Page 90 of Tides of Fate

Logan muffles the phone, but not before Gideon hears Arlo snap,“I can take care of myself, you dumbass.”

It’s a full minute before Logan comes back on the line. “Let me check in with the rest of my pack, and I’ll text you my ETA. Gotta go—I’ve pissed him off like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

Gideon looks around, thinking he’d feel better if everyone cleared out before they had more strange scents in the house. “I’ll clear everyone out. Would that work best?”

Hearing that, everyone in the puppy pile breaks apart, looking disgruntled.

“Really? That’d be great. See you soon,” Logan says before disconnecting.

“That was Arlo’s mate, right? I would have liked to see him again,” Nix says.

When Jay shakes his head, Nix’s face falls even further.

“What? Isn’t that okay? Arlo is my friend, right?”

Gideon hates that he’s so uncertain, so he answers as kindly as he can. “Kitten, you can have friends over. But we’ve invited Logan to come and look at the security system, and it’s inoperative. It makes us nervous that you are—”

With every word, Nix’s eyebrows rise higher and higher until they’re almost at his hairline.

Crossing his arms, he says, “You’re worried that I’m what? Arlo and his mate are hardly a threat, and you’re all here. And the intruders didn’t takeanything anyway, right? So it’s not all that dangerous.”

Here goes nothing.

“Kitten, they waltzed in through the security system with the codes. They didn’t take anything because what they wanted wasn’t here.”

If Gideon had hoped they’d figured it out before, he was proven wrong when the silence fell so heavy you could hear a pin drop.

Jay gets it first; of course, he does. He is always oriented toward the safety of his pack, always trying to stay ten steps ahead.

“You’re saying they waited until we were gone—maybe even set Quest on fire to get you out—and then came here looking for Nix? That the only reason he didn’t get fucking abducted was because he left the house fifteen minutes before they arrived? Bychance?”

Nix sits down hard on his ass, between Grayson and Luca.

“Why would they want me? I’m just a nobody.”

Luca chitters like a startled squirrel.

“Shhh, baby. I know I’m not anobodyto you, but to everyone else, I’m just your beta mate, right? For now, anyway. Who would want me?”

Rowan starts pacing in the opposite direction of their pack leader, and if it all weren’t so damn fucked up, Gideon might find the mimicry amusing.

Ten paces one way—passing each other in the middle—and back again, identical furious expressions and long strides. No matter that Rowan is three inches taller; they’re two enigma-peas in a pod.

Gideon can only think of one person interested enough in Nix that he’d risk the wrath of Jay—and he’s already in prison with his days numbered.

“Gideon, you don’t think…?” Finn asks.

“No. These were professionals, and that scourge isn’t that well connected.”

Gideon had made sure. Every known associate of Dawson Ulysses Haversham Hayes had been investigated, every lead traced back to nothing. No pack. No family left—at least none that would claim him. Mother deceased. Father unknown. No siblings, no extended ties. Just a string of meaningless acquaintances, a side-piece, and a job he barely clung to.

And Nix.

The investigator’s report had been conclusive. There was nothing toworry about.

So if Hayes wasn’t behind this, then who the fuck was?

---