Jill worried her bottom lip as she headed for the door, pausing only long enough to send Chris a hopeful smile. Joshua looked like he was going to protest, but one look from their father had him hauling his little ass out of there.
“How are you feeling?” Eric asked, taking Joshua’s vacated seat.
“Cut the shit and tell me what’s going on. Where’s my mate?” Chris demanded.
Eric sighed heavily, running a hand over his red tipped black hair. “As you know there were three girls from your group being escorted to Boston today,” at Chris’
nod he continued, “two of the girls found their mates immediately.”
“Well, no kidding, Eric. I wasn’t there to meet her.
Where is she? Is Madison talking to her or something?”
he asked, shooting another glance towards the doorway, hoping that Madison would drag his mate in to see him.
“No, she’s not here. The third girl is dead,” Eric said.
Chris’ head whipped around as the words sunk it.
“Dead?”
This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t f**king be happening. His mate was dead? Tendrils of fear crawled up his spine. He was going to be alone, truly alone for the rest of his life. The one thing he truly feared was happening.
“You killed my f**king mate?” he screamed as he tried to lounge for his friend’s throat.
His father caught him around the shoulders the same time Eric grabbed his hands in his and gently brought them against Chris’ body. Chris couldn’t stop struggling as panic set in.
Alone.
He was all alone.
“Chris, calm down!” his father snapped.
He couldn’t. He just couldn’t. He tried to lash out against the pain as he screamed, cursed and threatened to kill whoever hurt his mate until he found himself lifted out of his chair and restrained on the floor.
“Calm the f**k down and listen to me,” Eric said, gripping Chris’ chin and forcing him to look at him.
“She wasn’t your mate.”
“Bullshit!”
“She was a minion, Chris. Someone placed a tattoo on her and she found a way to sneak in undetected to the compound. It only took us twenty seconds before we realized she wasn’t one of us. By that time she’d already pulled out a gun. We had no choice but to kill her,” Eric explained, sighing in relief when Chris stopped struggling.
Immense relief surged through his body as Eric’s words sunk in. “So….she wasn’t my mate?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Chris closed his eyes as he dropped his head back. Not his mate. That meant his mate was out there somewhere waiting for him, but most importantly she was alive. That was fine, because it meant he still had a chance. He’d find her and together they’d take care of his family. He just had to get his ass in gear.
“Eric?” he bit out between clenched teeth as a new and very uncomfortable pain registered in his mind.
“What’s up?”
“I think one of you bastards just ripped out my catheter.”
Chapter 1
Present Day
Seattle, Washington
?Okay, this probably wasn?t such a good idea,? Isabella murmured softly to herself as she gripped the worn shoulder straps of her favorite backpack tightly.
She stumbled and quickly righted herself. She straightened her baseball cap as she quickened her pace. Okay, so she admitted she probably had no business being in this area at three in the morning by herself. She was too short, had two large melons that somehow passed for br**sts that constantly threw her off balance, and had the fighting skills of a day old baby. Why she ever thought agreeing to this meeting was a good idea she really didn’t know.
Well, maybe the prospective buyer of her program had something to do with it. Normally her potential buyers met her at restaurants, downtown offices and a few times she was flown to Europe. What she wouldn’t give to meet a client in a stuffy office during the day for this sale. Of course that couldn’t happen with this particular program, it being extremely illegal and all.
Not that she was in the business of creating illegal programs or anything. This one time had been a complete mistake. Okay, illegal might be a poor choice of words, but she was pretty sure that was the point the FBI Agent was getting to the other night. She hadn’t been happy finding her small apartment ransacked. It was more insulting that anything. Did they really think she kept her work in her apartment?
That would be pretty stupid considering how many Fortune 500 companies were after her work. A few of them didn’t take being outbid well. Just over this past year her apartment had been broken into thirty-seven times. The only thing they found was a small collection of CD’s she may have set up to look like her programs.
What they got if they stole them, and they did each and every time, was a dummy program full of virussy goodness. They could scan those discs until the cows came home and they’d never detect their true nature until after the damage was done.
It took her program twenty-two point six seconds to infect a large network. The sweet part of her viruses was that she was the only one in the world that could put a stop to them and recover all the work. Well, recover might be an overstatement since what her program really did was create the illusion of destruction. All she required was an apology and a check to cover the damage to her apartment and time before she fixed it.
A large figure suddenly stepped in front of her, scaring the living hell out of her. Isabella screeched and stumbled backwards, falling flat on her ass. She pushed her tan baseball cap up carefully so she could see the imposing figure. The heavy B.O. followed shortly after, making her gag.
“Have you seen my kitty?” the gruff voice demanded.
Isabella shook her head.
“He’s around here somewhere. He ran out of the house when I was going out to milk the cows. Now I’ve got to look for him and the cows are gonna have to wait to be milked. They’re gonna be mighty angry with their tits sore from the milk.”
“Oh, ah….I hate when that happens,” Isabella said, not really knowing how she should respond. She didn’t speak crazy, but if he let her live she’d be willing to learn.
He nodded firmly as he sighed heavily. “I guess I should go check the barn,” he said, heading back into the alley between two brick buildings.
Isabella jumped to her feet, fixed her hat, and moved her ass. The last thing she needed was for him to come back and mistake her for a cow that needed milking.