Wolf Under Fire, page 6
“Should I be concerned you felt the need to bring your bodyguard with you?” Darby asked, a curious expression on his face as he turned his gaze on her. “Is there a particular threat I should know about?”
For a moment, Jes thought maybe Darby might actually care for Rose and that she might be able to use it to her advantage. But then she caught the challenge in his eyes and decided it was probably more about male pride than anything else. Did he think she was sleeping with Jake, too?
Like I’d ever sleep with a werewolf.
“Nothing like that,” she laughed. “But a woman can never be too careful. It makes no sense paying someone to be my bodyguard, then leaving him in the car like an umbrella. What if it rains?”
Darby regarded her thoughtfully, like he didn’t really understand the comparison. Or maybe he did and couldn’t come up with a witty response. Finally, he nodded and gave her a dashing smile that struck Jes as somewhat practiced. Ignoring Jake like he no longer existed, Darby slipped a hand behind her back, turning them toward the north wing of the manor.
“I was hoping to run into you tonight,” he murmured as they walked. “There are several recent additions to my gallery I want to show you.”
Jes glanced over her shoulder to see Jake following them, an unreadable expression on his face.
Darby must have picked up on her hesitation because he stopped and gestured at the man guarding the staircase to the third floor. “Damien can walk with us if you have concerns about your safety. Your bodyguard can take a break, or whatever it is he does when he’s not guarding your body.”
Jake clenched his jaw and he looked like he wanted to argue, but Jes motioned with her eyes at the set of stairs Damien had just vacated. She wasn’t sure how long Jake and Misty had to get up there before the man was replaced by someone else, and this opportunity was too good to miss.
Giving Jake a nod—and hoping he’d picked up on her signal—Jes turned and allowed Darby to guide her down the hall toward the gallery, trying to ignore how creepy his hand felt.
* * *
Jake had no idea what it was, but there was something seriously wrong with Darby. Simply put, the man didn’t smell right, and his inner wolf didn’t like it. His inner wolf also didn’t like the predatory look in Darby’s eyes when he leaned in to kiss Jes. In fact, Jake had to fight the urge to rip the guy’s face off.
What was it about the man that made his claws and fangs want to come out?
Darby wasn’t physically intimidating. Six feet tall, he was maybe 190 pounds at most. But at the same time, there was something about the man that said he was dangerous.
That he was a killer.
In the end though, it was the man’s smell that most made Jake’s inner wolf wary. He’d never been around anyone who smelled like Darby. It was nearly impossible to define exactly what the man smelled like because he didn’t smell like anything. Actually, that wasn’t true. The guy had a scent, but it was muddy. Like someone had taken the scents from five or six people, mixed it all up in a bottle, and then dumped it all over themselves.
He was still considering if Darby had done something to mask his scent when he realized the man was still staying way too close to Jes—and that she didn’t seem thrilled about it.
That makes two of us.
Jake stepped closer and cleared his throat, ignoring the glare Darby threw his way. The moment he felt the man’s crushing grip as they shook hands, he realized Darby was a hell of a lot stronger than he looked. Definitely much stronger than anyone his size should be.
He was so wrapped up in wondering how that was possible that Jake barely heard the conversation going on between Jes and Darby. It wasn’t until the big security guard over by the staircase joined them—his scent as strange and vacant as Darby’s—that he realized Jes was on the move. Then he caught the discreet gesture she made toward the steps and realized she’d orchestrated things so he and Misty could search the third floor.
He was impressed by her quick thinking.
Jes disappeared down the hallway and around the corner with Darby and Damien, the sounds of her fake Chicago accent continuing to filter softly through his earbud. If Jes got into trouble, he’d hear it and get there before anything happened. Still, something about leaving her alone with Darby bothered him. So much so that his fingertips and gums tingled. Damn, he could already feel his fangs starting to extend.
The reaction surprised him, especially considering Jes didn’t even like him. If he had time, Jake would have dug deeper into why his inner wolf was losing his shit, but he didn’t. Jes had taken a risk to give him and Misty a chance to get upstairs. He’d be damned if he’d waste it.
Turning, Jake casually headed for the stairs like he had every right in the world to go up to the third floor. He half expected someone to stop him, but even though there were at least a half dozen people in sight, none of them said a word.
“Misty, I’m on my way up to the third floor,” he said softly into his mic. “Meet me up there—and move fast. I don’t know when another of Darby’s men is going to show up to guard the steps.”
* * *
There weren’t any security cameras on the third floor and Jake’s nose told him nobody was up there, either. That meant he didn’t have to worry about being careful as he started to search the seemingly endless number of rooms.
The first three he came to were bedrooms. They were all large and lavishly decorated, each with a small office or reading area off the main space. He was tempted to snoop around, but he knew it would be a waste of time. He could tell within seconds of walking into them that the rooms hadn’t been used by anyone in a while. That weird, muddy scent he associated with Darby was everywhere along the third floor, but faint enough in those rooms to make him think the man hadn’t been in any of them for weeks.
Jake slipped into the main hallway to head for the next room when Misty hurried toward him, glancing over her shoulder every few steps. Like Caleb, she was dressed like the other waitstaff, her vivid purple hair pulled back in a bun.
“Caleb is keeping an eye on the stairs,” she said. “He’ll let us know if anyone heads up here.”
He nodded, gesturing to the rooms on his left. “You take that side.”
Misty disappeared into the first room on her side of the hallway while he did the same on his side, finding a few more bedrooms and a study that stunk of old cigar smoke. The stench made his nose burn, and he moved out of there as fast as he could, onto the next room.
The whole time he searched, he heard Jes’s voice in his earbud as she talked to Darby about art and his charity efforts. Jake tried to stay focused on what he was supposed to be doing but found himself standing in the middle of yet another bedroom, listening to her soft tones as if mesmerized.
It wasn’t until Misty practically shouted his name that he snapped out of his daze. Shit. He shook his head, striding out of the room and across the hallway. He needed to get it together before he let something stupid happen.
Misty was in Darby’s home office. Although calling it that was a disservice. The room was almost twice as big as the conference room at STAT. In addition to the immense antique desk near the back wall, there was a conference table with a dozen chairs on one end of the room, and four monster leather chairs around a coffee table on the other. Bookshelves lined the wall on the left, while several gigantic TVs filled the one on his right. The space reeked of Darby’s scent, meaning he clearly spent a lot of time in there.
Misty pulled out the rolling chair behind the desk and sat down, her eyes almost glowing as she appraised the big-screen monitor and sleek keyboard in front of her. She seemed even more petite in the fancy leather chair. Younger, too. Jake absently wondered how someone like her had ended up in a covert organization like STAT. Outside of her unique talent, it didn’t seem like a good fit.
“Darby’s computer. Nice,” he said, closing the door and locking it, then walking around the desk to stand beside her. In his earpiece, Caleb murmured there were now two guards stationed at the bottom of the steps on the second-floor landing. “Let’s hope he left something incriminating on there.”
Misty rested her hands on the keyboard. “Actually, it’s a wireless access point to the server, so it’s even better. As for him leaving something incriminating on it, I’ve learned people put far more of their lives into the digital realm than they ever realize. Even people like Darby, who are obviously extremely careful not to make mistakes. All I have to do is find it.”
Jake hoped she was right. “What can I do to help?”
“Watch my back while I’m inside,” she said, her voice distracted, like she was already lost in a world of her own. “A system like this is going to have a lot of security firewalls in place to keep me out. Once I’m in there, I’ll be pretty much out of it, so if anyone comes in here, I’ll be completely defenseless.”
That sounded scary as hell.
“I got you covered,” Jake assured her.
He would have asked her if there was anything he needed to know—like how long it would take her or what to do if there was an emergency—but before he could, Misty went still and her lavender eyes went completely white.
Okay, that’s not creepy at all.
He stood there, not sure if he should stay close or give her space. After a moment, he decided to search the rest of the office. More to give himself something to do than because he thought he’d find anything.
While he rifled through the drawers of Darby’s desk, he kept part of his attention focused on Misty, in case something went wrong, and the other part on the bud in his ear. Caleb occasionally gave him an update on the status of the guards downstairs, while Forrest checked in once to let them know everything was quiet outside, where he and Harley were stationed. The majority of the stuff on the radio was Jes talking with Darby.
While their conversation mostly revolved around the art in his private gallery, it didn’t take long for Jake to figure out Darby was trying to talk her—or more precisely Rose—into his bed. Based on the things he said, it was someplace the woman had been before—many times. For some reason, the idea of Darby trying to get Jes into his bed—even if he thought she was someone else—bothered the hell out of him. Actually, it did more than bother him. It made his gums ache as his fangs fought to slide out.
Jake was so busy trying to understand why he’d react like that about a woman he’d known for a few days—one who was clearly disgusted by his very existence—he didn’t even realize what Caleb was saying over the radio until he picked up the smell of the three men approaching from the end of the hallway.
“Jake! Do you copy?” Caleb’s voice was urgent in his ear. “Three of Darby’s guards headed upstairs and are coming your way. You need to make yourselves scarce.”
Shit.
Jake threw a quick glance at Misty, praying she’d heard Caleb’s warning and had hopped out of the computer, but no such luck. Her eyes were still milk white, her body in the exact same position it had been in for the past fifteen minutes.
He darted over to the door, listening for a moment to confirm the men were definitely coming toward them. They were halfway down the hall, going room to room, conducting a slow security sweep. Jake silently cursed again, more colorfully this time, then hurried back over to Misty. He put a hand on her shoulder, gently giving it a shake. She wasn’t as stiff as he thought she’d be. In fact, she was so relaxed she almost fell over and he had to catch her.
“Misty, we have to get out of here,” he said. “Company’s coming and we can’t be here when it arrives.”
Jake heard Jes’s voice stutter a little in his earpiece. She’d obviously been listening in on what was happening as she continued to keep Darby occupied.
Out in the hall, the men were getting closer by the second.
Jake shook Misty again, a little harder this time, and leaned in close to hiss in her ear. “Dammit, Misty, wake up. We have about thirty seconds until those men get here, and then the shit is going to hit the fan.”
“That’s not going to work,” Forrest said over the radio. “Misty can’t hear you when she’s deep in a computer like that. You’re going to have to wait until she comes out of it on her own.”
Effing great.
“We don’t have time to wait for her to come out on her own,” he growled. “I have no problem taking care of those three guards when they come in here, but there’s almost certainly going to be some shooting, and Misty is positioned right in front of the door like a sitting duck. Can’t I just…I don’t know…yank her away from the computer? Disconnect her?”
“No!” Forrest almost shouted, his voice on the verge of what sounded like terror. “If you do that, you could trap her mind inside the computer with no way to get back. It’d be worse than killing her.”
You’ve got to be kidding me. That sounded like something out of a screwed-up sci-fi movie.
“Then what the hell can I do?” he demanded, glancing at the door. The footsteps outside were getting closer.
“Delay the guards and give her more time,” Forrest said. “She has to come out of the computer on her own.”
Jake clenched his jaw, a rumbling growl building deep in his chest as he looked at Misty’s defenseless form. “Caleb, I’m going to need a distraction—a big-ass one. Because when shit starts getting loud up here, I want the rest of Darby’s guards heading in another direction.”
“You have anything particular in mind?” Caleb asked casually, as if they had all the frigging time in the world.
Jake growled again. Seriously? Did the omega need to be told how to do everything or was he simply screwing with his pack’s alpha?
“I don’t care, Caleb. Feel free to be creative.”
“Creative.” Caleb chuckled. “I can do creative.”
Jake didn’t have much time to wonder if he was going to regret giving Caleb so much freedom because just then, the doorknob rattled. A moment later, the door shuddered as whoever was on the other side tried to shove their way in.
Jake glanced at Misty and saw she seemed no closer to coming out of her trance than she’d been five minutes ago. She was so completely vulnerable right now that he didn’t want to think how bad it would be if Darby’s guards got past him.
He didn’t have to think about it because he wasn’t going to let that happen.
Jaw tight, Jake headed for the door when it burst open, swinging so hard on its hinges it bounced off the wall. It probably would have slammed shut again if not for the three big men shoving their way into the room.
They stared at Jake, clearly stunned to find him in there. All three of them held handguns, making Jake wish he had one of his own. He might have had fangs and claws, but that didn’t mean he didn’t like the comfort that came from holding on to a large-caliber automatic.
But as interested as they were in Jake, it was Misty—her hands still resting loosely on the keyboard, her eyes glowing white—that held their attention. The men seemed to realize at the same time that she was doing something to the computer because their weapons came up as one.
Letting out a low growl, Jake rushed the men, the muscles of his lower back and legs twisting and lengthening as he crossed the room. His claws and fangs ached to rip their way out too, but he forced them to stay where they were, praying he could get out of this without tearing the men completely apart. Yeah, they probably wouldn’t have any problem killing him and Misty, and if he’d had a weapon, it might have been a different story. Despite that, Jake still wasn’t keen on taking on the role of monster. Not unless he absolutely had to.
Jake was still a few feet away when the two men in front dropped to their knees and opened fire, while the one in the back took aim at Misty.
A bullet creased Jake’s rib. He felt the sting sure enough, but it didn’t slow him down. Ignoring it, he crashed into the middle of the three men. He expected them to stop shooting, but they didn’t—even if that meant they were as likely to shoot each other as him.
Jake tried to keep control over his inner wolf, tried to use the animal’s strength, speed, and agility without letting it take over. He succeeded for the most part. Snapping the wrist of the man who’d been aiming at Misty, Jake flung him on top of his buddy, then delivered a brutal punch to his throat before doing the same to the guy he’d landed on. A wrenching twist put the third man down with a broken neck.
It seemed like forever since the men had burst into the room, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. Still, there’d been a lot of gunshots, which meant there were probably more guards on the way.
Where the hell is Caleb and his distraction?
Jake turned to Misty, praying the noise had pulled her out of her trance. But what he saw dropped his heart into the pit of his stomach—actually, it was what he didn’t see.
Misty was gone, the desk where she’d been sitting shredded and scarred from multiple bullets, the keyboard nothing but tiny pieces of plastic strewn over the antique wood.
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
Jake raced around the desk, sliding to a stop when he saw Misty sprawled on the carpet. He didn’t see any blood, but she was as pale as a sheet. Her eyes were even whiter and brighter than before, like two fluorescent bulbs.
He dropped down to her side, sighing in relief when he heard a heartbeat. But then he remembered what Forrest had said—just because she had a heartbeat didn’t mean she was okay.
What if she’s still in the computer?
“We have a problem,” he said into his radio mic even as he heard the thud of leather shoes on marble steps. More guards were coming this way. “Misty’s alive but she’s down, and I don’t think she was able to disconnect from Darby’s computer before it happened.”
Before Forrest or anyone else could reply, an explosion shook the entire manor. A split second later, a series of loud noises echoed through the house somewhere below him. Then the screaming started.
