Page 20 of Cause Of Death

“Are… have you finished with him, then? Can… can we leave now? I don’t want to stick around in a room with four dead bodies, even if they’re the villains of the piece.” Kieran replies, and I nod softly.

“Yeah, we can leave. I’ll make a call to my friends once we’re outside, have them come and collect us.” I pause for a moment, wondering if I should ask the question on the tip of my tongue. Kieran has an air of vulnerable fragility surrounding him, but I think he’s actually got a core stronger than steel. He’d have to, with the hand life has dealt him.

“Kieran, how much of my…conversation… with Conroy did you listen to?”

The omega snorts derisively, glaring down at the corpse of the sigma before shrugging.

“While I didn’t take detailed notes like you, I think I managed to get the gist of it. It appears that someone fairly high up either in the Royal Empire or my family—perhaps even both—has taken a hit out on me. They approached your organization first, but also wanted to hedge their bets, or perhaps recoup the cost of the hit. So, they put out another contract, a sales contract, this time to the person employing Conroy and his cronies. However, as far as he knew, neither Conroy nor his employer were aware that you had a prior contract out on me when I was sold to them. My seller also didn’t notify them of my condition, possibly in the hopes that I would obtain sufficient injuries during my abduction to completely fuck my immune system, and eventually kill me.” Kieran glares down at the pile of dead sigmas and kicks at one of them in frustration.

“Unfortunately, Conroy didn’t know the identity of the seller. Hedidhave other details including offshore bank account numbers and a couple of IP addresses, but that doesn’t mean anything at the moment. As for the identity and motives of the buyer? Well, it doesn’t make sense. There are plenty of waysfor a group of alphas to attract an omega legally, but there are no matchmaking agencies in the world that would stand for allowing one of their omegas toaccessthe dark web, let alone be one of its stars.”

I cross the room and stop where he’s sitting, stretching out my hand in offering.

“Do you trust me, Kieran?” I ask, searching his gaze with my own. He looks up at me, searching my gaze in return before giving me a hesitant nod, placing his palm in my outstretched one.

“Good. Because right now, I’m wholly invested in keeping you hale and hearty so I can figure out who is fucking with us all.” I grip his hand firmly and haul him to his feet. “C’mon, princeling. Let’s get you out of here and into the fresh air. I’ll call my friends and see if I can patch you up somewhat while we wait for them to arrive.”

“What about my father? What about my security team? Can we at least let them know I’m okay?”

I pause for a moment, giving his request the consideration it deserves.

“Let’s get you somewhere safe and off the grid first. I won’t promise that you’ll be able to speak to your dad personally, but I’ll see if I can get a message through to him somehow.”

It’s the best I can offer him at this point in time, and I’m relieved when Kieran accepts it without argument.

I tap the flashlight icon on Conroy’s phone, the tiny light illuminating our surroundings well enough that we avoid tripping and falling over the debris and detritus littering the ground as we exit the ruined building. Enough time has passed that the sun has set, and only a few lighter streaks of blue and pink paint the horizon. I lead Kieran over to the crumbling outbuilding where Jekyll had stashed the van on Conroy’s orders. Using the keys Kieran pilfered from Jekyll’s body, Iunlock the front of the van and get Kieran to sit on the bench seat. A quick search of the cab of the van proves futile, with not even a basic first-aid kit stored in the dash compartment.

Fuck.

I give the omega a brief once-over, ignoring the way his spiced orange scent has my mouth watering and grimace at the state of him.

“Right. For the moment, you’ll live, but we need to get you out of here and somewhere clean. I’ll be right back. Donotmove from this spot, do you understand?” I order Kieran, and he nods. He slumps in the seat, his eyes dull with pain and exhaustion, a gray tinge bleeding into his skin and sending alarm bells clanging in my brain.

I briskly walk around to the rear of the van and use the code Conroy gave me to unlock his phone. I tap in a number I know by heart, one that will bounce from cell tower to cell tower, never stopping, never triangulating. It’s been well over eight hours since I left Leslie’s side, and I’m praying that they followed the protocols Henley set up when I first joined the Guild, and they’re back at home with Kimberly, awaiting my call.

“Speak!” Leslie barks down the line, and I shudder at the fury lacing their tone. I don’t think I’ve ever heard them this angry before, at least, not with me.

“L, it’s me. I need you and K to evac the following coordinates.” I rattle off Kieran’s and my geolocation, before dropping a coded bombshell.

“Code Orange. We have a fox in the hen house. I repeat, we have a fox in the hen house. I’ve secured our prized cock, but he’s missing a few feathers. We also disturbed a rat’s nest on our way out, but they’ve been dealt with.”

Silence echoes down the line before a spate of low cursing burns my ears.

“Roger that. ETA is two hours from now.”

The call abruptly disconnects in my ear, which is more telling than anything Leslie could have said to me. But at least they understood the message.

Shit has blown up, we have no idea who’s behind it all, and while I’ve got Kieran secured for the moment, he’s also injured. It’ll take Leslie and Kimmy a few minutes to collect our evac bags and med-kit from the closet, and then head to the storage unit on the other side of town to pick up supplies and the large, modified Suburban we store there in case we need to bug out at a moment’s notice. My main regret is that Henley and Steve are both still in transit somewhere between Las Vegas and Merced. Hopefully, Kimberly can get a message to them to meet us at whatever safe location Leslie has in mind.

Time is relative.Einstein said that. He wasn’t wrong.

The two hours it takes for Leslie and Kimberly to arrive at the abandoned ruins feels like an eternity. Without knowing whether or not Conroy’s boss decided to send backup, I remain on high alert. Every snap of a twig, every rustle of leaves in the trees or surrounding scrub, they all have me twitching and jerking. It doesn’t help things that I am surrounded by Kieran’s scent, which has the unforeseen result of sending my libido into outer space. My inner thighs are slick with arousal, and there is an unforgiving, incessant throbbing low in my belly following every beat of my heart. It’s distracting, and disturbing, and I don’t like it.

Not one bit.

Part of me is refusing to even contemplate the possibility that my heat is setting up to arrive early. However, the moreresponsible part of my subconscious willing to consider it is refusing to acknowledge or entertain the ideas that: a) another omega is influencing my heat cycles; b) we’re soon going to have an alpha on hand who isdesperateto finally see me through a heat; or c) for the first time in my life I’m attracted to more than one alpha, and would happily present for either—or both—of them. Separately or together.

I don’t have the time or mental bandwidth to deal with my body’s idiosyncrasies right now, so I do what most adults do when faced with such a dilemma—I ignore it and hope it goes away.

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