Page 26 of Billionaire Wolf Needs a Nanny

I opened the door and jumped out of my car before it came to a full stop. My girls were sitting on a rock next to the side of the road. Lacey held Emilia in her arms, rocking her as she cried. Their car had crashed into a large pine tree. The front was crushed into the tree trunk and the rear was damaged too.

Rushing over to my family, I ran my hands over Lacey and Emilia, checking them for any injuries. Lacey had a cut on her forehead that was already swelling. I brushed my thumb across her temple. The trail of blood from the cut had dried and crusted already. At last, I was satisfied with my examination and pulled them tightly into my arms.

"I could have lost you," I whispered. My voice shook as I spoke. "Both of you."

"We're okay," Lacey murmured. "Mark handled the car like a pro. We got out unscathed."

"What happened?"

"A black car followed us from the farm. Mark noticed them and tried to shake them off, but then they rammed into us. Thank God this stretch of the road wasn't next to a cliff."

It still wasn't safe, I thought. We were sitting ducks on the side of the road. I had to get them home. Lifting Emilia in one arm, I helped Lacey to her feet with my other. We walked over to my car and I ushered them into the back seat.

While I had tended to my girls, Pete had helped Mark to the front passenger seat of the car. Mark was walking with a limp and he cradled his left arm to his chest with his right one.

"How are you?" I asked.

"I'm fine," he mumbled.

Pete shared a look with me that indicated he disagreed. I nodded. "Go to the hospital. All of them need to be checked out."

Mark grabbed my arm. "Boss, whoever followed us was a pro."

It was almost midnight by the time Lacey, Emilia, and Mark were cleared by the doctors. Mark had suffered two cracked ribs and a broken arm from the impact. He refused an overnight stay at the hospital for monitoring and insisted that he only needed to go to his hotel room to sleep it off. Lacey suffered a minor cut from the glass shattering and scraping her forehead. Thankfully, neither she nor Emilia were seriously injured.

As soon as we stepped into the lobby, the front desk staff handed me an express mail envelope. It was addressed to me at the hotel. Strange, but not important at the moment. The only thing I had to concern myself with was getting Lacey and Emilia home.

Lacey was given ibuprofen for any pain resulting from the crash. I was on orders from the doctors to watch both of them for any signs of concussion.

Once they were in bed and I was alone, I opened the envelope. It was a simple typed letter with two sentences.

Stay away from Fisher. Next time, your family will be at the bottom of a ravine.

I crushed the letter in my fist. It was the fucking Nightblood wolves. It had to be. I had been so distracted with tailing Fisher that I had not considered that Unibrod's lackeys were following us the entire time we were in Paradise Peaks. I had slipped up and it almost cost Lacey and Emilia their lives.

And Fisher wasn't my only distraction, a voice in my head whispered. As much as I loved Lacey, she was still a human. A weak point that would be easily exploited by my enemies. Unlike a she-wolf, Lacey was completely defenseless. This was what I had always feared. At that moment, I knew what I had to do.

I let out an anguished cry and went to the mini bar. Not caring about anything else, I drank straight from the bottle of vodka.

"Blake?" Lacey's soft voice pierced through the fog of anguish in my head.

She came up behind me and touched my shoulder. I shook her off and put distance between us.

I paced the room before I stopped and stared out the window. "We have to talk, Lacey." The words flowed out of my mouth despite my wolf screaming and clawing at my insides. "We've been moving too fast. I think we should take a break."

"What do you mean?"

I didn't need to turn around to know her chin was quivering as she spoke. It was like I was having an out-of-body experience. Unable to control what was happening, I watched the scene play out like it was a movie.

I took another swig of liquor for courage. "It was a mistake." My mind flashed back to Lacey sitting on the side of the road with the wreckage of the accident behind her. "We were never going to work out. You were hired to be the nanny. Your only job is to take care of my niece, not jump into my bed."

"Is that all you have to say?"

I swallowed the lump in my throat as the bitter words flowed out. "I think that concludes our meeting."

"You're such an ass." She stormed back to her room.

I waited until she slammed the door behind her before I threw the bottle across the room. It exploded against the wall and rained a thousand shards of glass onto the floor, just like my heart.

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