Sitting in the silence inside his car, he continued to breathe steadily—until the ringing in his ears died down. Every fiber of his being screamed for him to go home, but he’d been hired to guard Harrison and that’sexactlywhat he was going to do.
He’d noticed an overlook on his way down the winding road. The hilltop with a copse of trees would be perfect to hide him from view, so he’d headed there. He navigated through the hills until he reached a dirt road used by the utility company.
Dash snagged his camera with a powerful telephoto lens. Dash didn’t need photos, but he could see like an eagle with that thing—and practically be beside Harrison without the man knowing. He crept through the thickly wooded lot, the scent of pine overwhelming as he brushed against the thick fir trees that dominated the top of the hillside. Between them were spindly trees, their dark, bare branches lifted toward the gray sky above.
Dash froze when he noticed movement not too far from him.
Glancing through the trees, he found a lone man standing at the hilltop, hefting a large pair of binoculars aimed down. The only thing at the bottom of the hill was the crime scene—and the two alphas investigating it.
A building assumed to have been torched by the serial arsonist.
Dash walked closer. He moved slowly, trying not to signal his presence. Silence was preferable but wasn’t an option, not with the ground obscured by fallen leaves, twigs, and branches. They crackled and crunched underfoot as he neared.
He needed a clearer view.
He couldn’t get too close. Otherwise, he’d be overheard.
As soon as he found a break in the trees with a decent view, Dash lifted the camera and snapped a few shots. The binoculars lowered. The man’s head swung in Dash’s direction, as if he’d heard him. Dash dropped to his knee, holding his breath. Peeking through the brush hiding him, he snapped a couple more shots, but just a few, scared the sound might carry.
Seconds dragged by. The man finally turned back to gaze down the hill and Dash could breathe again.
Whowould watch arson investigators at work?
Best guess? The one who’d set the fires, though perhaps he was a journalist… or a resident of the building maybe? Something told him that wasn’t the case, though. His gut had saved his ass too many times in the past to ignore it—and the man’s presence was sending up major red flags.
Dash got a few more snaps off before turning his camera to face down the hill, moving his lens to the approximate angle of the binoculars. Maybe there was something else down there he’d not noticed before.
Harrison Walker strode into view.
He swept the camera both left and right, searching around the building, but he didn’t see anything else. There was a park onthe opposite side of the building, but he couldn’t see it from his vantage point. Dash floated the lens back to where Harrison had been standing and caught his twin instead.
His gaze washed over Emerson, his heartbeat quickening. The guy moved with a quiet grace unexpected for an alpha of his size. Dash was fairly average height for an alpha at six-six. Emerson was bigger, yet big wasn’t the right word to describe him.
Emerson wasmassive.Had to be at least seven feet and firmly muscled—but not overly so. The kind earned from hard work, lifting heavy hoses, and carrying people out of burning buildings. The image of the alpha carrying him out of a fire planted itself in his head.
Total hero worship kind of stuff.
Dash released a slow breath, his gaze drifting up and down Emerson’s hard body. Even compared to his twin brother, he seemed larger than life. Dash thought he’d noticed a slight difference in height between the two, so perhaps they weren’tidenticalidentical, even if their faces appeared the same.
He questioned that, though, too, because Harrison’s face didn’t make him…
Didn’t make me what?
Shoving the thought from his mind, Dash’s finger quivered over the button. Another photo was accidentally added to the cache. Lowering his camera, he turned his attention back to where it belonged—the stranger watching the man he was supposed to be protecting.
The stranger spun in Dash’s direction and walked closer to the trees. Dash dropped again, hiding himself in the underbrush once more. As the man neared, he got a better view of who it was, and his breath caught.
Charles Macklin?
Is he…?Dash’s eyes widened.Oh fuck…
Dash had history with old Chucky Boy. He’d been hired to protect several clients from potential retaliatory vengeance from Macklin, most of it from business deals that hadn’t gone in Charles’s father’s favor. Back then, he’d done some digging—and even received a cease-and-desist letter for that snooping, which had been a bit terrifying. He still wasn’t sure how Charles had learned of his quiet investigation. He was better than most at hiding his trail, but apparently not from Charles Macklin.
What he’d turned up was a lot of NDAs, payoffs, and bribes. There were rumors, too, but nothing he could substantiate. If they were true, the sadistic little fuck liked to inflict pain on sex workers for kicks—and liked getting hurt himself almost as much. There was other gossip, too, but none as prevalent. Dash realized it really wouldn’t be a shock if he turned out to be the arsonist. The guy was bad news.
But that meant Harrison and those he loved might be in a lot more danger than Dash had anticipated. Danger in the form of a rich father who paid to have his son’s sins washed away on a regular basis. Men like that—cruel ones who likely had a tenuous grasp on sanityandwere never held accountable for their evils—wasn’t a great problem to have.
He followed Charles out at a distance. Once Charles leapt into a little red sportscar and zoomed off, he returned to approximately where the guy had been standing. He used his camera to scan in the same direction Charles had, just to verify nothing else could be seen. The only thing visible was the building—and the alphas working within it.
