Page 23 of Ellie 3

They now realized they were the fools who fell into sexist traps listening to the bullshit of others and being too harsh on a woman instead of using their heads. They wanted the write-up in their files and an action plan on how to do better going forward because they wanted to be part of the future I saw for ASH.

Yeah, I hadn’t seen that coming either.

And apparently, it was spreading. Beth told me there were another two dozen nurses, practitioners, and physician’s assistants who wanted to schedule the same.

I really should have done this all years ago. Seriously.

Probably not. It was the series of dominoes that fell that made everything play out the way it did. I understood that and accepted it, but the wear and tear on me mentally, physically, and emotionally was beyond calculation.

Or reason.

Still, with things going so much better already and over a hundred and twenty of the people who had been a part of the last mutiny working hard to leave gracefully, life was better. Mywork-lifebalance was better. I was leaving work at six-thirty again. Something normal to have dinner at a reasonable time instead of at my desk and simply collapsing into bed.

And there would be a sexy man there.

My life really is so much better than last year.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I’d been distracted and stupid. I knew better than to ever fully drop my guard, especially in the parking garage where there were so many blind spots from the cameras. We had a lot, but we couldn’t cover everywhere and not have a million people to watch all of the monitors.

It just wasn’t realistic.

The gun cocking snapped me out of my happy thoughts and made me realize I was completely vulnerable and had no clue where the threat even was. I threw up a shield on instinct and made it just in time as the gun fired.

I knew without even checking that I was fine, but nothing was in front of me. Spinning around, I used my magic to freeze anyone around me.

My eyes went wide at who I found, but then I sneered as my fangs came out. “I’m only shocked you’d actually get your hands dirty, not that you’d shoot someone in the back, you pathetic piece of shit.”

Joel Warren, the former head of the board, stood there frozen with a gun pointed at me. His eyes were too wide and full of fear and hate. “What are you? How are you doing this?”

He mumbled it because of my magic, but he was able to speak. The magic wasn’t perfect and he couldn’t move much. Twitching basically, but it was focused mostly on his limbs.

And I wasn’t very good since I couldn’t practice much and hadn’t even known what I was… Which was why I snagged the gun from him.

Then I decked him with all I had just because he deserved it, but it took my magic off of him since I needed to focus to hold it. Whoops.

I smirked down at him. “What are you talking about? Vampires can’t do magic.” I chuckled as I squatted down by him. “I saw you in the reflection and dodged, turning around and disarming you, Joel. You picked this blind spot from the cameras to kill me after all.”

“Not kill you,” he hissed, but froze when I pointed the gun at him. “I want the formula for the additive. I deserve it after all—”

“Youdeserve it?” I mocked. “You? The moron who didn’t figure out what was right in front of him all this time? How…” I swallowed loudly when I realized we weren’t alone. I was in seriously deep shit and I didn’t care about the threat from Joel. “I can explain.”

“I’m going to love hearing it,” Ha-joon muttered, blinking between us. “I didn’t think you could shock me any more, Ellie, but I just saw something not possible.”

“Yeah, it’s complicated,” I sighed, focused on him and hoping this didn’t ruin what we had.

And that was the moment Joel decided to attack. When I was distracted like an idiot.

He lunged for the gun, knocking me to the ground. I kept possession of it and got a good elbow to his face before he was ripped away from me by a very,verypissed-off Alpha wolf.

“You dare to touch my fucking mate?” Ha-joon roared in his face, looking more animal than man he was so wild.

“Mate?” Joel gasped. “I heard you were only fucking. We brought you in, you ungrateful fleabag, and you forget that and who you should answer to for some—” He groaned when Ha-joon slammed his head into a concrete pillar.

“I bet that felt good,” I chuckled darkly.

“You have no idea and how difficult it was to hold back,” Ha-joon muttered. “I want to know how he knows you have the blood additive formula. He knows about Tuesday. How?”

I hadn’t put that together yet.

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