full of stupid riddles and rhymes.
I could admit that my time with her had mostly been helpful. Emphasis on the mostly because I was still here, sleepwalking through my life whenever I felt a modicum of emotional turbulence that wasn’t rage. Leave it to my brother to put me in this state.
Things were easier when I was angry. Angry at Jenna, at those scientist assholes that picked us apart, at the government that sent us across the world to die and refused to take responsibility for it. Angry at the new girl, stinking up the conference room with fear.
Angry at myself.
Ultimately, it was my fault. Every last shitty thing that happened to me, my brother, my friends, and maybe everyone in this damn world.
I wanted to be pissed about that. Instead, I was numb. Barely aware of the prickling sensation of touching my laptop as I scooped it off the desk and headed for the conference room. Muscle memory made my steps sharp and measured, leeching dominance, and commanding the submission of anyone within six feet of me.
It was all a good show.
My smile was falsely polite as I entered the conference room, shaking hands with a soft man in his late forties. He had money, and he had something to prove, but he didn’t actually need security services.
That was true for most of the clients that walked through our door. They didn’t want safety, they wanted circus animals. To show their rich friends they had the clout and cash to have a shifter walking on an invisible leash behind them.
For a fat stack of cash, Levi wasn’t interested in discussing how that made us look. We needed the money, and this was one of the fastest legal ways to get it.
I would rather deal with actual danger than do party tricks for a man like this. We were born killers, not trained dogs.
We were good in ways that human security couldn’t be, not only in our investigative abilities in the field and heightened physical strength but also in our expertise when it came to dealing with other supernaturals. Shifters were the most common, with witches and vampires being so uncommon most people didn’t believe they were real. Either way, if it went bump in the night, the guys and I knew how to kill it.
Deter the threat was Levi’s preferred way of saying it. Couldn’t have people thinking we were killers for hire.
I was in my seat, laptop open, mind blank. Then she walked in with a tray of coffee and a cautious smile, and the numbness receded. Life burned back into me, the fog vanishing to reveal everything underneath.
It was too much. I tried to look away as she placed a mug in front of me and took her seat. Her eyes found mine in a sidelong glance. Back and forth they flitted between me and her tablet, trying and failing to break contact. I knew I was glaring at her, the picture of unfriendliness.
Her gaze lingered anyway.
I don’t know what Levi told her after my meltdown this morning, but she probably thought I was batshit. New girl was a scared animal, waiting for me to move in for the kill.
That wasn’t the reason I was staring at her.
Of all the cities, she had to pick mine for a change of scenery. The chances weren’t just astronomical. They were nearly impossible. I was more likely to get run over, be robbed at gun point six times, and get chased by an escaped cow than I was to find my fated mate.
Yet here she was. Sitting just on the other side of my brother, totally and completely human.