by Esme Beal
Ashton walked into the room and everybody turned their attention to him. With as rich and magnanimous as he was, I was sure that happened to him when he stepped into every room.
“I just spoke to the police,” he said. “I talked to them about the Bleeding Hearts. They don’t have anything in their records on file.”
“What?” I said. “Are you sure? They have to—”
“Calm down. I believe how certain you are about them being the ones responsible. The police not having any records on them just means that the Bleeding Hearts are not from Snow Falls. It’ll take some time to dig up the information from the other databases.”
“Some time,” Marshall muttered. “Time we’re running out of.”
“There is still something we can do,” I said. “There are still people we can question. There’s still—”
“Spencer,” Ashton cut me off. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to have a word with Marshall, the man I hired. Alone.”
There was a seriousness in Ashton’s eyes that was unsettling. I guess when you were as rich and successful as he was, you had to be clear with your intentions.
I looked over at Marshall and he nodded. I couldn’t argue with anybody.
“Come on,” Noah said as he tugged on my arm. “You can help me get started with dinner while they’re talking.”
I walked with Noah toward the kitchen. Preparing food for the entire shelter was a big task. With all of the people living there and having to do it three times a day, there was no shortage of work at the shelter. Thankfully, Ashton’s wealth turned the kitchen into a facility that was more than enough. All of the volunteers and workers got the job done without killing themselves.
“Why don’t you get started washing those vegetables?” Noah said.
“Right.”
I followed his instructions and got busy.
“You working tonight?” he asked.
“No, not tonight. I thought I’d take another day off.”
“They must think it’s strange that you’re taking so much time off.”
“You’ve been to Paradise before. It’s not exactly the busiest bar in Snow Falls. Besides, I’m free to come and go as I need to. The nights I don’t show up are the nights they don’t have to pay me.”
“Must be nice to be able to take time off like that.”
“Given the circumstances, I’d honestly rather be at work.”
I sighed thinking about Amy. We were closer to getting to her but it still felt like she was so far away.
“How are you doing?” Noah asked.
“I’m fine. I mean, I’m not fine but… I think I can manage.”
“You know, this situation is going to resolve itself in the best way possible. If Marshall can’t get it done, Ashton will. You don’t get to a place like where he is now without being capable.”
“It must be nice, having all that money…”
“Ashton has a lot of money but he’s an even better person. He’s just as determined as anybody to see this through.”
“Well, I don’t think it will come to that. These punks won’t get their ransom and Amy will be safe. I believe in Marshall.”
I finished washing the batch of vegetables and got started on the next one. I whistled softly to myself to help pass the time. A few seconds had gone by when I noticed Noah standing right next to me. He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t working. He was just staring at me with a subtle smirk on his lips.
“What?” I said with a shrug. “Am I washing these vegetables wrong?”
“This Marshall fellow. Strange coincidence that you ran into him.”
“Yeah… You told me to go to Tsunami and apparently, Ashton gave him the same information.”
“You seem to have a lot of faith in him.”
“If Ashton thinks he can get the job done, there’s no reason I can’t feel the same way.”
“Oh, I don’t think Ashton is the reason you have so much faith in him… You admire Marshall, don’t you?”
The grin on his face grew even wider. The look in his eyes was clear. My mouth half-open, I was speechless to respond.
“He’s quite handsome, you know?”
“Is he?” I said, turning my attention back to the vegetables I was washing. “I didn’t notice.”
“Oh, I think you noticed. Big, bulging muscles. Those tattoos are damn sexy, too. Not to mention that hardened look in his eyes. I’m sure he gets a lot of attention.”
“Not from me. I’m just trying to get the job done.”
“There’s no reason to be embarrassed about it, Spencer. You’re an Omega. He’s an Alpha. You’re both adults.”
I sighed because I knew there was no getting around it.
“You’re right,” I said. “But now isn’t the time for that. My priority right now is making sure that Amy is safe. There’s only a couple of days left until Ashton will be forced to pay the ransom. We can’t let these guys get away with it.”
“That’s fair. But there’s no shame in admitting that Marshall can be someone special.”
“Ha! The day I meet the Alpha I was destined to be with is the day I’ll start believing in monsters hiding underneath my bed.”
“You don’t believe in the monsters underneath your bed?”
We shared a laugh. Noah finally relented and let me get back to work. It had only been a few minutes when Ashton and Marshall walked into the kitchen together.
“Spencer,” Ashton said to me. “Can I speak with you for a moment?”
“Me? Sure…”
I looked at Noah but all he did was give me a shrug. Marshall didn’t say anything either.
Wonder what this is about…
I left the kitchen with Ashton and we headed into a quiet room just by ourselves.
“What’s up?” I said.
“I just spoke with Marshall on the progress of his investigation.”
“It’s coming along smoothly. It’s only a matter of time until we nab these criminals and lock ‘em up.”
“Yes. Marshall feels the same way. Frankly, I have to agree. Now that we know who’s responsible, they won’t be able to hide from us for much longer.”
“I’m glad you feel that way—”
“I did warn you.”
“…W-what?”
“I warned you not to get too involved but you had to do it anyway.”
I looked away from Ashton and sighed in frustration.
“I’m not a child,” I said. “You don’t have to speak to me that way.”
“It’s not about me speaking to you in a certain way. It’s the kind of danger you’re putting yourself in. Spencer, we don’t know anything about what the Bleeding Hearts are capable of. Marshall is putting himself on the line. He knows his life is at risk.”
“You think I don’t know that? You think I’m trying to get myself killed?”
“Spencer—”
“Look. I don’t know how many times I have to say this but I’ll say it again. There’s a little girl out there. She’s alone. She doesn’t know what’s going to happen. I have to do everything I can to get to her. You, Marshall, the Bleeding Hearts, nobody will stop me. Do you hear me?”
Ashton looked down at me and sighed a deep breath through his nose.
“Okay,” he said with a nod. “I can’t say that I approve of this. Marshall is a trained professional. But you do care about Amy. I can’t stop you from doing everything you can for her. Just understand that I’m concerned about this partnership you have with Marshall. You’re putting yourself at risk by getting involved directly.”
“With all due respect, that’s not your decision to make, Ashton. I need to do what I have to do to save Amy. And right now, that’s being by Marshall’s side to make sure that I can get to her. Now if you’ll excuse me, we have to get back to work. We have to locate the Bleeding Hearts as soon as possible—”
“Not tonight.”
I blinked my eyes, unsure that I’d heard him correctly.
“W-what?” I said.
“That man you saw at the Croc Pit saw you and Marshall. It’s likely he’s already told the rest of his club that someone is looking for them.”
“That’s true.”
“They’re on high alert. You and Marshall go sniffing around and you’ll draw more attention to yourself than you know what to do with.”
“We can handle the attention—”
“Spencer, I’m not about to risk them doing something to Amy. Not when something could happen to her.”
“You don’t know—”
Ashton suddenly held his phone up to me.
“What?” I said with a shrug. “What’s this?”
“Read it.”
I looked down at the phone and read the message that Ashton had brought up.
I know what you’re trying to do. Don’t come looking for us. If you do, you’ll regret it.
“I received that message today,” Ashton said. “Right around the time you and Marshall were getting into it at the Croc Pit.”
I sighed and handed Ashton’s phone back to him.
“It is the Bleeding Hearts,” Ashton said. “We can be fairly certain of that. But they know that we know. And chances are if you and Marshall go out tonight looking for them, they’ll be on high alert and do something. You can’t risk it. Not tonight.”
“Then how are we supposed to—”
“I don’t know. That’s Marshall’s job to figure out. That’s why I hired him. He… and you… have one day to get to the bottom of this. If not, I’ll pay the ransom.”
“You can’t let these guys get away with it.”
“I know I can’t. But if it’s the only way to make sure that Amy is safe, I have to do it.”
“Right…”
Ashton put a hand on my shoulder.
“You two have gotten into enough trouble today,” he said. “Why don’t you take a break and relax?”
“I can’t take a break. I can’t relax. Not when I know she’s still out there.”
“You know, there are still other people at this shelter. Other people who are down on their luck. Other Omegas who need someone to be there for them. Did you forget about them, too?”
“No, of course not. I…”
I cut myself off when I realized what Ashton was getting at. He smirked at me and I smiled right back.
“Yeah,” I said with a nod. “It’s been a long time since I’ve spent some time with the people here.”
“Just because you’re not spending every second trying to get to Amy doesn’t mean you’ve let her down. There’s still time. And with time, there’s still hope.”
Ashton put his arm around my shoulder and we headed back to the kitchen. Noah had put Marshall to work washing the vegetables that I was working with. It was a strange sight even though it shouldn’t have been.
“You’re back,” Noah said. “You and Marshall can get back to work.”
I took my place next to Marshall and started washing the vegetables just the same as him.
“Ashton didn’t hire you to do this,” I said.
“He didn’t,” Marshall replied. “This is something I wanted to do. After everything that happened tonight, maybe we can use a break.”
“…I think you’ll enjoy your time here at the shelter,” I said with a smile.
“I’m looking forward to it.”
Chapter 9
SPENCER
Marshall, Noah, and Ashton were enough company for me to keep my head on straight. The crowd at the shelter certainly helped. Everybody both young and old filled the dining hall and stuffed their faces with the food we’d prepared. Even though there were so many of them in one place and they didn’t have much in their lives, they still laughed and smiled with the kind of enthusiasm that was infectious. It was enough to make me forget about all of my troubles.
Playing with all of the young Omegas made me smile like always. But it was Marshall’s presence that made me somewhat anxious about everything. I learned quickly that I had nothing to worry about. Everybody took a liking to him. You wouldn’t have known that he was some out-of-town mercenary that Ashton hired.
After dinner, I spent the rest of my energy playing with the children through the evening. I didn’t have much strength left though. The end of the night came. Marshall brought me back to my apartment so that I could finally put the night to rest.
“Thanks for the ride,” I sighed as I collapsed on my couch.
“Tired?”
“Those people sure know how to take everything out of you. Especially the kids. They’ve got so much energy, especially after dinner. Eunice, one of the women who works there, she’s always telling me about how she’s trying to get the children to settle down.”
“I wouldn’t know how she does it.”
“She reads to them. The kids get so into it that they stop bouncing around for a second.”
“It takes a special kind of person to work well with young ones.”
“You seem to have done pretty well yourself. The children seemed to like you.”
“It helps that I could pick them up and toss them toward the ceiling so easily.”
“You’re right. Next time, make sure Eunice doesn’t see that. He’ll probably have a heart attack when he sees how high you were throwing some of them.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
I laughed even though I didn’t have much strength.
Marshall took a seat across from me. I looked out through the open window of my living room. I enjoyed the peace and quiet of the darkness with the cool night breeze blowing against my skin.
“There’s some beer in the fridge,” I said. “If you wanna have a drink.”
“I had some beer earlier. I think I’ve had enough for today. Gotta keep my focus. We’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”
“Yeah…”
I sighed as my thoughts shifted to Amy like they always did.
“I love playing with those kids,” I said. “So wide-eyed, always smiling, always laughing. So full of life. I wish I was like that.”
“Nothing’s stopping you.”
“Nothing except living life in the Southern Block. I’d love to just spend my days playing and forget about all of the mundane things in my life like work and paying my bills and dealing with some of the rude people in Snow Falls. It’s one of the reasons I loved playing with Amy so much.”
I swallowed to clear my throat. The memories of her came back to me, so clear in my mind even though it’d been so long since I’d seen her.
“What was she like?” Marshall asked.
“Amy?”
Just the thought of spending time around her brought a smile to my face.
“She was like all of the other kids,” I said. “She’d run around and play with them. Always wrestling with the others. So much energy. She was talented, too. I remember this one time Ashton brought in paints and canvases for everybody to work on. Noah and Eunice were thrilled because it meant that they wouldn’t be running around for once.
“Amy was… She was hypnotized by the paint. As soon as she grabbed the brush, it was like she couldn’t do anything else. I sat next to her and watched her paint. She was barely 10-years-old but she looked like a professional. A gorgeous painting of flowers. I remember staring at it in awe…”
Marshall got up from his seat and walked over to my wall. My apartment was barren and the walls weren’t an exception. The only thing there was the small painting as a centerpiece.
“This,” Marshall said as he pointed at it. “This was the painting she made.”
I got up from my seat. All the emotions swirling around in my stomach forced me to swallow to keep everything down.
“I told her that I was really, really impressed,” I said. “She grinned at me. She had every reason to be proud of it. But she was so bashful, just smiling at me like it wasn’t a big deal. That’s the kind of person Amy is. So innocent… And some asshole took her away… I…”
&
nbsp; I swallowed again as my eyes started to glaze over. But I collected myself enough not to let my feelings get the best of me.
“…I miss her,” I whispered.
“Hey.”
Marshall put a hand on my shoulder and broke me out of the daze I didn’t realize I was in.
“The Bleeding Hearts,” he said. “These assholes… I’ll make sure they pay for what they did.”
“You don’t have to say anything like that—”
“I know I don’t. But I promise you that I’ll take care of them. We’ll save Amy. Together.”
Looking into Marshall’s brown-eyed stare, he could’ve told me anything and I would’ve believed him. I’d never seen such determination before. Not from him, not from anybody.
My heart was filled with a hope I didn’t know was there.
He kept his eyes locked on me and smiled softly. His hardened face belied a kindness I knew was inside of him.
I reached a hand up and caressed the side of his cheek.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “For everything.”
His face was drifting down toward mine. My eyes started to close. As soon as he disappeared from view, Marshall made me feel him. His lips pressed against mine. His tongue found its way between my lips. I sighed in relief from how deep his kiss was. I wrapped my arms around his head and brought him closer to me.
His masculine scent filled my nostrils. The kind of Alpha smell that was intoxicating. Any thoughts I had were replaced with a sudden desire just to be with him.
Marshall took complete control of me, wrapping his arms around my waist and lifting me up off the ground without much effort. His 6’5” frame was easy to hold onto. I wrapped my arms and legs around him as he led me into my bedroom.
He plopped me down on my mattress. I sat up on the edge of the bed and started fiddling around with his belt buckle. I couldn’t get him out of his jeans fast enough. His zipper down, I tugged and pulled on his jeans and underwear until his hard cock sprang up free before me.
Wow…
I’d seen it before but I never failed to marvel at it. A length so thick and throbbing so hard that I could see it even in the darkness of my bedroom. My mouth was watering so much that I couldn’t hold back.
