Page 11 of Targeted By Love
Boaz, who I was closest to, as he was eighteen months younger than me, was one of the Alpha’s Betas and tipped to take over when the big boss died or retired.
As the tallest of the six boys and ten years older than Lake, the youngest, they looked up to me, and maybe growing up I took advantage of that, daring them to perform pranks and dangerous tasks that had a high risk of failure.
So for me to be asking their opinion about something was different, and they all looked at one another, some shrugging, one whose cheeks paled, and another who steepled his hands.
“I met someone.”
Judging by their expressions, they’d expected me to talk about work. Yes, they were aware I ran a hedge fund, and no, I had never revealed my other job. No matter how much I trusted my brothers, letting them in on that secret might endanger my life and theirs. Secrets were best kept… secret.
“And you mated?” Ezra tossed the sofa cushions on the floor. “Where is he? Hiding in a closet?”
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Thiago raced into the bedrooms and opened the closets, cursing and banging each door when he didn’t find my mate.
“Why is this door locked?” He jiggled the office door handle.
“So my nosy brothers don’t access confidential financial information.” I was already annoyed with my siblings. Perhaps I’d made a mistake.
As I left the wedding reception, I’d called my cousin and asked him and his brother to watch over Rhodes. I sent them a pic and told them where he was. They didn’t ask questions. Being in the mafia, they understood everything was on a need-to-know basis.
“Brothers Grey, I need your help. Now sit down, shut up, and listen.”
I rolled my eyes as they saluted in unison. Asshats, all of them.
“I met my mate, but we didn’t mate.”
Ezra gasped. “Oh no. Did the universe fuck up and mate you with someone already mated?”
That did happen when one shifter didn’t find their fated and mated someone else for whatever reason. It was tragic for those people, and sometimes the result was all three had their hearts broken.
“No.” I took a deep breath because my siblings would be in an uproar when they heard what I was about to say. “I was on a job.”
“A job,” Riggs whispered. He was aware, as were all my brothers, that I couldn’t and wouldn’t tell them more than that.
“It’s someone I went to boarding school with.” Another experience that separated my brothers and me. But when ascholarship comes knocking, offering you the future of your dreams, you take it. “You don’t know him.”
Boaz threw his hands in the air. “So what’s the problem?” He grumbled he’d had to cancel time with a friend to be here, which was code for a fuck-buddy session.
“He’s not part of the mafia.” I steeled myself as their faces registered horror. Thiago clutched a cushion to his chest while Boaz stood, trying to take command.
“That can’t happen, Bro. You know the rules.”
Ha! If they thought that was bad, wait till they heard the rest of it.
“He’s human!” I blurted out and almost enjoyed their reaction. Eyes bulging, fists clenching, and them swapping their gaze for their beast’s.
They yelled over one another, and my wolf asked if he could take his fur and lash out at them. No matter our jobs in the mafia world, my wolf was numero uno in our family group.
No. It won’t solve anything.
Boaz told me that mating a human would threaten my role in the pack. That was true if I mated for any reason other than the human was my fate. But the law of fated mates was sacrosanct in shifters’ lives.
My brothers quietened because they weren’t solving the problem and perhaps they expected gossip.
“I can’t live without him.”
That stunned them into absolute silence until Boaz added, “We have to protect the mafia and shifter way of life. No humans can be allowed to disrupt that.”
Six heads swung toward the door as a thump alerted us someone was listening, and my phone buzzed. I sniffed the air. Gods, no, it was Rhodes. How had he found me?