Jordan chuckled and nodded. “I figured it out after we left the bakery and they each had a free cupcake.”
They both chuckled. “They certainly do have a way of getting their way, they know how to play up their cuteness,” Duncan commented.
Jordan couldn’t remove the smile from his face. He’d never felt that comfortable with anyone before, except for Bronx. He looked away, hoping to wipe the smile off his face before looking back at Duncan. “So, what did you want to talk to me about?”
Duncan finished off the rest of his sandwich, wiping the crumbs from his fingers. “I like that about you.”
“What’s that?” Jordan asked confused.
“You’re all business, it’s a good quality to have.”
Jordan ducked his head, hiding his blush. If only Duncan knew the thoughts that went through his head since meeting the man, he wouldn’t think he was all business. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“As I told you this morning, my sister and brother-in-law died a few months ago, leaving the kids in my care. Mari didn’t want to be used by my competitors or want the spotlight shined on her. I went to great lengths to keep her existence a secret. We were twins, but looked completely different which worked to our advantage. Most believed she was a trusted friend, and we didn’t see any reason to correct them. There are only a few trusted friends who knew the truth. I hate to do this, but protecting the twins is my primary concern. Which is why I had my lawyers draft a confidentiality agreement that no one is permitted to talk about the nature of their job to anyone about it. I’ve done this with every nanny I hired in the past couple of months, and they are aware of the repercussions if they so much as mention the twins’ name in passing. I can’t stress how much keeping the kids’ identity a secret is crucial to me. I have a lot of enemies, and I do not want the kids used as a pawn in someone's game.”
Jordan did not interrupt, his reasons for wanting to keep the kids out of the public eye sounded fair. If he were in Duncan’s position, he would do the same thing.
“They—” Duncan began again, but was interrupted when his cell phone rang. He got up from the table and grabbed his phone. His brow furrowed at the number on the screen. Jordan went to stand, but Duncan stopped him. “No, stay. This won’t take long.” Jordan stayed where he was while Duncan answered the phone. “What’s up, Ryland?”
“We have a problem,” Ryland, his Beta and best friend, stated. “One of our young pack members was just found dead.”
“How? When? Who?” Duncan fired off rapidly as his mind started going a mile a second trying to figure out who it could be and what happened.
“He was found in his car, looks like he hit a tree, but something was off with the whole scene.”
Duncan looked over at Jordan, who had fallen asleep at the table. “What do you mean?”
“Based on what Blayze told me, there was aconite in his system.”
Duncan stiffened. “This is the third one, Ryland,” he whispered tensely to his friend.
“I know,” Ryland sighed. “This shit is starting to look like a homicide, and I’m not liking the fact that we are not finding any clues as to what the fuck is going on.”
Duncan agreed with Ryland on all points. He looked at his watch and saw how late it was, but he needed to speak with Ryland in private and figure out what the hell was going on. It was the third teenager in the past three months that had died because of aconite. There were a lot of questions that Duncan wanted to ask, but with Jordan in the room with him, he had to hold them for later. He also didn’t miss the fact that Ryland still hadn’t told him who it was that died. That could only mean it was a kid that’d been in the pack since birth.
“Where are you right now?” he asked Ryland.
“I’m still with the doc,” Ryland said. “You don’t have to come out here this late, I just wanted you to know what’s up.”
Usually, Duncan would have teased Ryland about sniffing around the pack doctor, but the situation was too serious for jokes.
“Okay, give me ten minutes, and I will meet you there.”
“What about the kids, you just lost your last nanny?” Ryland asked him.
“Don’t worry about that,” Duncan told him. “Just stay where you are and find out what you can until I get there.”
“You’re the boss,” Ryland answered.
Duncan hung up the phone and stuffed it in his pocket. He picked up the plate off the table, washing it in the sink. He did not understand what was going on. The first body that they found was a runaway teen that came into the pack a couple of days before he died. The other teen was a female; her mother had found her dead in her bedroom. Duncan would have attributed it to teens trying out a new drug, but as lykosians they were immune to human drugs and diseases. Aconite was the only thing that could kill lykosians and other shifter sects. It was a deadly poison that completely breaks down in the body in less time than it took to call for help. Someone was picking off the members of his pack slowly and going after the kids first. Things were adding up for it to be just a coincidence. He walked back over to Jordan and shook him slightly.
Jordan snapped his eyes open then lifted his head. “Shit, I fell asleep again. The kids must have tired me out more than I thought.” He wiped the sleep from his eyes then looked at Duncan. “Are you done with your call?”
“Yeah,” Duncan answered. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I hate to do this to you, but I need to run out really quick. I know you planned on going home tonight to get a few things for the rest of the week, but I need you to stay with the kids in case they wake up.”
Jordan looked confused. “Is everything okay?”
He couldn’t tell Jordan the truth. “Yeah, my friend needs some help with something.”
