“Well,” I said as I slid my phone back into my pocket, “believe it, my dear. Shit’s about to hit the fan and we have no idea what to expect much less when.”
“Shit,” she said and leaned against the wall.
Dallas crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the glass of the sliding door. “I believe it’s your turn to show and tell.”
She nodded.
“You can start with you telling me why you decided to come back here on your own,” Steele said.
“Because you never responded,” she said, eyebrows knitted together.
Steele shook his head. “Your friend couldn’t have walked with you back here?”
“No. She couldn’t have. I waited for quite a while for a response from you. And when I didn’t get one, I came straight back here.” She pointed to the floor of the room. “Not that I needed your permission. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about.”
“We’re all ears,” Dallas said.
She huffed and then took a couple of seconds to gather her thoughts. When she was ready, she said, “Charlotte paid me a visit.”
I stiffened. Anger started to boil my blood. She didn’t have to go into details. I already had an idea on the type of visit she was referring to. And I didn’t like the sound of it one little bit.
Steel and Dallas moved closer to her and took protective stances as they faced her with serious expressions on their faces. I couldn’t blame them. I felt the same things they did.
“What did she do?” I asked, voice deep and low.
She sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. “She wants me to back off or else. I’m surprised I don’t have bruises from where she slammed my body into the wall and my face into the floor.”
I clenched my hands into fists as she gingerly palpated the left side of her face. It was taking everything inside me not to run out the door and lay Charlotte out on the floor in much of the same way she had done to Cassidy. That woman had crossed a line.
But as much as it probably would have felt fucking fantastic giving the alpha a taste of her own medicine, it wouldn’t do any one of us much good. We needed a better way to be rid of her. One where we didn’t have to constantly look over our shoulders for the rest of our lives.
And that took level heads and tempers.
We needed a plan. And a damn good one.
“I don’t want you going anywhere by yourself until this is all over with,” I said.
She scoffed. “As strangely comforting as that would be, I can’t really afford to stay here. I have a life in Denver, and I’m supposed to leave in a couple of days.”
“I said what I said,” I muttered, putting my foot down.
“We understand you have a life you have to get back to,” Steele said. “But it would be irresponsible of us to send you out there with you at the top of our alpha’s most wanted list.”
“And she doesn’t play fair or nice,” Dallas added.
“Until this blows over, you need to stay here,” I said.
“How about this? We figure out a way to get this done and over with by the time I need to go home,” Cassidy said. “I have a job, home, and life I can’t just put on pause because I have shit happening here.”
I shook my head. “You have to be safe. This is the only way we can ensure that.”
“Now, about the ex-asshat,” Dallas said.
“Brute force had worked for him the other day,” Steele said.
“Are you three insane?” Cassidy asked. “Going after him is only going to get you hurt.”
“Please,” I muttered. “We’re three powerful mountain lions. It will take a lot more than just him to take any one of us down.”