“Yes, mistress.” Matteo’s thick black eyelashes fluttered as he grinned impishly at her. Judging by the ease with which the word ‘mistress’ rolled off of his tongue, I had a feeling the nickname was used often between the two of them. Images of Aria clad in leather popped, unbidden, into my head. My inner core heated at the thought, and Matteo gave me a sideways glance, waggling his dark eyebrows as my arousal at the thought was obvious by the spike in my scent.
“Enough of that,” Aria chastised him and looked up from the instructions, clearly frustrated. “I have no idea how any of this works, do you know?” She held the manual out to me.
My huff was indignant, “Does a mechanic know how to make a 1986 Buick purr like a newborn kitten?”
Aria scrunched her nose in confusion, “What?”
Sigh. “Yes, I can figure out how to make it work.”
I stepped into the kitchen and put the bag of clothing I was carrying on the counter and looked down at the beautiful orange mixer on the counter.
“Hello Chadworth,” I cooed to the machine as I ran a loving hand over its smooth surface, “I’m your new mommy.”
Aria chuckled, “As cute as you are, Tibby, you’re also a bit of a weirdo.” She let me take over and I pulled the rest of the accessories and the bowl out of the box.
“At least you can acknowledge that I’m adorable.” I winged the flirty comment at her like a professional baseball player, hoping that she would catch on. Luckily for me, I could see the amusement sparkling in her eyes, she knew I was flirting. Good.
“Aria, why don’t you tell Tibby about how we came to acquire this apartment?” Matteo slid onto one of the stools that were on the other side of the island and started to pull clothes out of the bag on the counter. Much to my surprise, he began to efficiently fold and arrange them into neat stacks in front of him.
“Well, there isn’t much to it. My great-grandparents were German aristocrats who fled Germany in 1918 after Wilhelm II abdicated the throne. They originally moved to New York and then, eventually, to San Francisco in 1922. They bought this penthouse then and nearly lost it in the Great Depression. I actually grew up here with my grandparents, and they gave it to me as a birthday present when I turned twenty-five.” She lifted her slender shoulder in a little shrug as if it was a boring story to tell. “We’ve lived here off and on ever since.”
She was directly related to German freakin’ nobility. Holy shit. I didn’t even know what to say but thankfully, as always, my mouth worked much faster than my brain, “Well, at least now I know why Matteo calls you mistress.”
Aria paused, and her eyes widened at my joke and she threw her head back and laughed.
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The sound of Aria’slaughter filtered upstairs as I ended the call from Cobb, who was on his way from the field office. My mood had taken a distinct nosedive during the ten-minute conversation. They would know for sure once they’d processed all of the evidence from the crime scene, but more than likely there was no usable information. The cameras had been tampered with, and the entire day’s security footage was gone.
Which meant that we had no leads to who had broken in and destroyed Tibby’s apartment. Fuck.
My protective alpha instincts screamed at me to grab Tibby and hunker down somewhere much safer than our penthouse until the trial. It was my job to protect her, had been ever since I carried her out of Hezekiah Jordan’s compound nine years ago. But, I also knew that this apartment was one of the safest places that we could have brought her to—after all, I’d set up the security system for the penthouse myself.
No one could get in or out without having Aria, Matteo, or my fingerprints. I’d have to add Tibby and Cobb’s fingerprints as well, but it was safe. There were sensors on the patio and on all of the windows despite the fact that we were thirty stories up. There were also cameras facing the front door, the elevator, and the patio, not to mention the fact that I could patch into the building’s security cameras since I had consulted on their security overhaul last year.
I had all of these reasons to believe that Tibby was completely safe in our home.
So, why was I still so worried?
Cobb was supposed to bring copies of their investigation, per Director Cruz’s instructions and I was anxious to get a look at them. It had been almost too easy to become a consultant for the investigation. Cruz had been trying to get me into FBI management for the past six years, ever since the bullet had shredded my right shoulder, but I had no desire to sit in the field office all day. I would not, however, say no to consulting. Especially since it allowed me to stay with Tibby as a part of her protection detail.
As I listened to the murmur of conversation down in the kitchen, a sudden idea came to me. I dialed Link’s number and waited.
Link answered on the third ring, “Yeah, what’s up?”
I could hear the voices of his pack mates in the background around what sounded like the dinner table.
“Hey, catch you at a bad time?”
“Nah, what can I do for you, Theo?” Link was the most easy-going beta that I’d ever met. He was probably the best person to add to Pack Russo, he smoothed out the ripples in the pack and brought everyone together with his level-headedness. He’d been our good friend for years, ever since he started at Aria’s law firm.
But, tonight, I wasn’t calling for his help. “Actually, can I talk to Owen?”
Link called for Owen, and there was a shuffling as the phone handed from person to person down the table until Owen answered with an emphatic, “Yello?”
