It was closer to high tide than low now, as the sun slowly peeked up over the horizon. The Dumfries men knew what they were doing as they secured the boat. Before I made it halfway out to them, a heavyset beta dressed all in black with a black beanie climbed up onto the dock and started walking toward me. I was pretty certain he was Wally Dumfries based on his stride alone.
“You got the shipment?” he asked, gruff and no-nonsense.
“Yeah, it’s back there in the boathouse,” I said, gesturing with my thumb over my shoulder. “I had to move it all in there because of the storm. That was some storm earlier, eh?”
I hoped stupid conversation was something Lucas would try at this point. At least my brother was the anxious, twitchy type, so if Wally and his buddies noticed the way I couldn’t stay still, they would think it was just how Lucas was.
“Right. Bring it out here, then,” Wally said, evidently in no mood to be social.
That was a problem. Zane and his men had set up the necessary recording equipment to document Wally’s admission of guilt in the boathouse. I didn’t know if it was strong enough to reach all the way out to the dock. I needed to get Wallyback to the boathouse, and once he was there, I needed him to acknowledge what he was doing.
“Okay, there’s a slight hiccup,” I said, hiding my fear by focusing on making my voice sound as much like Lucas’s as possible.
Wally rolled his eyes, and two of his men walked up behind him, scowling. “It’s always something with you. What now?” Wally asked, not budging.
“Um, you’d better come and see,” I said. “I don’t know enough about this shit to explain it.”
I turned to walk back toward the boathouse, certain my ploy wasn’t going to work. As I did, I scanned the top of the slope, closer to the house and the garage, for signs of Zane. Really, for any sign of Saint. I could feel my alpha up there, anxious and aching to run to me, but the plan was to wait until Wally and his men were all the way up at the boathouse before they made an appearance.
To my utter shock, Wally and his two guard-types followed me. Of course, judging by the way I could hear the two guards, who were alphas, sniffing, it was because they’d figured out I was still in heat.
“What’s the problem?” Wally asked as we got closer to the boathouse. “This is supposed to be a simple in and out, not an extended social call.”
“There’s a problem with the van,” I spitballed, starting to shake as the two alpha guards moved in closer.
“I don’t care about the van,” Wally said. “I just care about its contents. Westfield can worry about the van.”
My breath caught as the clomp of us walking on the dock turned into the crunch of us crossing the sand and gravel on our way to the boathouse. I prayed we were close enough to the recording equipment for those words to be picked up.
“Yeah, that’s part of the problem,” I said, catching a flicker of movement near the house out of the corner of my eyes.
Half a second later, the alpha guards jerked to a stop, stepping part of the way in front of Wally as they stared up at the house. Zane, Saint, Fenn, and the other two had finally made their appearance.
“This is how you fuckers choose to show your faces?” Wally demanded.
“It’s Westfield,” I said, repeating the story I’d told him on the phone earlier and praying my voice didn’t shake. “They got impatient. They showed up about an hour ago, wondering where their stuff was.”
“Bullshit. I called Andy from the boat to say there’d been a change of plans,” Wally growled. My knees went weak, and I was sure we were all about to die when he shouted up to the others, “Who the fuck are you all? What the fuck is going on here?”
“Jacob sent us,” Zane said, acting like nothing at all was out of the ordinary. Except for the obvious exchange of guns for drugs. “He got twitchy when everything was delayed.”
“And I told Andy we were moving the visit to dawn,” Wally huffed in exasperation. “Those two are morons.”
I might have whimpered out loud at those words instead of keeping it inside. Wally bought the story. At least, I think he did. He would have been a lot more suspicious if everything we were doing wasn’t at least a little bit plausible.
“Jacob doesn’t trust this one,” Zane said, nodding to me. “Says he’s bound to fuck up somehow.”
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be offended. Lucas probably would have found a way to mess up, though.
“Yeah, well, you’re the ones who picked an omega as your mule,” Wally said.
“Hey!” I interjected, but only because I knew that’s what Lucas would do. Really, now that I had Saint in my line of sight,now that I could feel him so intensely through the bond and even smell his scent, I just wanted to run to him.
“Do you have what we’re here for?” Zane asked, moving things along.
“Depends on what you have for me,” Wally said.
“We’ve got everything you ordered.” Zane crossed his arms and nodded to the van in the boathouse.
