by Jeff D Ellis
“Tell me your decision after you come back from your time off.”
“Time off?”
“That brings me to our last piece of business. I want you both to take some time off for your honeymoon. Your marriage might have been an affair of state to start with, but I see you have made it into something real. You deserve to be afforded the same courtesy as in a Human company to go on your honeymoon. I also know you have some house shopping to do and need time to settle in. If there is nothing else, see Onyx on your way out.”
“Thank you, Greta. I will keep Onyx informed about our time off.”
Onyx rushed over and hugged Chloe as soon as she cleared Greta’s door. “You look so much better now than before. You don’t know how worried I was when I saw you go down.”
Mark frowned. “You saw what happened?”
“There is a hidden camera downstairs I can watch from my desk. I saw everything. Mark, you were so heroic in the face of Chloe being shot. If someone tried to hurt me, I would want you as my hero.”
Chloe grabbed her hand. “Did you record it? I would like to see.”
Onyx shook her head. “I’m sorry it’s a closed circuit and there is no way for anybody to record anything that goes on in that room. There is even some sort of special filter over the monitor so I couldn’t even record the display with a phone.”
“Is that how Erica saw the action?”
“She was standing next to me when it all went down. She could hear over her radio what happened. We needed to watch here to control the elevator. When we saw Chloe was hurt and the fight had started, we came down as quickly as we could. Now onto more pleasant things.”
Onyx reached down and placed two leather messenger bags on top of the desk along with a note. “There is one for each of you. Consider it a bounty on Vivian’s head, along with a hazard pay bonus. I put it in two bags since I don’t know how you are working your finances yet. You should be able to buy a decent house and maybe buy Mark a car with that money.”
Chloe handed Mark the bags and picked up the note. “What is this phone number?”
“John left it for you. He said it had something to do with a house you might be interested in.”
“Thank you for taking care of things.”
“I hope you consider the offer Greta made. I don’t expect we will see you for a couple of weeks, but call me if your plans change.” Onyx winked at Mark. “Also remember I can be available for help using the spa coupons I gave you for your honeymoon.”
“I will let you know, if we need any help, but I think I can handle things on my own. Come along, Mark.”
“Yes, dear.”
Mark waited until they were in Chloe’s BMW before looking in the bags. “Hey, Chloe.”
“Yes?”
“We are going to be able to buy a good house as long as they take cash.”
“How good?”
“I just did a quick count and each bag had fifty packets of one-hundred-dollar bills in it.”
“Oh my god!”
“Does the Clan always pay this well?”
“The rumor was she paid John that amount for killing Pyotr, but Greta doesn’t always pay so much. The amount of a bounty normally depends on how badly they tried to screw the Clan and normally only independent contractors get paid.”
“I think she was trying to make up for how she played us and kept us in the dark until the very end.”
“I don’t know if Greta cares that much for anybody other than John and Onyx. In any case, do you think we should call that number before getting on the road?”
“It might be dangerous looking at a house with all this cash on us.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Lake House
THE DIRECTIONS TO the house were a bit hard to follow. It was a secluded place on a small lake in Renton. It was strange finding places in a country setting not far off from normal towns and maybe twenty minutes from Seattle. They almost missed the turnoff hidden in the trees. This place would not be the easiest to find if they had a party. The house was a single-story bungalow with a detached garage. The garage looked like it was for two cars but was three cars wide. It must have some work area inside.
They met Henry and Kat and took a tour of the house. It was almost everything Mark could want. It only lacked a way to slip into the woods unnoticed. The small lake was beautiful with their own dock. Chloe could imagine having parties on their deck with its hot tub. Kat and Henry had already moved into a house next to John, and it was available for them to move right in. It even had furnishings they could have.
That night they sat sitting on the deck of their new home, watching the sunset.
“Mark, what do you want out of life? The Coyotes want a leader, and Greta has jobs for us. There are a lot of options.”
“I could keep working for Greta, but I think I would rather spend time learning the lore of the Coyotes and rebuild the tribe. Do you think I would be good at it?”
“You have greatly grown since I met you. You’re the leader you are meant to be.”
“Do you want the studio exec job?”
“At least it’s working in a fully legal side of the Clan and has a real paycheck that doesn’t need money launderers to spend. It also means you can go full time into tribal work, that we can live on my paycheck.”
“You would do that for me?”
“Can your male ego handle being supported by his woman?”
“Chloe, for the first time in our lives we actually have freedom?”
“It’s wonderful and scary at the same time. I never dreamed of being released from the Clan. Until you, I never wanted to be. Do you realize that most everything Sin-ka-lip' told me has come true and we did it ourselves?”
“It wasn’t easy, but we are both Coyotes and members of the tribe. The only thing left is having Coyote kids of our own. If you don’t mind, I would like a little stability in our lives first. I want to learn everything there is to love about you first.”
She laughed. “I’m not pregnant and don’t actually know if I can have kids, so we can worry about that later.”
“Chloe, how do you want to spend our honeymoon? Do you want to go to the Salish or spend it here?”
“Would you be disappointed if I said let’s trade having room service and spa time for staying here?”
“I was hoping you would say that. Do you want to have a housewarming party?”
Chloe smiled. “I would love that, who should we invite?”
“We could start with David, Abby, Henry, and Kat. I would like to get to know them better.”
“It would be fun having them over and developing some new friendships.”
“Have I told you how much I love you?”
Chloe looked deep into Mark’s eyes and kissed him, body and soul.
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