Page 29

Levi

Turning off the TV, I face Della.

She blinks at me, curious. “What is it?”

Her deep blue eyes are slightly red, with dark smudges beneath them that give a haunted look. She hasn’t been sleeping nearly enough, and I know what haunts her.

I left my room to get water before my morning workout and saw her dropping her comforter at the top of the stairs. She had bled through her T-shirt.

She hides her pain behind a bright smile, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t hurting beneath the surface. If anyone knows how to hide a multitude of crap from the world, it’s me.

I never show my scars. It’s easier to pretend they don’t exist. But to get her to accept my help, I had to expose my vulnerabilities.

“About what happened at Haven…”

She spins on her heel and walks back to the kitchen island, dragging herself up on the stool. “It’s fine.”

She picks up a piece of toast.

“He blames himself for it.” I circle the kitchen island and lean against the counter.

She puts the toast down without taking a bite and looks at me. “For what?”

“Aly. Not saving her. It’s why he threw himself into being Dexter Pieter. Pretending to be someone else for so long changes you. There are times I’m not sure he even remembers who he is anymore.”

I told him it wasn’t a good idea for him to use his real name at school. He said he was sick of fake names and didn’t want another one, insisting that no one would link Professor Vincent to his past. I didn’t push him on it, even though I knew it wasn’t a good idea.

The killer might recognize the name if no one else did, then what?

“ Was it his fault?”

I shake my head. “He wasn’t there, but none of us were.”

“So, he has a savior complex?”

“What happened to you is on us. If we hadn’t chased you out of Haven, you’d have been safe?—”

“But Mercy wouldn’t have been. If they got hold of an omega…” Dark shadows cloud her eyes, turning them into a stormy sea of despair. She looks away. “Better it was me than her.”

I smile faintly. “What was a certain someone saying about a savior complex?”

“Betas don’t have savior complexes.”

I sip my cold coffee while Della picks at her toast. I should encourage her to eat more to regain the weight she lost, since she wasn’t big to start with.

“I don’t blame you for it.” She glances at me. “What happened wasn’t your fault. You don’t need to look after me.”

“Part of it is guilt. A small part,” I admit.

“And the other part?”

At school, it was attraction. I know when I’m attracted to a woman and when it’s something else. This is something more. It’s fascination and attraction, along with a need to protect her from the evils of the world.

She’s so damned pretty that I can’t take my eyes off her. She came into our lives like an electrifying live wire, shocking life back into all of us—even Vince. But she doesn’t need an alpha flirting or trying to impress her; she needs time to heal and recover.

“I’m not sure,” I lie.

As I walk over to empty my half-drunk coffee in the sink and place my mug in the dishwasher, I feel her staring at me again. She’s curious about my tattoos. Most people are. They want to know what designs I have, how I decided on them, and what the significance of it all is.

I make up some bullshit for each person who asks.

What I never tell them is that the reason I got the things in the first place was to hide the worst of my scars. No tattoo could have concealed the belt marks on my back. The scar tissue is too raised, and the wounds cut too deep.

“You want to know about my tattoos.” I close the dishwasher and turn to face her.

“You have a beetle on your neck.”

“Ah.” I cross my arms and lean against the counter. “Did you know, in Ancient Egypt, the scarab beetle signified rebirth?”

“No. Is that why you had it?”

I open my mouth to tell her yes. The truth is, the tattoo artist I’d gone to had rambled on about his passion. All I’d seen was that the beetle would cover the marks I was trying to hide, so I shrugged, telling him, “Sure. Whatever. Just make it big.”

I approach her and reach for her hand. “Can I?” I wait, aware that she’s been hesitant to get too close to any of us since her abduction. That she even wants to stay in a house with alphas after what she endured is a testament to her strength.

She nods.

I take her hand. It’s softer than I expected and cooler. I lift her fingers to the right side of my neck. “Feel that?”

She smells faintly of sweet mint, likely from her shower this morning. I don’t miss her old fake scent. I like the softer, subtler fragrance of her skin.

Her breathing changes. I’m not sure if it’s fear or something else. I hope it’s something else. “Yeah.”

“That’s what I wanted the beetle to cover.”

“How’d you get it?”

“A boot.” I straighten, releasing her wrist.

Her brows knit together. “A boot ?”

“I was sleeping on the floor. My uncle tripped over me. Instead of waking me up and asking me to move, he kicked me. Left a cut that needed stitches.”

I keep secret the fact he liked to lock me in the basement, which is why I was sleeping on the floor in the first place. He must have forgotten I was down there when he went looking for something.

She stares at me as if she can’t believe what she’s hearing. “What kind of psychopath does that?”

“I have asked myself that same question more times than there are days in a year.”

Her eyes flick down. “And the campfire? What does that hide?”

I shrug. “Just needed something to fill in a space.”

My cell phone vibrates as she’s asking about my leg sleeve.

I fish it out of my pocket, glance at the caller ID, and answer it. “What?—”

“Get the fuck on the road, he’s moving!” Xavier yells down the phone.

I don’t ask who. It's the sickly science teacher, or Thomas Benson just showed his face. Whoever it is, both need following.

I bolt for the front door. Out of the corner of my eye, Della is sliding off the stool.

“Wait here!” I yell after her.

“Sure,” she says, following right along.

I’d argue, but Xavier is demanding, “Have you left the house yet?”

“You just?—”

“Move faster . We get one chance at this.”

Within seconds of sliding into the driver’s seat of my Ford Mustang, Della is in the passenger seat, slamming the door and reaching for her seatbelt before I can send her back to the house.

I glare at her.

She meets my gaze calmly.

Shaking my head, I stab the button for the loudspeaker and slip the phone in my hands free before starting the engine.

“Who are we tailing?” Della is obscenely excited. She’s sat up in her seat, eyes bright as she peers one way, then the next.

“You brought her with you?” I flinch at the volume of Xavier’s yell.

I reach for the phone, but Della beats me to it. A few clicks and she’s lowered the volume to just below ear-piercing levels.

“There was no bringing anyone. Vincent and I have an agreement.” Della tucks the cell phone back in the hands-free as I internally wince when I pull away from the house.

Xavier is silent for a long ass time, and I know exactly why that is.

“He told her,” I say as I speed toward town. “I did warn him.”

“Warn who what?” Della asks.

“What else did my brother tell you?” Xavier demands.

Her mouth opens in a silent O. “You’re brothers ?”

Xavier muffles a curse, and I hide a smile.

“Do you have a fake name as well? Wait. Don’t answer that question first. I knew you couldn’t be a real gardener. I have never seen someone do such a shit job of raking leaves in my life.”

“I did a good job,” Xavier’s voice rises, clearly offended.

“Sure you did.” Della rolls her eyes, then shakes her head, mouthing. “Terrible. Truly awful.”

I grin at her.

“What car?” I ask Xavier before he can continue arguing with Della.

Luckily, she’s in sweats and sneakers. Della is determined. If Xavier’s call had come when she was in PJs, she wouldn’t have stopped to dress first before following me out.

“Electric blue sedan. A Volvo.”

Vincent settled on a black Audi because it was discreet. My dream car has always been a Ford Mustang since my dad restored an old one when I was a kid. The bonus is it’s fast as fuck so it doesn’t take long to get to the school.

Just up ahead, I spot a blue sedan turning right and disappearing from view. A Volvo. Mr. Irwin’s car. “We’ll call you back, Xavier. I have him.”

Della turns off the phone. “So, who are we tailing?”

“Science teacher.”

“Why would he kill your omega?”

“I have no fucking clue, but we’re about to find out.”

We lose him a couple of times, and I nearly drive right past a parked car when Della grabs my arm and squeezes. “There. Outside the motel.”

“So much for a doctor’s appointment,” I mutter as I park in the motel parking lot.

“Doctor’s appointment?” Della’s forehead furrows.

I shake my head and cut the engine. “It’s not important. If I ask you to wait in the car?”

She unsnaps her seatbelt. “You’d be wasting your time.”

“Thought so,” I mumble.

The yellowed price-per-hour sign is the first clue that this won’t be pleasant or clean.

Della shudders and rubs her arms. “I feel dirty just looking at it.”

Me too.

In the corner of the parking lot, there’s a big guy in a leather jacket and a barely dressed thin woman, their backs to us. Fuck knows what they’re doing there, but whatever it is, I want Della nowhere near them or this place. “Wait in the car, Della. This place isn’t safe.”

By the time I’ve unbuckled my seatbelt and climbed out, Della is slamming her door shut and meeting my gaze over the roof of the car.

“You can argue, but I promise you’re facing an uphill battle,” she warns.

Vincent called her a menace. Xavier likened her to a squirrel of destruction.

Neither are wrong.

I stride to the entrance. “Fine. Stay behind me. Let me do the talking.”

The man at the front desk is in an off-white, stringy tank top. He has a light brown fuzz over his top lip that could barely be called a mustache, bloodshot eyes, and a shifty, twitchy look about him that makes me think he’s on something.

His eyes narrow on us. “You cops?”

I haven’t said a word, and he’s already paranoid as fuck. I should have insisted that Della stay in the car.

“No. We’re just here for?—”

“You think I don’t know cops when I see them?” The man’s voice rises as his hand disappears under the counter.

I’m shoving Della behind me when she steps around me.

“Uh, this is embarrassing,” she says with a nervous laugh.

The man’s eyes dart between us, his hand under the counter. I didn’t grab a weapon, thinking it would be a quick mission. Big fucking mistake. This guy is paranoid and packing. A dangerous combination.

“What is?” he asks, eyes narrowing with suspicion.

Della speaks in a hushed, conspiratorial tone. “Our fathers work together and we want to be together, but we can only do it in a motel in a part of town where no one recognizes us.”

The man stares at Della. Della stares back, eyes half-lowered, cheeks pink. How she’s blushing on command is a mystery to me.

“You want a room.” The man’s hand stops moving under the counter.

I hope to fuck he has his hands on a weapon and not doing something else with the way he’s suddenly looking at Della.

She nods firmly. “Do you have one with mirrors on the ceiling? I once saw a movie with?—”

I nudge Della aside at the sharp spark of interest in the guy's eyes. “How much?”

The guy is still trying to look at Della.

I step directly in front of Della, blocking her completely. “The room, please?” I fish my wallet out of my back pocket.

His eyes narrow on me.

Della leans around me, saying in a loud whisper, “He’s the associate in my daddy’s law firm. You know lawyers? That’s why he sounds like a cop. Promise he’s not though, because if you knew the things he once did to me on his office desk...” She fans herself.

Fucking hell.

“ Della !” I hiss.

“Sorry.” She doesn’t sound the least bit apologetic. “It’s not my fault I’m an over-sharer,” she says to me, then turns to the motel clerk. “I’m an Aries.”

“Aquarius,” the motel clerk says.

Her cheeks dimple, and her breasts press against my back, briefly distracting me. “Ooh, mysterious and free-spirited.”

The guy puffs up his chest. “I guess you could say I am.”

I can’t believe this guy is buying this.

“About that room…” I prompt, nudging Della back.

The motel clerk glares at me. “Dude, the room ain’t going nowhere. And a little courtesy never hurt no one.”

Says the guy who was getting ready to blow a hole through me. “Of course.”

He twists around to grab a key attached to a nasty, yellowed keyring. “It’s twenty bucks an hour. Toss your condom in the trash. The next customers don’t want to be finding that shit in the bed.”

I put two twenty-dollar bills on the counter. Not that I intend to be here for that long. But it won’t hurt to have extra time if we need it. “Don’t you clean the rooms after?”

The man’s eyes narrow as Della squeezes my arm in a subtle sign to shut the fuck up. “Isn’t he hilarious? So funny. My daddy absolutely hates him. Please, can we get that key?”

We get the key and walk down a hallway with ugly green-brown carpets.

“ Are you an Aries?” I speak out of the side of my mouth.

She shrugs. “How the fuck should I know? It got us what we wanted, didn’t it?”

I peer down at her and I’m not sure whether to laugh, drag her close and kiss her, or get her the fuck out of this nasty place to somewhere safe, so no one will hurt her.

I’m supposed to be leading this investigation, yet she just ran circles around the guy back there—and me—and I still don’t know how she made it look so easy.

She scrunches her nose. “What?”

“You sure are something, Della Jackson.” I struggle to believe that days ago she was nearly dead, and here she is breathing life into me and this investigation.

Her eyes narrow with suspicion. “Something strange?”

“Something incredible.”

She blinks, surprised. “Oh.”

Peering over my shoulder to check we’re still alone, I speak quietly. “We don’t know what room he’s in.”

There’s another hallway behind us, so we might be in the wrong part of the motel. Della moves left and presses her ear to each door we pass. “You do the ones on the right.”

Which is how I find myself eavesdropping on nasty shit I didn’t want to know in a filthy motel.

We’re halfway down the hallway when Della sucks in a breath.

I turn to her. “What?”

She grips the door she just had her ear against and shoves it open before I can stop her.

I get a good look into the room and regret taking one step into this place.

“What a terrible day to have eyes,” Della whispers.

I scrub a hand over my face. “Yeah.”