He poured himself more alcohol. “Anyone else?” He held up the bottle.
“No,” we all said at once.
He sighed dramatically and set the bottle aside. “Fine. Be boring.” Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out a thick folder. “I’ve been protecting you two.” The theatrical tone had vanished. “From the beginning.”
He opened the folder. Photographs spilled across the table. Images of Tori and me. Kissing in the doorway of this cabin. My hands on her waist. Her fingers tangled in my hair. Intimate moments. Private.
“You’ve been spying on us.” Tori’s voice had gone flat.
“I’ve been protecting you,” Chet corrected smoothly. There is a time delay between filming and broadcast. I’ve made sure the edited version we’ve been showing the world doesn’t reveal the fact that you two are mated. No mystery, no drama, no show.”
“The finale is tomorrow.” Tori was watching Chet, those intelligent eyes sharp and focused. I watched her think. Calculate. Try to figure out where Chet was going with this.
“Derek would have already gone after both of you if I hadn’t been interfering. Deleting footage. Buying silence. Creating… distractions.” He sighed dramatically. “Making him—and all the other contestants—believe they had a chance.”
“The distractions were just you being you,” Tori muttered. “For the show. That was part of the deal.”
“Exactly!” he said proudly. “My natural fabulousness is the perfect cover.”
My patience snapped. “What do you want from us?”
Chet steepled his fingers. “Well, Warlord, we have a plan.”
16
Egon, Bachelor Beast Season Finale
* * *
The trap had been set. Leaked interviews. Tori’s tearful regret at leaving her billionaire groom and trying to force herself to love a beast.
Chet’s storytelling was godlike in its brilliance. For a female who claimed not be an actress, my entire being had cringed with pain at her rejection as I watched her give the performance of her life a few hours ago. The interview had been broadcast all over the world, Tori’s fake tears and Chet’s deep concern being sold as truth to everyone who watched.
The finale was the only episode of the season that was actually televised in real time. Live. No editing. No second chances.
The stage I stood upon felt like a battlefield. For this battle, I wore human armor. A black suit called a tuxedo. Too tight across the shoulders. The fabric was weak.
But I did not need protection. Tori and her human FBI agents refused to allow me to go into battle. Not that I would need armor to eliminate Derek, or his mercenaries.
Small, human weapons would simply anger the beast. Nothing more. If they somehow acquired an ion cannon or Hive weaponry, that would be a different story. The FBI agents assured me neither Derek nor his hired guns had access to Coalition weaponry.
I stood in the shadows just off stage, hidden behind heavy velvet curtains, watching the theater fill with humans who believed they had come for pure entertainment.
This was the season finale. I was supposed to announce a winner and place my mating cuffs on her wrists. Before I’d met Tori, that winner was supposed to be Jessica.
When Tori agreed to this charade, she’d had one condition.
Jessica had been escorted off the premises by armed security last night.
Our mate was jealous of that female. The beast was amused, and pleased, by our female’s attention.
I ignored his smug comment and scanned the audience members. Two hundred guests had been allowed inside. Two hundred unsuspecting witnesses to a trap.
The theater’s seats glowed beneath warm stage lights, the audiences’ voices rising in excited murmurs as cameras adjusted and production assistants rushed through final checks. They expected drama. Romance. A little heartbreak perhaps. None of them understood how close they were to witnessing violence.
Should the FBI plan fail, I would eliminate the threat to my mate.
My gaze moved slowly across the room, cataloging every movement, every unfamiliar face. The FBI agents blended seamlessly into the crowd—crew members adjusting cables, security guards checking doors, a lighting technician perched high above the stage. But my senses picked them out anyway.
