Page 121 of Why Cruise

“He said they wanted his name, him in their pack. And that wouldn’t be enough anymore. That they now want you. Or an omega to sell. I don’t know what that means but, he’s going to do it. He’s going to bite into that pack or turn himself in and go to jail. To protect you.” Mackenzie swallowed hard, tears flowing down her cheeks. “And Ren, too. You said it, Justice. And Ren, too.”

Justice looked from Mackenzie to me and back again. His face was still very cold and very still.

“I need a computer.”

We had basically sprinted across the ship back to our room. The first thing Justice did was make Mackenzie change her shoes. She kept tripping in flip-flops. He had barely said a word.

Justice had my computer in split screen mode. I didn’t even know it could do that. We watched the video all the way through once. Nolan was dead for sure. He had jumped Ren. Ren defended himself. Nolan staggered back and collapsed, and Ren took off. Justice fast forwarded the footage, and it showed Nolan getting to his feet and then being surrounded by his pack, who took him to the ground and stabbed him over and over. I had watched it. I shouldn’t have. Now I felt like I was having sympathy stabbing pains in my gut, too.

In the other half of the computer screen, he was downloading stuff, but I couldn’t tell what. He spent some quality time bitching about the slow Wi-Fi under his breath.

“Okay, here’s what’s happening,” He finally said. “First, I’m getting everybody new phones. It will have location tracking on it, and you will carry it with you at all times, especially if you are doing fucking crime. This,” he tapped the thumb drive, “was reckless and dangerous. You should have come to me first.” He cracked his neck, “And I 100% understand why you didn’t.”

I bit my lip to keep a “yes sir” from falling out of my mouth. My dick was already hard. It didn’t need to get harder by being turned on by my alpha going all alpha.

Wait.

My alpha?

Mine.

When did that happen?

Justice closed some windows on my computer and brought up a skinny display that looked like a phone screen. He had had Mackenzie’s phone plugged in to transfer files or something. I wasn’t sure.

“I’ve cloned Catherine’s phone. That’s what you see here. Anything that comes or goes on her phone, we’ll see it. The Wi-Fi is too slow to upload all the data to the cloud, so we have to save it locally for now. She’s got PackFinder on her phone, so we know where they all are. Looks like she’s tracking Ren, too.” I leaned in and looked at the screen. Two dots were in the shopping plaza down the pier and two were floating out in the water. Duh, a map wouldn’t show a cruise ship. That had to be Ren and Catherine’s phone.

“I’m cracking into Ren’s phone remotely, but that’s going to take more time. It will pop up like Catherine’s phone when it’s done.”

“Is that legal?” We both looked at Mackenzie.

“No, Mackenzie, we are doing actual, real crime now.”

“Oh, okay.” She said, unfazed.

“There’s encrypted files that I want access to, but I can’t do that here. I need my computer and phone. Yours is too slow. So I side loaded the code that I need to fix mine on Mackenzie’s phone, and…”

“You could have fixed your phone this whole time?” I asked.

He squeezed his fist and tapped it to his forehead. “Yes, but that’s not the point…”

“Justice, you made yourself suffer for no reason? Why?” Mackenzie rubbed her hand across his tight shoulders.

He visibly struggled to get control of himself. “Because I would have had to ask for help. Now, next…”

“Justice,” Mackenzie cooed.

“Okay,” he blew out a sharp breath, “Can we table the exploration of my own personal trauma and psychological failings? I don’t think we have a lot of time, and I am not losing Ren again.”

Mackenzie bent and kissed his forehead. I could practically taste the sigh that rippled through his aura. His tension came down a hundred notches.

“Theo, stay here and watch their locations. I’m going to take Mackenzie back to my room and fix my phone and computer. Then we will all go find Ren. He’s still on the ship somewhere.”

And just like that, he guided Mackenzie to the door, and I followed in their wake.

Justice paused and gently wrapped his fingers around my neck. He pressed his lips to mine, his tongue briefly, too briefly, in me. He slid his hand up to my face and swiped his thumb across my cheek.

“I love you.”

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