Page 109 of Bonding the Band

“She’d better not be driving all the way to Seattle when she’s that full of baby. That doesn’t seem very safe.”

“Fuck. Okay, goddamn it, let’s go talk to Hendrix first, so we actually have an explanation when we catch up to Meadow.”

“I could follow after her right now, and you could go talk to Hendrix by yourself,” Arlo suggested instead.

“Dude, that’s an eighteen-hour drive. You can’t make that by yourself.”

“Neither can she. She’s going to have to stop somewhere for the night.”

“Fine. You get ready for that drive, and I’ll go to the rehab facility.”

We split up, and I white-knuckled my way through the entire drive. Hendrix had better have a damn good explanation for those photos.

I waited impatiently and as politely as I could manage while the front desk staff checked me in and went to locate Hendrix. I paced the visitors’ room. It looked weirdly familiar, and I pulled up the tabloid images, noting the same windows, the same couch.

As soon as Hendrix stepped into the room, I shoved the phone in his face. “Explain yourself.”

Hendrix shoved the phone away, his eyes wide. “Hello to you too.”

“Don’t be fucking cute with me. Those pictures were on Meadow’s tablet, and now she’s on her way north.”

“What?”

“Why were you kissing Ellie? And why are there fucking photos of it?”

“Fuck’s sake, Iwasn’tkissing Ellie. She kissed me when she impersonated our omega to get in here. She even dyed her goddamn hair, so I would think she was Meadow from a distance. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Shit. “How are you going to prove that to Meadow?”

If she was upset enough to run, I wasn’t sure she would accept his explanation.

Hendrix growled, running his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know.”

My gaze swiveled to the cameras tucked into the corners of the room. Oh no. I yanked him close and whispered in his ear, “Look at the angles of the photos.”

His eyes flickered over them for a few seconds before realization dawned on him. “They were taken from insideandoutside. Did she tell someone she was coming here? Did they hack into the footage, or did someone give it to them?”

“Hack seems more likely. At least, if they want to keep up their business. The celebs staying here would sue them into the fucking ground if they got caught leaking photos of clients in here.”

“I pushed Ellie off after half a second, I swear. They should still have the footage of that. They reported her to the police when I told them who she was. As far as I know, they didn’t catch up with her, though.”

“Of course not.” I sighed. “That would be way too helpful. Okay, let me go ask for someone who has access to footage.”

We waited an agonizing hour and a half for someone with the authorization and expertise to arrive and go through the footage. Relief poured through me as I watched Hendrix do exactly as he had said on the screen.

“We need a copy of that.”

“I’m afraid we would need a court order to surrender security footage of the facility.”

“It’s footage ofme,” countered Hendrix. “Footage that, might I add, was screenshotted and given to the tabloids. You’re going to give it to me, or I will sue this place completely out of operation and blacklist you in every social circle I have.”

One of the directors, who had been supervising the process, let out a sigh. “That’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair is that I came to you for help, and I’m paying out the ass for it, only for your staff to allow my abuser in here and fail to secure your footage of the clients in the facility, and now my omega thinks I’ve been fucking cheating on her. Fix it.”

Damn, Henny was growing a spine.

“Our lawyer’s on speed dial at this point,” I said to them, calmly, but the threat was there.

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