True insanity, in this case, being the fact that three rather large men, all of whom were shifters, were all currently crowded in the back of that van, whispering amongst themselves and kneeling over a rather large diagram that spanned the length of most of the floor and detailed the interior of the house in front of them.Rather large diagram that had, in fact, been created by Marcus shortly before he had happened to agree to such an absurdly stupid and downright crazy situation.
Let’s rewind.
Earlier in the day, Marcus had agreed to, or rather insisted on, creating an estimated floor plan of his mate’s former home, taking the recollections of her former bodyguard as well as his own knowledge of common-sense architectural design and using it to come up with an estimated blueprint of what it might possibly be laid out like inside of the Forsythe-Drew household.This ended up taking an extraordinarily long amount of time, during which all the men had been hiding in Shawn’s office, murmuring to each other as they tried to come up with the best plan of invasion for sneaking into said house, poking around a little, and investigating El’s adoptive mother.
At the time that Marcus had insisted that he do this, he was more or less insisting that he helped just so that he could figure out what exactly was going on.But sometime between then and the actual creation of the floor plan, he had been convinced that it would be in his best interest to come along with his two brothers and break into the mansion.This was because, as his brother-in-mating Shawn had insisted, there was power in numbers and safety in numbers, and as he loved his mate beyond words, he never wanted her to go through the pain of losing any of her mates, lest she have to see the complete misery in a broken lion’s eyes.Therefore, he agreed that he would join the pair, so long as they could agree that it would not take too long and they would be as communicative as possible during the invasion.
While they were doing this, however, all three of the men happened to overlook a single, rather pressing fact about the situation that they had currently found themselves in.That fact was that it was Mother’s Day, and on Mother’s Day, families typically tend to do things together.Especially large, pronounced families like El’s, whose faces practically lived on the cover of tabloids and therefore required that they all behave as people would expect them to, lest someone’s reputation suffer.
Marcus had long since forgotten that his mate’s true brothers were politicians and that her mother was a bit of a socialite.To be honest, everything outside of El didn't really matter to him, and he had pretty much dismissed the information from the moment that he had been given it.But upon further reflection, he realized that such a choice had likely been a mistake because if he had chosen to remember that everyone in the family was famous, then he likely would have been able to anticipate the site that the men found themselves facing the moment that they pulled up outside of the large, gilded gates of the Forsythe-drew household.
That sight was, for the most part, the fact that there were cars there.Plenty and plenty of cars, far more cars than they had initially anticipated.This was because it was, in fact, Mother's Day, and Mother's Day just so happens to turn out to be a rather popular holiday.At first, Marcus didn't realize that the cars that were parked outside of the house were likely her brothers and a low growl had formed in the back of his throat as he assumed that there were that many hunters currently after his mate.But the moment that he realized who they belonged to, he relaxed slightly until he realized something else.
“That's my car,” Trip said, and indeed, it was, in fact, his car.When one took that into consideration, as well as the fact that the majority of the triad had agreed to share their possessions with each other, it became shockingly obvious that not only were El’s brothers there, but El herself was there.Meaning that El was also potentially in danger, considering the fact that it seemed more and more likely by the minute that her own mother was a hunter that had been planted years ago by a hunter organization and just so happened to be hunting her own adoptive daughter.
And now she had El and Ryan, for the most part alone in her house, along with her two sons that one couldn't exactly be certain weren't hunters, which was also sort of concerning as well.
Worse yet, they weren't completely sure whether or not she was a hunter, despite the large amount of evidence that could say that she was, and therefore, it was imperative that Annabel not realize that the three men had decided to enter her household uninvited.And now, they had to enter her household uninvited while also happening to avoid their mate, who had a super sense of smell and enhanced shifter abilities as a result of being multiple types of big cats and being more in tune with her beast than many people thought she should be.
This was, all things considered, remarkably horrible news, and it made Marcus really wish that he had chosen to mind his own business and stay at home because at least if he had stayed at home, then he would be with his wonderful daughter, who, he realized upon scenting the air and not smelling her, had been left at home in the hands of one of their many family friends to be cared for.Considering the fact that they didn't have many family friends who he would really trust, outside of the bodyguard who he could smell had accompanied Ryan and El, she was probably being either bored out of her little baby mind or neglected in the favor of fucking—if they were lucky and she had been given to one of their more reasonable friends, rather than Ryan’s power hungry lioness mother who was by all accounts very likely crazy.
“Stressful,” Marcus audibly stated, because sometimes you really needed to acknowledge the reality of your situation, and this was one of those times.Never would he have opted for all of his daughter’s fathers to be diving into a potentially dangerous situation and leaving her all alone, taking their mother with them, and making it all too possible that if things went wrong, their beautiful bouncing baby of joy would become an orphan.But there they were, and now that they had already committed to the point that they were parked outside of the house and knew that their mate was currently inside of it, there was no turning back.At least, not when you were saddled with the two jokers that Marcus currently found himself saddled with.
One glimpse at Shawn’s face and he knew it: there was no way that they were going to leave without their mate.The wild Panther part of the former shifter was likely growing at the moment, thinking about all the things that could possibly go wrong and how he could prevent them only if he was there.It wasn't in his nature to leave his mate behind, nor was it in Trip's nature.One glance between the two of them and Marcus knew that.
Thus, he sighed and resigned himself to what was inevitably going to happen, which was that he was going to leave the safety of their van, where everything was stable and predictable, and follow the two men into the danger that was the Drew household, a place that Shawn had not been to in over a year, and reassured the men it was constantly changing to the point where aside from the dimensions of each room, which he seemed to have a rough idea of—Shawn wasn’t exactly sure what the intended purpose of each room was anymore.Especially now that Annabel and Joseph were planning to put an end to their unholy matrimony and save the world from the never-ending misery that was the two of them being wed to each other.
Means to say, Marcus wasn’t exactly confident as he looked over at the large yellow mansion that stood on the other side of the street, flocked by a massive front yard and two other houses addressed at the same property—apparently El’s two brothers had opted to build their own homes upon the massive stretch of land rather than be far apart from mommy dearest, which said a lot about them to Marcus as well, and made the fact that they were hanging around El all the more concerning.
Shawn didn’t seem to believe that either of them was in the hunting business, not yet, at the very least, but Marcus didn’t know if he believed in that.Just as it turned out, he didn’t know if he believed in the pair’s current plan, the one that, after hours of deliberation, both Shawn and Trip had come to the conclusion was the best choice amongst many, which just made Marcus furrow his brow and wonder what exactly the other choices were.
Surely, there had to be some plan that was better than rushing to the side of the house, finding the shorter part of the fence, and then scaling a brick wall!Maybe blowing a hole in the side of the fence or something of that sort would have been far more casual and less notable than three grown men taking a run at a brick wall and deciding to climb it.Even when Shawn pitched that they all shift into their big cat forms, Marcus still questioned the polity of the plan.But evidently, it was the best plan they had by far.
Shawn had stated that there was a security guard always on watch at the front gates, and there were security cameras that took moment-by-moment photographs at increasingly high quality, the AI within the cameras trained to zoom in on any detected facial features and run them across a catalog of United States citizens.Since just about everyone had a passport and some form of documentation that had been snuck into government databases by the shifter council, risking being captured by those cameras wasn't exactly an option.Not so long as they didn't have a witch on their side.Perhaps the idea of not bringing Willow with them wasn't exactly a great one either.Not to mention, if they went over the front fence of the house, then the trained snipers that were automated and hung off the side of the roof would detect movement at the fence, see the unfamiliar faces, and then likely shoot their brains out.There were also the trained dogs that flocked most of the fence line, with this one area being the only possible gap in their system, that was if they had decided not to listen to their former security personnel when he worked there.
“I warned Annabel about this portion of the fence several times,” Shawn complained, “but she was too focused on spiting me out after I put an end to our liaison to care about it.She insisted that if someone had the time to locate and climb a five-foot section of the fence that was left unguarded, then she supposed they’d be there to kill her husband instead of her—Annabel never really wanted to get divorced,” Shawn said with a shrug at the looks of horror that decorated the surrounding men’s faces, seeming to understand the horror that both of them wore as being a product of their upbringings being solely within the world of the pride rather than the nitty gritty reality of human culture.“Marriage isn't exactly seen as this highly revered thing amongst certain social circles.It's just sort of seen as an inevitability,” Shawn explained to the horrified men, largely because he felt like he had to.“Women like Annabel come to the conclusion that they're going to have to have a husband and that they likely won't like them, and so they just sort of put up with said husband, but they never think twice about divorcing them or anything like that.Divorce isn't really something that happens amongst the true elite,” Shawn explained and then chose to close his mouth before he digressed more.
Like the fact that Annabel’s temper might have turned fiery at the news of her divorce because it meant that it was also hurting hunter society, it was very likely that she had no intention of harming her daughter, despite that she was, so long as she could get something out of the arrangement, in this case, a sizable fortune and the connections that she needed in order to make it in this world.But since her husband was leaving her, her influence would dim, and she wouldn't have the last name to back her every claim.This could seriously hurt a hunter tribe.
And therefore, it was important that they get the evidence that Annabel was, in fact, a hunter out of there before she went straight to murdering her youngest child and hunting down her supposed grandchild next.
But despite the fact that he kept his mouth shut, both Trip and Marcus seemed to note that there was something that could be considered particularly concerning about Shawn’s demeanor, the way that his shoulders never dropped or the way that his eyes kept darting back and forth, lingering for a moment too long on the large estate household to the side of them.It didn't take a genius to realize that he had probably concluded that the mission that they were going on was pretty dangerous, and therefore, his nerves had arisen.But again, no turning back.All three of them were just waiting for the moment that one of them would decide it was time to go, not wanting to be the one to lead them to their possible deaths, but also not wanting to wait too long and risk El’s safety.
Eventually, having enough of the waiting and always been a rather impatient guy to begin with, Trip made the decision.
Swallowing hard, the man made to stand up, knowing that he couldn't wait much longer, not while everything was up in the air.He could feel his nerves silently from being beneath his skin, a hint of fear tingling at the back of his mind, but it was too late to change anything.Instead, he looked between the two men as he stood, indicating that they should get up as well, and then reached for the door, pulling the back door of the van open.
“We’re going to have to shift in our clothes,” Trip said after another moment, spotting an old lady walking a dog down the side of the street and deciding that the last thing their brand needed was for two of the founders of the Feral restaurants to be seen in an affluent neighborhood streaking.
More than that, it was probably best that they keep their clothing on for other reasons as well.Shawn’s unimpressed scoff behind him made it clear that he had no intentions of removing any clothing.
“What, you thought that we were going to go crawling around their house naked?”Shawn teased, his dry humor breaking the tension.All three of the men seemed to pull themselves together, Marcus being the last one to leave the van and close the door behind him as he slowly and carefully kept his distance from the others as Shawn made to act like he was walking normally across the sidewalk, having just been in the area and decided to visit.
The story seemed likely enough, considering the fact that several of the neighbors had seen him before, and were familiar with the man's face.Though, being as rich as they were, most of them wouldn't realize where exactly they had seen them.Few, if any, of the upper elite ever made the effort of noting the faces of other personnel.Not unless they were particularly beautiful or had skills that were somewhat enviable.Joseph had made a show out of keeping as many secrets about his staff as possible, not wanting anyone to know what their backgrounds were or that one of his head security guards was a previous veteran who had worked not only with the Marines but also the CIA, the FBI, and even at one point the presidential protection squad.All this information made him more valuable, and therefore, all this information was kept as far away from people as possible.
For all that the people who walked past them on the sidewalk knew, these were just another stream of paramours of the local housewives.Cheating was common when you were rich, morals weren't exactly something that money could buy.And attention span was also something that money could buy, considering the fact that no one seemed to realize what was going on or that something suspicious was happening the moment that Shawn cut off the sidewalk, breaking into the streets and dense foliage that grew to the side of his walkway near the Forsythe-Drew household and soon being followed by not one, but two men.If anyone found it odd, they made no comments.
That was another nice thing about the rich; they were also so wrapped up in their own craft that most of the time, they couldn't be bothered to pay attention to the peculiarities of others.Case in point, while a man walking with a rather large German shepherd did happen to peer in the direction of the bushes for a single second, his eyes did not linger long, nor did he think too much of it.If anything, he just assumed that the three men were three other wealthy fellows who just so happened to enjoy off-path hiking.By the time they had disappeared into the dense vegetation, they had practically left his mind, the old man's thoughts being filled with news of the stock market as well as silent questions as to whether or not his maid was currently stealing from him.
