“Is the omega safe?” Cruz asked.
“As safe as we can make her at this point. That academy has some of the worst security that I’ve ever seen, sir, the perp practically tap-danced his way up to Ms. Sinclair’s apartment. Luck is the only thing that keeps us from having a fifth body on our hands.” Even just thinking about how close she was to becoming a victim, like the four other witnesses, made my chest feel heavy as if someone had placed a hard stone directly onto it. I absentmindedly rubbed my collarbone as I waited for Cruz to digest the information I had given him, willing the heavy feeling away as I did so.
“I wish I could say that this was the first time I’ve gotten a complaint about the omega academy in the past five years,” Cruz gave a great sigh and rubbed his temples, like the rest of us he also hadn’t slept in over forty-eight hours. “There is some seriously shady shit going on there, but it’s nearly impossible to serve them with a warrant. Aside from the mother of all smoking guns, we can’t even investigate without a ton of evidence.”
“You’d think that sweeping potential threats to an omega under the rug would be evidence enough.” I scoffed. This was one of my biggest pet peeves about any kind of civil service that the state provided. It takes some of our most vulnerable groups of people and gives monsters the opportunity to reign free without repercussion under the guise of ‘being good people.’ I’d seen one too many kids abused in foster care, one too many elderly persons abused in care facilities, and one too many omegas taken advantage of in whatever program the state thought fit best. “Not to mention forcing an omega to live with an alpha pack against her will.”
“Hey, that had a happy ending.” Cruz reminded me, “The powers that be are really good at ignoring problems if they have a happy ending, even if it had a higher chance of going horribly wrong, rather than wonderfully right.”
I just shook my head at how ridiculous it was. Yeah, Eloise Taylor was happily bonded into her pack, and they would do anything to keep her safe, but they’d also put her in danger due to Russo’s ties to the Italian mafia. I had seen it first hand and I didn’t care to repeat the experience with Tibby.
Cruz could probably see the stubbornness on my face, because he just heaved a sigh that only a man in charge could and said: “I will put some agents on the academy, digging into their finances and see what I can do about pressuring them to get their shit together.”
“Thank you.” It wasn’t enough, but at least it was something.
“I’m going to need you to report at the end of every day from the safehouse and update me on the omega’s situation. I am also going to send the prosecutor your way to help prep her for the stand.” We had six weeks to turn Tibby into a star witness that would, hopefully, put Hezekiah Jordan away for life this time. We had no other witnesses to rely on, so the weight of all of this sat squarely on the shoulders of Tibby Sinclair. I just hoped she could handle it.
I’d left soon after that, armed with a box full of copies of all of our case information from the office. They ranged from our current case, all the way back to the original case files that were filled out after the raid of Hezekiah Jordan’s compound. My hope was that if I looked at everything in a different setting, something new and useful would finally shake loose. I’d also have an extra set of eyes, thanks to Theo.
My phone pinged from where it was clipped onto the dashboard, it was Aria sending me the code for the parking garage of their building and a spot number to park in. I hadn’t even told them when I was coming back, but somehow Aria knew. That was just what she did, she knew what was needed before you could even ask for it.
Pack Simmons lived in the Stanton building, one of the oldest high-rise buildings in San Francisco. It stood out against the more modern buildings surrounding it with its art deco features that were popularized in the 1920s. It was an apartment building, a historical monument, and basically, a museum all wrapped into one.
I parked quickly in the parking garage and rode the elevator up into the lobby. Two doormen stood on either side of the front doors, off to the left was the front desk with two receptionists sitting behind it, a ready smile on their faces as they chatted with residents.
I shouldered my duffel bag, gripped the file box tighter, and I headed towards the front desk. One of the women, hearing my approach, looked up from her computer and offered me a smile. She was cute, probably in her early twenties with curly blonde hair and blue eyes.
“Welcome to the Stanton, how may I help you?”
“Hi, I’m a guest of Aria Simmons?” I was pretty sure Aria would have called down to let the front desk know that I was coming. Again, she was always two steps ahead of everyone around her.
The receptionist blinked at the name for a second, processing, before her smile widened even further, taking on a few hundred kilowatts of‘this person knows someone important, so don’t fuck this up.’
“Of course! Mr. Collins, correct? Ms. Simmons called down a few hours ago,” She spun around in her chair and opened a drawer underneath the printer. She flipped through yellow envelopes until she found one that had my name on it and turned back to hand it to me.
“Ms. Simmons instructed me to give you a resident’s pass. This will get you into their private elevator and up to the penthouse floor. If you need anything don’t hesitate to ask. Welcome to the Stanton family.” I awkwardly accepted the envelope and pulled the card out, it had my name on it and, unsurprisingly, my picture. The devil worked hard, but Aria Simmons definitely worked harder. I offered her what I hoped was a friendly smile before I turned and headed down the short hallway next to the main elevators and down a short hallway that led to the non-descript elevator that would take me up to the penthouse.
I didn’t quite know how to feel about the resident pass that was currently in my hand.
On one hand, I knew it would make it easier for me to get in and out of the building, and it would allow me to better help Tibby. On the other hand, however, I felt like I was walking right back into the very thing that had sent me running five years ago. I’d been prepared to just do my job and protect Tibby, but they were making it hard for me. Just carrying the resident’s pass made me feel like this was going to be permanent.
I also couldn’t help the unhealthy thrill that I got at the idea of coming back into Theo and Pack Simmons's lives more permanently.
What directly followed that thrill, however, was the biting guilt that came whenever I thought about Pack Simmons for too long. The guilt that had spanned five years and stemmed directly back to the gunshot wound that had ended Theo’s FBI career.
Five years ago...
“Guppy, are you awake?” Theo’s rumble washed over me and I groaned and rolled over in the passenger seat of the car to face the alpha who was impatiently tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.
“I am now,” I muttered, irritated at not being able to sleep on my hour. We were twelve hours into a stakeout. We were following up on a tip we’d received yesterday, apparently, there was an arms deal going down between the Russians and the Japanese sometime tonight. Our car was tucked in between two warehouses deep in the shadows, and we sat watching the abandoned docks for any sign of life. So far it’d been radio silent and I was beginning to think the tip was bad.
I didn’t mind stakeouts, it gave me lots of time to be with my own thoughts and to mentally go through all of my cases. I’d spin them around in my mind over and over again, like a Rubik’s cube, puzzling over things that didn’t make sense or stuck out to me. It’s what had put me at the top of my class at Quantico. It was also what made Theo take notice of me and agree to train me despite refusing most trainees. Two years later, I was now working in San Francisco, no longer as his trainee, but as his partner.
Theo, on the other hand, hated stakeouts. They made him antsy, jittery, and unable to settle down as he waited for something—anything—to happen. Even now his steel-blue eyes were trained on the dock that was illuminated by a single lamp post. I stared at his side profile, he had a sharp nose that was framed by a square jaw. His blonde hair was, as always, shorn short and combed out of his face with styling gel, giving him the clean look that the FBI required. He had a prominent chin that was clean-shaven, though there was a shadow of hair already growing since the last time that he had shaved was almost twenty hours ago, right before he’d gone to work. I knew this because I’d watched him shave from bed yesterday morning.
It was against every rule in the FBI handbook to engage in a romantic relationship with an agent that you work with. Especially, when that agent is your partner. It was so far out of the realm of anything that I’d ever done, I’ve always considered myself to be a rule-follower. I always did the right thing, the just thing, that was what my mother and grandmother had taught me while raising me. It was what worked, it was why I had become an FBI agent, to uphold and protect the rule of law.
But then Pack Simmons had crash-landed right through all of my good intentions about following the rules and being a by-the-book FBI agent. Theo, Aria, and Matteo had welcomed me into the fold of their pack easily like I’d been a part of their family forever. Despite the fact that I was only romantically linked with Theo, Aria and Matteo never hesitated to treat me like one of their own. I was a complete mess about it, constantly worried that it would affect mine or Theo’s career. I was half-convinced at any given moment that we weren’t being careful enough about it all and that they were going to transfer one of us out of San Francisco, and the closest field office was an hour and a half away in Sacramento.
