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Sin lets out a little unexpected giggle and wraps her arms around me, hugging me tightly around the ribs. When she snuggles into my chest, nuzzling my shirt and inhaling deeply, my vision goes unexpectedly hazy.
“Our relationship will never be transactional,” she whispers. “But that’s why we have to be careful. I can’t risk losing you. Any of you.”
Her fear causes my protectiveness to spike, but I need to keep it under control long enough to get back to my brothers.
We have a lot of work ahead of us.
Chapter Fifteen
Cade
Early on New Year’s Day, I’d called in a favor or two to find trusted pilots to take us to L.A. from New York on our private jet, right on the tail of Mikhail Petrov’s flight. Me and my brothers boarded with minimal possessions, my luggage taking up the most space. With good reason, though.
We didn’t need to follow Sin’s car back to Whips, Chains, & Knots, because we already knew exactly where it was.
While Ilya secured a hotel for our base of operations, Garen and I began to stakeout the club from a mostly abandoned office building on the other side of the back alley. Lots of abandoned belongings, desks, phones, and tons of broken glass on the floors from windows on the higher floors without any mesh securing them.
It’s obvious all the occupied offices in here are all fronts for other things. Something us three are pretty familiar with.
And that was where we stayed every hour of the day, swapping off in shifts. Taking notes on the comings and goings, marking off anyone we recognized, and realizing quickly that Sin isn’t remotely free to move around on her own.
The one time she exited the club in the first couple of days, she was accompanied by two other people, one of them a male Omega who was all bubbly smiles, the other a hulking Alpha wearing the stereotypical all-black attire of a club bouncer.
I’d left Garen behind to shadow them, being a bit less conspicuous than him with his black and bright red hair, and watched from dark corners and alleyways as they did a bit of grocery shopping at a small bodega, Sin stopping to give copious love to a collared black cat lazing about on top of a stack of magazines. Then, she and the male Omega linked arms, their guard following behind them as they went right back to the club where she disappeared and didn’t emerge again for days.
Eight days into our stakeout, the three of us were more than restless, hating that we couldn’t see what was happening inside the club with Sin.
Garen had paced furiously, raking at his hair with his fingers. “How many strangers are touching her right now? She’s not safe in there.”
“I agree. Do you have a plan?”
He’d turned to me with that signature, unhinged grin of his. “Absolutely.”
It wasn’t a moment later that he’d disappeared into the club, not coming out until the morning.
I was both relieved he’d spent so much time in there, in close proximity to our Omega, and jealous as fuck about it.
Ilya had shown up to our stakeout spot a couple of hours before the club shut down for the day and Garen emerged, wandering upstairs to meet with us, grinning ear-to-ear.
“Don’t keep us in suspense.” My tone is a bit more hostile than I’d intended.
As usual, Garen laughs at me, but for once, he sobers quickly and sits in one of the chairs we’d cleaned off when this all started. He tells us what Sin told him, about how she came to work for Mama, and that she’s a domme because she’s not easily controlled like other Omegas are.
Ilya snorts at this. “Of course she isn’t. She’s ours.”
I nod in agreement. If she’s fated for us, she has to be strong. There’s no other way about it.
“She has a kind heart though, boys. She’s worried sick about the other Omegas there and doesn’t want to endanger them.”
“What do you mean?”
“She said that Mama will use them against her as a way of keeping Sin under her thumb.” Garen growls. “That hag has to put down.”
“In time,” Ilya says smoothly. “I assume you’ve come back to us with souvenirs?”
A chuckle before Garen stands, puts his hands in his pockets and pulls out a bunch of small items and scraps of paper, spreading them out across the table beside me. “These all came from the hag’s office and hostess podium. And here,” he takes his cell phone from his back pocket, taps at it before handing it to me. “I took photos of what she’d miss if I’d taken it.”
On the phone are photos of paperwork, legal and also some handwritten notes.
