Page 25 of Alpha Wolf Bodyguard

The three of us sat in the back of the courtroom, listening to opening statements. Anders was brilliant. He put everything into his opening statements, and it showed. Aside from the murder charge, there were eight others connected to that evening. The victim wasn’t what anyone would call law-abiding, and his death had to do with his lack of follow-through on certain illegal “requests.”

There were charges on money laundering, human trafficking, and hacking. This only highlighted how crucial it was that Garin had been able to block our phones from being discovered. At first it came across as overkill, but if this guy was connected to technology-related crimes, it was exactly what we’d needed.

The defense attorney spent their opening time blaming everybody but their client.

The prosecutor did things wrong.

The police did things wrong.

The witnesses were not all there. He skipped over the fact that the ones not present were dead. He didn’t care. He was throwing anything at the wall and hoping that something, anything, would stick.

He went so far as to say his client was there because of discrimination. Apparently his name was the same as some bad guy in an obscure movie I had never even heard of. And of course, that’s why he was being charged.

It was a hot mess.

The judge finally had enough when he tried to get the charges dropped for the fifth time. And he didn’t do them all at once, no. He did them one at a time…each and every one of them. The judge denied it, told him to get his act together or face consequences, and dismissed us for a break.

I’d been expecting a long day, but one very different than what we were experiencing. And it only got wilder.

We weren’t outside for more than a minute when police ran into the courthouse. Shots were fired, screams were heard, and I wasn’t sure we were ever going to get the full story of what happened that day.

But at the end of the day, there would be no trial. He was dead.

There were a lot of conspiracies going around about how that happened. One said the holding cell was accidentally left open. Another said he was on drugs. Yet another said he got the guard’s weapon. And then my favorite; he shifted and his lion chased after a ball. Because that was how lions were.

It didn’t matter to me what caused his death. I was grateful for it. And that might’ve made me a horrible person, but so be it. His death was my freedom. It brought me safety for my family. If wanting and appreciating that made me a bad person, I’d gladly wear that title.

There were still things I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing: As good as the pizza place was, I wouldn’t be back to that part of the city again. Cutting through alleys was forever off my list of shortcuts.

That night when we all climbed into bed, I snuggled between my mates.

“Thank you both.”

“For what?” Trig reached for Garin’s hand and they intertwined their fingers, settling their joined hands on my still-flat belly.

“For being there for me from the first time you met me. For never making me feel like I was ruining your life as you protected mine. For loving me. For being mine.”

Chapter 22

Trig

As much as I loved our apartment, I was thrilled to be moving into Nate’s. It meant that we no longer had to keep looking over our shoulders. I wasn’t sure how well we were going to fit in with the neighbors, but if we didn’t love it there, we could always pick out a place together.

We planned to use the money Garin and I had saved for a house to make my grandfather’s cabin into more of a home. It would be quadruple the size, ready for our growing family. We’d spend weekends there, letting our beasts out and enjoying nature. But also, once Garin got us hooked up to the internet, we could work from there if we needed to be away from the city. I never thought I’d be the kind of person to have a second home, but here I was.

Justice and a few of Garin’s wolf friends offered to help us with the move. They had our place in the back of a box truck in less than an hour. We didn’t have a huge amount of belongings, but I expected it to take all day. At the rate they were going, we would be fully moved in before we went to bed. I could hardly wait.

Nate’s flat belly was just barely beginning to extend, so Garin and I didn’t want to miss a moment of it. He seemed to change by the hour, our baby grow, grow, growing. It was such a beautiful thing, watching our omega nurture our baby.

Garin and I both gave up our side hustles because we just didn’t need them anymore. And really, we hadn’t needed them before. We were both so hung up on buying a house together, as if that was what would bind us together. If only we had seen what was in front of our eyes the entire time.

Once the stuff we wanted to keep was moved into Nate’s house, we transferred some of his stuff that he didn’t want to keep—like his mother’s old furniture that was just a little too old-fashioned and definitely too uncomfortable for our growing family—into the moving truck, and my brother promised to drop it all off at the local thrift store. Just that alone had the place feeling more like ours and less like an ode to the past. I understood why he hadn’t bothered changing any of it before, but it was time.

It was early afternoon by the time everybody was gone. We offered to buy them dinner, but they each found an excuse not to accept. I suspected they wanted to give us some alone time in our new home.

It wasn’t long until the house was mostly unpacked and we could finally relax. There were still boxes, but anything we needed was easy to get to, and we were calling it good enough. I was bone tired and I couldn’t imagine how Nate was still awake. We’d made sure he didn’t work too hard, but our little mate was stubborn and still managed to do far more than I’d have liked.

A new king-size bed had been moved into the primary bedroom. We’d been crammed in a queen at our place and a full-sized bed at the motel and cabin. It was going to be such a big change for us. I had a feeling we’d still be all snuggled together despite the extra room. With two incredibly sexy mates, how could we not.

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