Page 22

Taking the phone and moving out of range, Jay pats Leo’s shoulder.

The beta is sitting on a chair, his head hung between his shoulders in what looks like defeat.

“Frankie, it’s Jay. Oh, he’s fine. Just feeling a bit tired. When will Lauren be home?”

Running a hand through his messy, curly locks, Leo lets Gideon soothe him again while he leans against the wall beside him.

They’re both facing the bank of windows across the front of the lobby when a black SUV and a tall black Mercedes Sprinter van drive up .

Vehicles like that do not hold vacationers or salespeople.

Vehicles like that hold people who are up to no good.

“Oh shit. We gotta go,” Leo whispers.

Two people sit in the SUV while a third exits the van and locks it with a beep.

The driver of the Sprinter grabs a bag through the window of the SUV and locks eyes with Gideon.

Shit.

“Jay, we gotta go!”

“Frankie, Leo is going to call you back at this number in fifteen minutes. If he doesn’t, then call the police and have them come to the Residence Inn in Downtown Clearwater.”

Jay hangs up.

Gideon grabs Leo by the arm, pointing toward the elevator, but taking his eyes from the man moving toward the lobby at a jog.

“You go get the kids. Finn will balk, but you have to keep your head, Leo. Once Jay and I have engaged them, you run. Here’s the room key.”

He presses the key into Leo’s palm with a squeeze, prepared to do what he was born to do at that moment.

The same as he is every damn day since he was seventeen.

“No, I’m not leaving you.”

“Take care of the others. Go. Now.”

With a firm but insistent push, Gideon urges Leo back just as the man from the van strides into the lobby.

Outside, the other two remain in the vehicle, watching with unnerving patience.

A hand disappears into the man’s pocket, sending a jolt of unease through Gideon.

Not a gun. Please, not a gun.

The growl that follows isn’t human—it rises low and guttural from Jay, whose tense shoulders radiate hostility.

The charged atmosphere thickens, an unspoken warning pulsing through the lobby, ready to burst into flames .

Gideon moves to his right, farther away from Jay, so as not to make it too easy for the visitor to get a bead on both of them at the same time.

“Leo, go!”

“James Rhodes?” the man asks, and Gideon almost sheathes his claws, because people planning to abduct you—or worse, kill you—don’t ask for your name first.

At least, not in Gideon’s experience.

Jay doesn’t respond, and the guy just tosses him the keys to the van with a smirk and a salute.

“Codex sends her regards.”

He’s back out the door and into the SUV, peeling out of the parking lot as quickly as they came.

Codex?

They watch them peel away, and Jay looks at the van and then the key fob, a look of surprise on his handsome face.

“Who the fuck is Codex?” Leo murmurs from behind him.

Lauren.

His mother-in-law has a code name. This is almost too good to be true.

Gideon can hardly wait to mock her to her face—even if he secretly thinks the whole thing is cool as fuck.

Not like he’ll ever tell her that.

Ever.

Gideon doesn’t waste a second before exiting the lobby, circling the black truck, and getting down on his belly to check underneath.

He can’t smell anything incendiary or hear anything suspicious. Maybe Jay’s enigma senses can.

“Jaybird, can you smell anything off?”

“No. Step back until I check under the hood.”

He pops the hood, and there’s no explosion—unless there’s an invisible poisonous gas, everything seems copacetic.

“Excuse me? Mr. Rhodes? There’s a call for you at the desk,” the day manager calls out warily.

“Thank you, I’ll be there in a moment. ”

Jay points a finger at Gideon. “Do not do what I think you are going to do. I mean it. Wait for me. That’s probably Frankie making sure her Boo-Boo doesn’t have a boo-boo.”

He winks before jogging away.

Once the door closes, Gideon walks around the vehicle looking for anything suspicious.

When he gets to the sliding side door, he pulls on the lever in a series of long and short tugs. At least thirty of them before the door beeps and opens like magic.

Suitably impressed, Leo murmurs in awe, “What the hell, Gid? What was that?”

“Nothing. He’s messing with you,” Jay says as he holds the key fob up.

Gideon cackles with glee at Leo’s gullibility, smacks him in the chest, and climbs inside.

“That was Lauren, right?”

“That was her. I’ve got the code and directions to the new place, but we need to clear out stat.”

Climbing into the back of the van, Jay slips into the driver’s seat.

The under-seat drawers hold a plethora of gifts from his new favorite mother-in-law.

Leo climbs into the passenger seat and buckles his seatbelt.

“How are we moving Finn? He’s got the others on lock in that hotel room.”

“I’m thinking this might help,” Gideon says, holding up a tranq gun. “Would you say Finn is 190 pounds?”

“No, Gid. Seriously. We will ask him to cooperate first.”

First?

“Why do you have to spoil all my fun?”

He puts the truck in gear so they can head around the side of the motel, where Jay insists Gideon and Leo stay with the van, but agrees to take the tranq with him—just in case.

Digging around further, Gideon unearths blankets and three new burner cells, plus a case carrying eight subcutaneous trackers.

Those are a surprise .

“What are those?” Leo asks with a nod.

He’s arranging the blankets from the overhead compartment and laying them over the rear seat in the van.

He’s laid it flat so they’ll have somewhere Finn can be comfortable, even if he comes willingly.

He pulls the meager belongings from the duffle bag, too, and puts them near the head of the makeshift bed.

Leo isn’t usually a nester, but it looks comfortable and thoughtful.

Gideon sighs, opening the lid to reveal eight trackers lying in a row, with their initials over each one. Using one of the burner phones, Gideon scans the QR code on the lid, and it pulls up a brief on the device. Each one is formulated with a specific mate’s physiology in mind to avoid rejection.

“They’re trackers.”

All Gideon has to do is inject the nano-device into his mates, and he can track them at any time, at any distance on his phone.

Lauren might be his new favorite person, no matter that he’ll never say so to her face. Or out loud.

“Trackers? What the fuck for?”

Leo’s tone implies he can’t imagine a single reason they would need individual trackers.

For a second, Gideon revels in how his mate has lived a life without fear and thought of the darker sides of life.

He now understands why Lauren kept her secret life away from her son.

Will Gideon be the one to pull the rose-colored glasses away from his charmed life?

Not bloody likely.

Leo sits cross-legged in the center of the makeshift bed, low-key excited to see his mates. It’s clear in his jittery legs and occasional shimmy of his shoulders. Even his eyes are bright.

And Gideon won’t be the one to ruin it.

Right now, anyway.

Tucking the tracker kit into his duffle, he hopes he won’t regret not using it right the fuck now .

The Goddess must have turned her gaze his way today, because he doesn’t have to dwell long on his indecision—just then, the side door to the hotel bursts open.

Luca and Grayson come racing out, carrying the bags and some of the hotel bed linens.

“Move, move, move!” Grayson shouts as they climb in and throw the linens on the makeshift bed before crawling into the front of the van and out of the way.

“They’re coming.”

No sooner than Grayson says it, Nix bolts through the door and up into the van, throwing himself into Leo’s arms with a cackle of glee.

He’s naked, with his baby belly on display.

“He’s right behind me! Why is this so fun?”

A similarly naked Finn falls out the side door, nose lifted to the wind, chasing his omega as alphas have done since time began.

“Come get me, alpha,” their omega giggles, and Finn follows the sound like the siren’s call it is.

Holy shit, Finn looks wild— hot— hair sticking up in all directions and his formidable erection leading the way.

Whimpering, Leo lets Nix push him onto his back just as Finn leaps into the van. “Come on, Leo, pants off. I missed you.”

Falling on Nix’s back, Finn slides his cock home the moment Nix frees Leo’s hardness to the warm air of the van. “My omega.”

He, Nix, and Leo moan in unison.

Gideon’s cock is rock hard and throbbing in time with his heart. He’s wondering how long the van can stay parked in the lot behind this human hotel before some concerned person calls the cops.

It’s Luca’s waving a hand in front of his nose, that finally distracts him from the magnificent sight of Finn fucking Nix while their omega opens Leo up with his tongue.

“Sugar, you have to drive. Jay is dealing with Rowan. Fucking chase set him off. He had to use the tranq on him.”

The side door opens again as Jay jogs toward the van with the unconscious Rowan flopped over his shoulder.

With one last look, Gideon breathes in through his mouth to avoid the rut pheromones quickly filling the van.

“You have to get the A/C on, or we’re going to fry in here,” Grayson begs.

At least they’d all die happy.

But Gideon starts the van as Jay effortlessly climbs in and rolls the unconscious Rowan into one of the captain’s chairs.

Shooing him away, Luca does up Rowan’s seatbelt before sitting in the seat beside him, fingertips on the pulse in his wrist.

“Let’s go, before he changes his mind,” Grayson mutters from his stance near the bed in the back to help hold his mates down or in the bed in case of a sudden stop.

“Gid, focus. Let’s go, love,” Jay says, dropping into the passenger seat.

“Okay, okay.” The Mercedes starts up, almost silently. “Where to?”

“Myakka State Park. That went smoother than I thought. Nix is a fucking genius.”

Gideon makes a left on Wyndham, away from the coast and the freeway.

“Smooth? Rowan is out cold.”

“Yeah, but I asked him to cooperate first.”