Heated Manipulations

by Aiden Bates

  Stolen kisses and rolls in the sheets with Harper King were only a temporary facet in my life. I knew that. So did he. I was determined to enjoy as much of him as I could while I still had him, but that dark cloud had been hanging over my head from the moment he’d sent that first text that had brought us together. Things between us lasted for only as long as Harper’s case did—and if we wanted to make it out of this unharmed, the sooner Harper could wrap it up, the better.

  Then, he’d be gone. I’d be safe. My baby would be safe. But in exchange for that safety, Harper would be out of my life.

  Maybe even for good.

  I groaned, pushing my keyboard away and resting my face in my hands. I wanted to close this case as bad as Harper did—but just as badly, I wanted to keep him in my life. For far from the first time, I wondered if maybe, I shouldn’t just ask him to stay. Ernesto Alvarez, the new owner of KPS, was a good man. On the one occasion I’d run into him when I was out with Josh, he’d spoken fondly of the King boys. I imagined that if Harper asked, there’d be a job for him at KPS. He could even pick up his PI business here if he wanted. Sure, it’d be a lot less tracking down cheaters, a lot more tracking down lost dogs—but would that be such a bad change of pace for a man whose work had already left him with so many scars?

  Rubbing my temples, I straightened and shook my head, trying to knock all of these selfish thoughts out of my brain. I wanted him to stay, but I sure as hell didn’t know how to ask it of him. I was the idiot who’d made such a big point of keeping this fun and casual in the first place—and with good reason. Harper had a life back in Miami. I had someone else’s baby on the way. Those two facts, coupled with his brother’s murder, didn’t exactly give us stable foundations to build a real relationship on.

  And even if I did think that maybe, just maybe, it could work…

  How did you tell someone that you wanted them to drop their entire life, just for the chance to raise another man’s child?

  I blinked, feeling my eyelids grow heavy as my worrying and confusion sucked the energy right out of me. Coffee—I needed coffee. Bad.

  Instead, I padded out to the kitchen and put on the kettle. Peppermint tea with a little sugar was the only thing I’d be drinking for the next eight months or so. Chamomile at night, just to shake things up a little.

  “You’re lucky I love you, little one,” I grumbled down to my belly, moving my hand over it fondly. “Don’t know how I’m going to make it through the rest of this pregnancy without any caffeine, but for you… You’re worth it.”

  I was just setting the teabag in my mug to steep when I heard an unexpected knock on my door. Immediately, I froze.

  The mailman had already come and gone. I wasn’t expecting any packages. And unless Harper had hired some kind of singing telegram man to deliver some flowers and a love song—not at all his style—I couldn’t imagine an unexpected knock bringing anything good to my doorstep.

  Cautiously, I moved to the door, my mug of tea in hand as I unlocked it. I’d leave the chain on, I decided—and if anyone made a move on me, they’d get a mug full of scalding hot liquid in the face for their troubles.

  “Hello?” I spied the badge being leveled at the door as soon as I cracked it open.

  “Morning, Mr. Paulson. I’m Chief Chandler Sorenson—Fort Greene chief of police. Mind if I have a minute?”

  “Ah…sure, Chief. What can I do for you today?”

  Sorenson grunted, half-amused. “You could start by opening your door so I could talk to you properly, son.”

  Don’t trust anyone. Not even the police. Josh’s warning rang through my head again—but I had my tea at hand if Sorenson tried anything funny, and I could hardly imagine the police chief himself had arrived at my door to do me in.

  “Sorry. Just—” I shut the door for a moment, undoing the chain lock and cracking the door open a little wider. Not enough to invite him in, but enough to have a conversation. Anything more than that, and I was throwing my mug at him. Badge or no badge. “There we go. So, uh, what brings you here today, Chief?”

  Sorenson was tall, blond and wide-chested. Had probably been a quarterback with one hell of a six-pack in his glory days. But now that he was pushing fifty, he’d traded those abs for a beer belly. His jawline had a softness to it, but I could still imagine the way it must’ve been when he was younger. All-American Alpha, cleft chin and all.

  “Just checking in, Nick. Making sure you’re doing all right. Saw your, ah…your posting in the paper. Wanted to make sure you’re all right.”

  My stomach turned. I imagined just about everyone in town had seen my plea in the local ads for any Alpha to come forward who might’ve been with me on the night I’d gotten pregnant. Shame mixed with horror—surely I hadn’t unknowingly fucked Fort Greene’s aging police chief?

  “Um, yeah. I’m fine. Peachy. Thanks for asking.” I swallowed hard, feeling sweat begin to bead along my hairline on the back of my neck. “Was there anything else, or…?”

  “This isn’t official business, Nick. Or personal, for that matter. Just trying to do my job for the community.” He gave me a smile that, if I’d bought it, might’ve even been charming or warm. Given that I didn’t, it only looked unnerving. “Say…I hear you’ve had that King boy around your place an awful lot lately. Harper? Big, tall Alpha, drives a Mustang?”

  “Harper and I are friends, yeah,” I confirmed, feeling my palms go cold and clammy. “Didn’t realize the gossip mill had already started over that.”

  “Not gossip, Nick. Just general interest. He staying here or what?”

  “He’s…he’s been around. Needed a place to stay. Like I said, we’re friends, so—”

  “Must be pretty close friends, putting him up like that, then. Good of you. Nice, friendly thing to do.”

  I didn’t know where Sorenson was leading this line of conversation, but I didn’t like it. There was something happening in between the lines that made my stomach churn with nervousness. Something being left unsaid.

  Something that I intended on keeping that way.

  “You know how we are here in Fort Greene, Chief. Always good to be friendly. Help your neighbors and all.”

  “But he’s not a neighbor, is he? Way I hear it, he’s been out in Miami for a while now. Strange, him sticking around for so long after his brother’s funeral, don’t you think?”

  I smiled, faking my own a little better than Sorenson could fake his. “Fort Green’s like that, isn’t it? You can always leave, but the nostalgia always brings you back.”

  “Right.” Sorenson obviously didn’t want to talk nostalgia—and from the furrow in his brow, I could tell this conversation was going a little too much the way of pleasant conversation than he’d hoped. “Well, do me a favor—when he comes back around, let him know I stopped by? Wouldn’t mind a word with him. You know. To catch up.”

  “To catch up,” I repeated, nodding slowly. “Right.”

  “Welp, that’s my piece said.” Sorenson returned my nods with a sharp one of his own. “You have a good day now, Nick. Stay out of trouble.”

  “I always do,” I said, giving him another smile.

  But when I shut the door, locking it all over again, my heart was pounding in my ears.

  I watched the chief’s car pull out of my driveway and disappear down the street through a crack in my curtains, feeling sicker and sicker with every passing minute.

  There’d been no need for the Fort Greene police chief to stop by my house that morning. No need for him to check up on me, either. And whatever that business about Harper had been, I couldn’t imagine what the chief could have wanted out of him.

  Unless…

  Unless Sorenson hadn’t wanted anything out of that visit at all. Unless he hadn’t been there to get information—he’d been there to send a message.

  We’re onto you. We know what you’re up to. We know where you live.

  By the time I finally remembered my tea, the mug had gone cold. I dumped it into th
e kitchen sink, running water to wash the remnants of it down the drain.

  But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t wash away the feeling that I’d just been threatened. Not by a long shot.

  19

  Harper

  The room of Wells’ house that he’d set up as an office was a fucking mess. A corkboard had been hung lopsidedly on one wall, a series of blurry photographs taken from a distance pinned up on it connected to each other in a spider’s web of red yarn. Stacks of papers, notebooks and file folders were scattered throughout the room, seemingly at random. They took up most of the space on the floor, forcing Wells to Sherpa me through a careful path he’d carved through the chaos. When I plucked the cover of one notebook open, Wells wheeled around to slap my hand away.

  “You don’t want to get any deeper in this than you need to,” he snapped, pointing a long, bony finger in my face. “I’ll give you what you want, but it’s your funeral if you delve into it. All this information, it’s read at your own fucking risk.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” I grunted back, suddenly a little less certain that Wells was as stable of an informant as I’d originally hoped. From the glimpse I’d gotten into that notebook, his information was looking less like official documents, more like the ramblings of a madman. Corporate logos had been scrawled across the page in frantic Sharpie, with messy writing in red pen scribbled next to each.

  From the rest of the house, I wouldn’t have been able to tell it—but if Wells’ office was any indicator, he didn’t just have his life to worry about. I’d seen this in people like him before. Scabs trying to escape the wrath of the unions they’d betrayed. Mafia snitches doing their best to lay low while they waited for the day two men in black jackets showed up at their doors to toss them into the trunks of old Crown Vics with bogus license plates.

  It didn’t matter what you were running from in the end—eventually, it always caught up with you. The difference was whether or not you let it get to your head while you waited. Mentally, Wells already looked just on the precipice of being too far gone.

  “Here.” Wells brushed a stack of tan file folders off the top of a box with a flourish, sending them tumbling to the floor, the papers within them scattering as they went. “This box is everything I can give you. Not everything you need, maybe, but it’s enough to get us both killed for having it. Better that it’s in your dumbass hands than mine now, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “What about all of…” I pointed a finger upward, rolling it around in a little lasso motion to gesture to the rest of the room. “Seems like you’ve got a lot more in here than just a box.”

  Wells’ eyes narrowed with annoyance. “The shit that you and Josh are digging in isn’t my only concern presently, dipshit. You can take the box and be happy with it, or you can get the fuck out of my house.”

  “Give it here then.” I gave him a little come hither motion with my hand, and he hefted the box over to me. “What about you now? What’s your plan?”

  “Plan, singular? Ugh. No.” Wells rolled his eyes. “I’m dealing with plans, plural, right now. First order of business is to burn the rest of this and get the fuck out of this shitty little town. This mess is your burden to bear now. I’m done with it. It’s already cost me enough.”

  “Then what?”

  “I’m going to hide, blockhead. Mexico, maybe. Maybe somewhere even more remote.” Wells sighed, looking broken. “I didn’t even want this shit on me to begin with! I was completely happy wheeling and dealing, making my profit, cutting my losses and going on with my life—but Josh couldn’t fucking help himself. I told him not to dig into it, but—”

  I shrugged, understanding. “Not exactly Josh’s style.”

  “And now he’s taken us all down with him. ‘It’s your duty to Omegas everywhere,’ he said. ‘Don’t be a coward—you owe people answers,’ he said. Look where it got him. Six feet under, and I’ll be joining him soon enough.”

  “Seems you know a lot about this.” I lifted the box in my arms, testing its weight. Suspiciously light, for everything it sounded like Wells knew. “Anything else I need to know?”

  “Yeah—how to read a fucking room, maybe.” Wells reached into his pocket, coming up with a lighter and grabbing a trashcan from beneath a desk. “We’re done here, dick-for-brains. I’ve given you what I’ve got. Now, get your goddamn car away from my driveway before someone sees you’re here. Probably already too late.”

  I sighed, then shifted to make my way back through the winding path of Wells’ paranoia. Insufferable as he was, though, it didn’t feel right calling it that. Paranoia—that implied that it was all in his head. Whatever shit he’d stepped in, Josh had been killed over it. Maybe he was right to be so worried. So scared. So unwilling to help.

  “Take care of yourself, Adrian,” I said from the doorway, turning to give him a nod goodbye.

  “Yeah, you too, you dumb bastard.” Wells didn’t even look up as he set flame to a college-ruled notebook, holding it over the trash can for a moment then dropping it in with a thunk. “Good luck—you’ll need it.”

  Back at Nick’s house, I tucked the box beneath my arm, balancing it on my hip as I made my way to the front door. Wells hadn’t given us a lot, but at least he’d given us something—and at this point, something was better than nothing at all.

  When I unlocked the first two locks on the door, though, I felt the resistance of the chain lock still slid into place.

  “Nick?” I called through the crack. “You home? You okay?”

  I heard the scurry of Nick’s bare feet across the door as he undid the chain. “You’re back. Thank god.”

  I raised an eyebrow as I crossed in, hearing Nick relock the door behind me. “Yeah…good to see you too, sweetheart. Something wrong? You look…”

  I clenched my jaw as I took him in. His dark hair was askew, like he’d been running his fingers through it so nervously that it had lost all of its normal wave. There was a storm of worry in the blues of his eyes, full of lightning and thunder and rain.

  “What happened?” I asked, placing the box on the floor and moving to him.

  Nick worked his fingers into the spaces between mine, resting his cheek against my chest and squeezing my hands tight. “We had a visitor while you were gone. Police chief. He sounded…”

  “Did he threaten you?” My jaw clenched harder. I’d left Nick here alone and unarmed. Perfect for a shakedown—and of course, they’d chosen that moment to come for him.

  “All but. He knows you’re here, Harper. Wants you to talk to him.” Nick raised his gaze to me, a level of pleading in his eyes. “Did you piss off the police or something? It was…something wasn’t right.”

  A hollow feeling slid into my stomach. Like I’d just had my guts removed with a melon baller. “Not any more than usual, I’m afraid.”

  Nick’s teeth dug into his lower lip. “Wouldn’t have guessed it from the way he was talking. This is serious, Harper. There’s something weird going on—and they’ve got you in their sights.”

  “And now, you too.” I shook my head, feeling my heart crush inside my chest. “I’m so sorry, Nick. If the chief is resorting to harassing you now… Fuck. This is about more than a piece of evidence. This goes way fucking deeper than that.”

  “Deeper than either of us ever imagined,” he quoted, pulling my arms around him so he could press his body close to mine.

  I held him there, letting go of his hands so I could smooth down his hair, run my palms down his spine. He was shaking. Not hard, but enough that it made me feel like a bastard for dragging him into this.

  An awful imagining played out in my mind. What if the chief had decided to do more than just talk? What if he’d had Nick arrested—or worse? I could envision it all too clearly. Coming home to find Nick’s body in a pool of blood, stab wounds blooming up from his t-shirt, his skin already going cold. Or worse—coming home to an empty house. To no one. To nothing at all.

  That would’ve killed me. I
knew it as well as I knew my own damn name. This—this was why I didn’t take partners. This was why I didn’t do serious, and certainly not long-term. When I went around stirring the pot, people got hurt. Innocent people. Collateral damage, not because they’d done anything wrong, but because of their proximity to me.

  Wells had been right—I was a dumbass. A dumbass of the highest degree. And now…

  “Do you think the chief is involved?” Nick’s voice was soft and meek against my chest.

  I held him a little tighter. “Anything’s possible.”

  “Do you think…” Nick looked up at me again, terror flashing in his blues. “Do you think he might’ve done it?”

  “We’ll find out,” I swore to him. “Right now…Christ, Nick. I’m just sorry that I put you in this kind of danger. I’m sorry. I’m so, so fucking sorry.”

  “We’re in this together, Harper.” Nick moved his lips to mine, pressing them to my mouth like a promise. “Wherever this leads, we’ll take it on together too.”

  But even as we kissed, I knew I’d fucked up worse than I’d ever fucked up before.

  There was an axe hanging over both of our heads now. All I could hope was that I could protect Nick well enough that when it finally fell, I could shelter him from the blow.

  20

  Nick

  I let myself rest against Harper’s chest, closing my eyes and losing track of time. I could feel his every breath rising and falling beneath my cheek. Could hear his heartbeat—strong, steady and slow at first, but gradually tumbling into a quicker beat until I finally heard his voice rumble against my ear.

  “Maybe I should go.”

  “What?” I pulled away to look up at him, confusion and nausea and fear all swimming in my stomach like a school of anxious fish. “Harper, no! God, no. Why on earth—”

  “I shouldn’t have come into your life to begin with. Knew it at the time, too, but I…” He trailed off, taking me by the arms and holding me away from him. “It doesn’t matter now. I should’ve known better. Certainly shouldn’t have stayed.”