Teasing Her Alpha Guard

CHAPTER 11

Dahlia

"I don't know what to do, but I'll work something out, I promise. Just give me time to..."

A guard walked past the end of the hallway, and Roman and I moved apart fast, putting distance between us like two teenagers caught somewhere they shouldn't be. My heart was still hammering from the balcony, from his mouth, from everything he'd said and everything he hadn't. I pressed my back against the wall and tried to look like I hadn't just been kissed senseless by my own bodyguard.

The next day I decided to do something about the itch crawling under my skin. I couldn't just sit around waiting for proof to fall into my lap, so I snuck into Marcus's study while he was out.

I'd learned his schedule well enough over the years. He wasn't usually in there around noon, only in the evenings when he liked to sit alone with his ledgers and whatever else he did behind that locked door. I slipped inside quietly, heart thudding, and got to work.

I checked under his chairs, ran my hands along the underside of his desk, flipped through the books lining his shelf in case something had been tucked between the pages. Nothing. Just a stack of old receipts and mind numbing documents about pack expenses that wouldn't incriminate a fly, let alone a traitor.

I sighed and rubbed my temple, frustration building behind my eyes. It was time to leave. If Marcus came back and caught me in here, there would be no explaining my way out of it.

Then I noticed the portrait hanging on the wall, a younger version of Marcus staring out at nothing in particular, all sharp lines and stiff formality. On a whim, I pushed it aside, half expecting a hidden safe or a code panel behind it.

Instead I found a drawer built into the wall. Unlocked.

My pulse fastened. Was he really that careless?

I pulled it open carefully and peered inside. A burner phone charger sat coiled at the bottom, but the phone itself was gone.

Strange. Why keep a charger for a phone he clearly wasn't keeping in the same place?

"Lost cause," I muttered under my breath, disappointment settling heavy in my chest. I made sure to arrange everything exactly the way I'd found it, closed the drawer, straightened the portrait, and slipped back out the door. I checked both directions of the hallway before leaving, then took a completely different route back to my room, just in case anyone had seen me go in.

Later that afternoon, Lena texted asking to meet at a chic little restaurant across town, said we needed to loosen up for once. It had been ages since we'd done anything that normal, what with everything going on. I met her there, grateful for even an hour of pretending my life wasn't currently a mess of assassins, lying bodyguards, and forced relocations.

"Why don't we try an actual ladies night out sometime, babe?" Lena said, poking at her salad with her fork. "Just the two of us."

"My father would probably send an entire entourage." I laughed, imagining it. "It wouldn't be a ladies night anymore. It'd be a full pack outing."

Lena snorted so hard she nearly choked on her food, which only made me laugh harder, holding my stomach until it actually ached.

"That reminds me," she said once she'd recovered, wiping under her eyes. "Where's your protector?"

"You mean Roman?" I glanced toward the restaurant entrance, half expecting to see him lurking somewhere nearby even though I knew he was waiting outside like I'd asked. "I told him to wait outside, or go do whatever it is he does when he's not hovering over me. A girl has to loosen up sometime."

Lena rolled her eyes dramatically. "Oh spare me. Are you sure you'll be okay with your lover so far away?"

"I'll stab you with this spoon," I warned, pointing it at her like a weapon. "Did I ever say he was my lover?"

"Dahlia, honey." She leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand, eyes gleaming with the particular kind of delight only Lena could produce at my expense. "That man looks at you like he could pull the clouds right out of the sky if you asked him to."

"Lena, stop, or I swear I'll crash out right here in this restaurant."

"Then I'll just tell everyone here he's your boyfriend."

"Oh my goddess, shut up."

We went back and forth like that for a while, the same easy banter we'd always had, the kind that made everything else feel a little farther away for an hour. It was good. I needed it more than I realized.

After Lena headed home, Roman drove me back to the estate. The car was quiet except for the low hum of the engine and the occasional flicker of streetlights sliding across the windshield. I watched his hands on the wheel, steady and sure the way they always were, and found myself thinking about the drawer, about the missing phone, about the itch that still hadn't left me since that morning.

"Did I tell you I searched Marcus's study today?" I said, breaking the silence.

His eyes flicked toward me for a second before returning to the road. "No. What did you find?"

"Nothing really." I shrugged, watching the buildings blur past outside my window. "Only a burner phone charger, the phone itself was gone."

He went very still.

I noticed it immediately, the way his hands tightened almost imperceptibly around the steering wheel, the way his jaw set in that particular manner I'd started to recognize as him locking something down before it could show on his face.

"Roman?" I turned to face him fully now, suspicion creeping back in, slow and cold. "Why do you look like that?"

"Like what?" His voice came out too even, too controlled, which somehow made it worse.

"Like I just said something that mattered." I studied his profile in the passing light. "It's just a charger Roman, unless you know something about it."

"I don't." The answer came quickly.

I let it drop for the moment, but I registered that at the back of my mind, right next to every other small thing that didn't add up about the man sitting beside me. The way he moved like someone with far more training than a low ranking guard should have. The way Isabelle had mentioned "the men who report to him" like it was nothing at all. The way he'd gone so still just now over something as simple as a missing phone.

Whatever secrets Roman Wolfe was carrying, I was starting to think they ran a lot deeper than a fake cover up job.

And deep down, something told me I wasn't going to like what I found once I finally dug it all the way out.