Page 48 of The Packaged Deal
“You wouldn’t understand,” I growl at her.
“No, because you never talk to me. You don’t tell anyone anything. Your past is a mystery. And that would be okay if it didn’t come with all these contractual obligations. No bonds. No pack. No omega. No relationships with actual sharing of feelings or anything real.”
“Candice, we have work to do,” I snap at her. “Tell me about Trevor.”
Kandi’s eyes flash. She stands at attention and stares over my head. “Trevor is a man that we can find no information on, sir. We can find him showing up at parties, to venues, hotel bookings, but he doesn’t exist at all before 16 months ago, sir.”
“How’s the search for his real identity going?”
“Not well. He fits the profile of a lot of alphas.” Kandi hesitates. “Sir, I believe he’s used cosmetic surgery to alter his appearance. His pack. I’m not sure if they are real and they exist or this is a gang. But either way, they haven’t done anything yet that would de-mask them, except hurt Jade.”
I hum and scratch my leg absently. It’s where I was wounded, the scar aches sometimes in the cold.
“Keep searching.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Kandi, please. Don’t be like this,” I say with a tired groan.
“Like what, sir?”
I heave a frustrated sigh and put my head in my hands. “I can’t tell you, I want to, but I just can’t.”
“Why not?” Kandi snaps. “What’s so bad that you can’t tell the woman who loves you?”
“It’s so bad I can’t tell anyone. I don’t want you to hate me,” I growl at her, finally losing my temper.
She scans my face and apparently sees the truth there because she sits back with a soft sigh.
“You want to protect everyone, Sven, but they need you. I need you. Not your protection, just you.”
She smiles at me sadly, and then, with a little shrug of her shoulders, she stands up and leaves me alone in the dark, where I belong.
They need you. Shit.
No one needs me. If they knew the truth, no one would ever want to need me.
I close my eyes and hear the screams in my mind.
No. I’m not going back there. I got out, and it’s finished and done. I stand up and start pacing, but my eyes are drawn back to the house. Where they are.
Jade is enticing, captivating, alluring in the most intriguing of ways. It wouldn’t take much to twist my growing obsession with her into something more meaningful. Something stronger.
I put my hands in my pockets and slip back into the house. I may as well fire some emails off to Darion and Seb and see if they have any ideas. They are meant to be enjoying themselves somewhere ridiculously warm, but when this all broke, they dropped what they’re doing.
That’s how we roll at Raptore Security. We’re one enormous family.
It’s another bone that I choke on all the time. There are too many people depending on me, too many people who care. It’s perilously close to being what I fear most.
Jade is asleep in the immense bed, alone. She looks tiny, but even as I watch, her movements grow restless, her breathing laboured. She cries out, a sound of fear and pain. In the moonlight, I can clearly see her face scrunch. Her flinch is violent as if she’s been struck.
I ease into the room, padding towards her without making a single sound. I sink into a crouch beside the bed.
“You’re safe, little fox. No one will hurt you here. Just sleep.”
She seems to hear my words and sink back into a sleep that is more restful. I stay there until my legs cramp. Jade is beautiful. Her lashes are long, her skin is unblemished. She looks very young when she’s not being herself. I can’t imagine how low a human being you’d have to be to hurt a woman like this.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I pull it out while I’m slipping out of the room.