Page 90 of Knot Your Pawn

“The articles haven’t really changed anything. The plans are the same as before. We’re adapting a few things, but we’re not planning to call it off.” Putting things off would only give the Hearts more time to make things harder for us, so we’ve got to keep moving.

“Any trouble with any of the other people?” Asher, the guy in the middle, takes a sip of his coffee, his eyes constantly going around the place, like he’s trying to see if anyone is watching us.

Well, anyone outside of our team.

“Some people have been getting nervous, but they also know that an opportunity like this isn’t going to come around often. We haven’t had any other trouble.” I’d expected some people to maybe pull out when they saw the articles, especially because our faces were so visible.

But the people who are helping us know that we need to take this chance while we can and that seems to be much more important.

“Good.” Asher nods, his eyes settling on Luca for a few moments. “Are you still good with all of this?”

Luca looks tense, but then he nods. “Yeah. I need to do this. For the kids I couldn’t help before. For the kids caught up in things that they really shouldn’t be around.” He slides his fingers along my arm and takes my hand, weaving our fingers together, his grip tight.

It can’t be easy for him to go back to the brothel. He’s not even supposed to go inside, but I’m sure that even seeing the building from the outside or being in the neighbourhood, will be very stressful for him.

“We’ll be with you and one of your Alphas? That’s still the plan?” Henry looks from Luca to me and back.

Since Luca doesn’t seem to be up to answering him right now, I nod. “You’ll be outside, in plain clothes, and you’ll be protecting the kids until they reach safety. We’ll get you further details on the day itself.”

While Mathew’s organisation will take care of things inside the building, we’re working with Erika’s pack, some of Erika’s connections and Xavier’s pack to get the kids out of the area and to safety.

Jorge has worked with Henry and the other two Alphas before and he trusts them, which is why they’re part of the plan.

They shouldn’t be in much danger.

Plus, Henry and the other two don’t look as intimidating as most of Mathew’s organisation, so that’s part of the reason too.

The Hearts probably already know what most of Mathew’s team looks like, but they shouldn’t know what Henry and the others look like, so that should help with the safety element too.

There are so many people and organisations involved with the raid and I really hope everything is going to work out, for all our sakes.

8

Jorge

It’s hard not to doom-scroll to see if new articles about our pack have shown up online. To see what people are saying about us. I know that it shouldn’t matter and that most of it is just people talking shit because that’s what people do.

But it’s still hard to stop once I start.

I still can’t put the image of how scared Mathew was from my mind, how pale he was, how tight his grip on my hand was as he was trying to stay strong. I’ve never seen him terrified before.

Usually, other people are scared of him, not the other way around.

This situation could have been a lot worse. It could have been the Hearts who revealed it. It could have been one of Mathew’s previous ‘clients’ who revealed it. Another organisation could have used the information to blackmail him.

None of that happened, luckily.

Instead, the reason all of this came out was because a random person thought they could make a quick buck with the pictures.

It was —if you could describe it that way— revealed for greed, not for any more nefarious reasons, ‘just’ money and maybe a bit of fame.

In some ways, that makes it easier to deal with, because now, a lot of other people no longer have the power and ammunition to use his status against Mathew in the future.

In other ways, this makes it harder to deal with, because we’ve now got to look over our shoulders even more, for such a banal reason as greed.

Vera barges into the living room, flushed cheeks, her hair bouncing around her face. “Look at this! Look! Look!” She jumps onto the couch next to me and shoves her phone into my face.

The screen is a black and white blur, I can’t really make anything out with my nose pressed against the screen.