Page 87 of Whatever It Takes

Voices echo around the spacious entryway, and I freeze a few steps down the front stairway.

“I’m sorry to hear that. I wish I could help,” Easton says. “Unfortunately, I haven’t seen Jameson in two weeks, maybe a bit more. Our office had some renovations scheduled, and my pack and I used the opportunity to take a trip to Virginia. Several of our employees just welcomed a new baby girl. Cute as a button.”

Seriously?

He’s laying it on kinda thick.

“Anyway, with the office inaccessible, we used the trip as vacation to celebrate submitting our pack commitment paperwork.” Easton chuckles good-naturedly, but it sounds weird as fuck coming from his lips. “We were gone for eight or nine days. Barely made it back in time for our omega to go into heat. I’m afraid we haven’t left the house since getting back. And even before that, Jameson was struggling to meet his work commitments. The week before the renovation, he worked two out of the five days he was scheduled, if that tells you anything.”

Shit.

It’s definitely the cops.

I roll my shoulders back and bound down the stairs, making the curve at the landing and moving to the bottom few steps. Pasting on a confused frown, I scratch my bare chest. “I thought I heard the doorbell, but you’re not the delivery I was expecting.”

Easton laughs. “Not quite.”

I sigh, holding a hand out to the officers. “Christian Calder. Sorry for that. My omega is in the middle of a meltdown because the heating pad and chocolates are taking forever to arrive. I probably should have just gone out and grabbed them.”

The officer on the right shakes my hand, while the one on the left continues scribbling in his notebook. “Well, we may have another round of questions if we can’t find something soon, but just to be thorough, would you mind giving us the contact information for the employees you visited?”

“Of course,” Easton says, pulling out his phone.

The doorbell rings, and I barely bite back my smile. Having parts of our story verified only helps to prove we’ve been truthful about the pieces we can’t verify—like us being here rather than in Boston.

Stepping around the officers, I move to collect Briar’s supplies.

I’m not as cocky as Easton, but I know I’m good at what I do.

They can dig and verify all they’d like. Before too long, they’ll exhaust all possible leads, and the case will go cold.

Life gets back to normal over the next couple of weeks. We have regular visits from the cops, but they’re just following up. I know we aren’t suspects, because I’ve let myself into their files on more than one occasion.

If Jameson’s family wasn’t wealthy, they probably wouldn’t have even bothered with the second or third rounds of questioning.

The news finally hits about Titus Manzo and the shake-up in Boston, but we aren’t anywhere near their radar. The same goes for the untimely death of Lorenzo Vincent in a home invasion. It appears the trash of the world is taking itself out left and right these days. Society isn’t missing anything with them gone, though.

Shoving up my glasses, I push my rolling chair back from my computer.

I’m just considering going to find Briar to see what she’s up to when my office door opens.

The little omega shuffles closer, with her long cardigan falling around her thighs, as she holds something in front of her chest. For half a second, I convince myself it’s a guinea pig. I told her about my quest for an office mascot the other night, but Easton was in bed with us, and he immediately vetoed the ideaagain.

If it wouldn’t hurt Briar… I really would consider stabbing him in the kidney. He has two, and he’s in good health. He could live with one.

Briar’s skirt slides up her thighs as she moves to straddle my lap. My chair is up high enough that only her toes touch the carpet.

“Hey, beautiful.” I smile as my hands come to rest on her hips.

She grins, still covering whatever is in her hands with the long sleeves of her knit cardigan as they rest between us. “I have a gift for you, but first, I want you to know something.”

“Yeah?” I lick my lips and my heart thunders.

“I love you, Christian.” She doesn’t call me my first name often, but unlike when anyone else uses it, I don’t mind whenshe does. She pushes her lips to mine and sucks on my lower lip before pulling back. “This is for you.”

“I-I love you too,” I say, studying the small black box in her hand.

“Will you wear my ring?” She pops the hinged lid, and it’s a men’s band in dark carbon. I’m pretty sure it’s the exact one I browsed a few weeks ago. Easton picked her engagement ring, so I figured us guys would just buy our own.

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