Promising Peter (Bad Boy Alphas) (Shrew & Company Book 6) (19 page)

“I’m pretty sure the call went through,” Drea whispered to Doc.

Doc was bent over a lab table, shuffling through old files—putting on the pretense of doing work.

They’d been locked in a dusty, long-unused room for an hour, having only been told by Wes that he expected a progress report by the end of the day.

“The log shows I was connected for fifteen minutes—so, maybe right up until we got into the elevator.”

“Well,” Doc said, being very careful not to move her lips much because they were being monitored via camera, “if anyone would know what to do with that little bit of information, that person would be Peter.”

“I’m glad I’m here with you and not on my own,” Drea said. “If I were by myself…”

“You’d be just
fine
,” Doc said. “I have full confidence that you’d figure out some way to get yourself out of here. Hell, I would have never have thought to try to make a call through my watch.”

“I guess I’ll have to be like Inspector Gadget. If I can’t fight worth a damn, at the very least, I can have technology.”

“Can you get a signal out of here at all?”

Drea shook her head. “We’re probably in the middle of the building. No reception whatsoever.”

“Hopefully Peter got enough information, then.”

Drea stood from the cracked leather sofa and padded toward a locked cabinet that had a glass door. She peered at the neat rows of clear vials and read the labels. None of the drug names were familiar to her—certainly nothing the company had on the market at the moment. They did have a few FDA-approved drugs for migraines, asthma, and erectile dysfunction available, and they advertised those heavily. They probably had to, if they were still recovering from the financial devastation caused by the SHREW study fallout.

“I still can’t believe they were trying to
make
shifters,” Doc said low.

“I can’t believe they would test the formula on women without their permission. That’s the part that burns me the most. They could have tested the drug on…oh, I don’t know. Incarcerated volunteers or maybe some of those folks who make a living participating in clinical trials. College kids, or whoever.”

“I don’t know if they could have.” Doc turned the pages of the file folder and lowered her head, narrowing her eyes at the contents. “I think they used that specific cross-section of women for a reason. Judging from these records, all the women had some things in common, though evidently not enough seeing as how they didn’t all survive the ordeal.”

Andrea moved to the table, slowly, casually, and pressed her hands to the edge. She wanted to look conversational and not too chummy. After all, “Betty” didn’t know Doc very well. “What sort of things did they have in common?”

“Well, there are certain genes that regulate how the body ages and how cells regenerate, and I think they identified women from the study pool whose bodies were more evolved in that regard than others, but obviously that wasn’t enough.”

“Why would their regenerative abilities have made the difference?”

Doc shrugged and pulled the next folder over. “I don’t know, and I really have no interest in finding out. That’s not knowledge any person should have, and especially not for profit-minded reasons.”

“That sounds like something San might say.”

“San?”

“Mmm. She’s the lady who give Peter the herbs to wake me up. The ones that forced my beast out.”

“Huh.”

“Do you think that…if I were to take that drug, I’d—”

“
No
,” Doc snapped, not bothering to keep her voice down.

“Okay,” Drea whispered. “It’s just that—”

“You need to get used to being what you are, and I think you and I both know that you’re better off without the beast driving your actions and clouding your instincts. Why would you want that back?”

Drea cringed, chastised. “I thought maybe a second chance would make a difference.”

But Drea knew better. The idea had been a fleeting one, and she’d more or less shot it down herself the moment the words had left her mouth. She was getting used to the bear being gone. Drea was different, sure. Less confident in some ways, but
more
confident in the ways that mattered. Thinking was easier. Planning for the future was easier, and Drea wouldn’t give that up for anything—not even to be able to shapeshift again. If Peter didn’t care, neither would she.

“Do you see anything else interesting in there?” Drea asked.

Doc shook her head. “Pretty much the same information rehashed again and again. Perhaps there is some trigger that could spark a metamorphosis simply by swallowing a handful pills, but I’m certainly not going to help them discover what it is. I’m not interested in that kind of medicine.”

“Even if the subjects were volunteers?”

Slowly, Doc closed the folder and raised her gaze to Drea. “Especially then. I’d question the motives of any person who’d choose to undergo such a change and wonder what their end goal is.”

When the lab door clicked open, Drea reflexively reached for Doc, but Doc’s brain was working faster at the moment. Doc put up a hand in a “just wait” gesture.

“Shh. Look carefully.” Doc went back to nonchalantly scanning folders—a front for the camera.

A woman with ruddy brown skin, hair pulled up into a topknot, and who was wearing a lab coat with CarrHealth embroidered on the breast pocket stood in front of the closed door.

She pushed horn-rimmed glasses up her noses. Her gaze pulled immediately to one camera and then the other.

Dark, dark eyes—so familiar even if the face they were set in at the moment weren’t.

Sarah.

She was the only one of the Shrews who could shapeshift in the slightest bit. She could reconfigure her skull in minor ways to change her appearance, but she tried to avoid doing so. The shifting was a painful endeavor and she had to work actively to keep her face from changing back before she was ready.

“I don’t have any news for you, if that’s what you’re looking for,” Doc said.

Silently, Sarah kept her position by the door and watched the clock over Doc’s head.

She’s waiting
.

Drea got ready. Sarah never did anything without a plan, and she and Dana were geniuses at making plans.

Moments later, Sarah waved them over. “Come on. That should have been enough time for Soren to take care of the cameras. Let’s go.”

Doc looked around, frantically, though Drea couldn’t guess what for.

“Doc, come
on
.”

“I need a…a
bag
or something. I can’t just leave these files here. They need to be destroyed.”

“I can’t believe for a moment that they wouldn’t have backups,” Drea said. “This whole thing sucks. I don’t want this research getting out, either, but we’ve got to leave the files.”

“Don’t worry about the files.” Sarah fiddled with her phone, likely typing out a message. “I got a couple of Coyotes in the lobby who really wanted something to do today. They’ll get this message as soon as I’m clear of the middle of the building, probably. Let them deal with the files. They’ll get rid of all the paper and probably find a nice administrative assistant to help them locate the electronic entries. Nate and Hardy are charming when they want to be.”

“And scary when they’re not.”

Sarah shrugged. “That’s why Dana decided to hire them on a trial basis. Let’s go.”

Doc tucked a pile of folders under her arm anyway. The colored letter tabs on the back one were marked S-L-A, and Drea would have bet good money the data belonged to a certain lead Shrew. “Are we just going to walk out of here? That guy had thugs and a gun.”

Sarah nodded. “Yeah, that’s the plan. The thing about broad daylight extractions in places of business like this is that both sides have to exercise some restraint. He’ll stop at nothing to conceal what he’s been doing. That said, I’m certain if he’s already in deep shit with the higher-ups because of the losses from the SHREW study, he’s not going to do anything that would put him in a worse light than he’s already in.”

Drea and Doc joined Sarah at the door. “So what’s to say we won’t walk out of here and this guy won’t try this again? To snatch one of us up?” Doc asked.

Sarah ground her teeth and gestured to the hallway. “We’re hoping he tries again. We’re hoping the next time he dares do something so fucking stupid, we can keep him on our turf.”

“So we can handle him accordingly,” Doc said with a nod.

“Same as before,” Sarah said. “Now it’s not Gene we need to worry about, but the puppet master who made him the crook he was and who didn’t try to rein him in when he got money-hungry and bloodthirsty.”

Drea stepped onto the hall with Doc on her heels. Sarah shut the door.

They ambled down the corridor, nodding and greeting staff members as they passed.

“Passing his office now,” Sarah whispered. “Be cool. He might notice the video feed is off.”

And he must have, because he was red-faced and in his doorway by the time the ladies passed.

There were two offices across from his, and both had employees behind the desks.

Doc grasped the back of Sarah’s arm to halt her, and turned to him. “I think I’ve seen enough. I’d like my purse back, please. And Betty’s.”

His nostrils flared, and he narrowed his soulless, pale eyes. “
Betty
,” he spat. “Unusual nickname for someone named Andrea, isn’t it?”

Damn it.

Andrea tried to keep her calm façade. He’d evidently rooted through her purse. He likely knew everything from her address down to when her next dentist appointment was. Having her privacy invaded in such a way might have terrified her before, but she wasn’t scared. For once, she knew what to expect, and expecting things made them so much easier to swallow when they finally happened.

Doc shifted the files to her other arm and raised her chin stubbornly. “We would like our purses,” she said loudly and clearly. “Thank you for the opportunity, but we’ve decided we’re not interested.”

His gaze flitted over Drea’s shoulder.

Drea turned her head to catch the lab tech in her periphery.

“I’ll walk you to the storage room,” he said. “They’re probably in there.”

No way, bub.
“Could you check your office first? Make sure you didn’t stash them under your desk or something?” Drea asked. “I can’t imagine why you’d store our purses when we were right down the hall.”

The lab tech sidled around them, beaming at Doc. “I know you! You’re the lady who organizes all those blood drives downtown. Dr. Emerson, right?”

Doc smiled and nodded. “That’s me.”

“My brother’s probably donated a gallon of blood this year. He’s trying to win that motorcycle in the rare type raffle.”

“Well, tell him I send my warmest thanks. The bike is my brother’s. He’s one of those rare blood type weirdoes.”

“Sweet! I’m gonna go tell him now.” She turned, then stopped, and turned back. “Did you interview here? It’d be so great to have you on staff.”

Doc smiled even more broadly. “I decided drug development isn’t a good fit for me. I like my current job a great deal, and…” she cut her gaze to Wes. “Well, you know. Sometimes, you just need to see if the grass is greener.”

“Well, too bad.” She looked around Sarah at Wes. “I think I did see you carrying a couple of bags in. Did you put them into your closet and forget?”

His nostrils flared again, and the muscles at his jaw hinges twitched. “I’ll check. Why don’t you ladies meet me by the elevator?”

“Great. We’ll do that.” Doc turned to the lab tech. “Nice meeting you.”

“Oh!” The tech smiled tensely. “Uh. Do you think I could, maybe, give you my card? I’d love to pick your brain about the work you do in recuperative therapies.”

“Certainly.”

“Sweet.” The tech notched a card out of her coat pocket and handed it over.

Doc smiled at her, and the ladies got moving.

“Slow and casual,” Sarah said quietly. She depressed the elevator button, and they all turned their backs to the door. Sarah and Doc were probably both thinking the same thing Drea was—that they didn’t want that guy walking up behind them.

He stepped out of his office with his hand draped inside Drea’s purse and a suspicious bulge pointing outward.

Shit
.

The elevator chimed open.

Behind her, Drea heard the click of a gun hammer.

“Don’t move, sweetheart,” came Peter’s voice. “You’ll wait for the next elevator, yes? Felipe should be watching the lobby. Look for him.”

Swallowing hard, she nodded.

“Get in,” he said.

The exec looked over his shoulder down the hall. There was no one to rescue him.

“Get
in
,” Peter repeated.

No intelligent person would have missed the threat in it, and although Wes might have been a lot things, completely unintelligent wasn’t one of them.

As he stepped toward the elevator, Sarah grabbed Doc’s bag from him. Peter grabbed Drea’s, exposing Wes’s gun, which he quickly yanked from his hand.

“I’ll see you out front, Andrea,” Peter said, not taking his eyes off the guy. “By the fountain, yes? I’ll take you home.”

“By the fountain. Okay.”

“Have you had lunch?” He yanked the guy into the elevator.

Drea let out a choked laugh. “Uh. No. Not yet.”

“We’ll have lunch.” Peter leaned over and pushed a button. “You need to eat.”

The door closed.

Drea held her breath for impossibly long.

She stood there, stunned, until Sarah had the good sense to push the elevator call button again. “All rightie then. I will say his self-restraint is impressive for an Ursu. Tamara probably would have pistol-whipped the guy.”

“He doesn’t like hurting people,” Drea said softly. “He’s gentle.”

Doc and Sarah both snorted.

Drea didn’t have to have a Bear’s senses to know Peter wasn’t quite himself. Being perched on his lap at the moment, she could feel the tension he was holding in his body and counted the number of bites he’d taken of the sandwich he’d ordered at Paddy’s Pub.

Only three. Not enough.

She didn’t want to draw attention to him, though. There were too many people around—Shrews and spouses. Coyotes and Bears. Not celebrating, exactly—too much was up in the air. They didn’t know how deep Wes’s network was and who all the players in his game were. There were probably a dozen or more shifter groups on the east coast he had people like Gene in, and they had to be careful about how they alerted the group alphas. Raising unnecessary alarm and suspicion wasn’t what they wanted. Peace was always their goal.

Wes probably wouldn’t
ever
tell them what they needed to know.

Peter had had to let him go, but not without a painful warning via a hard punch to his back when his elevator
finally
descended to the lobby. There were no bruises for Wes’s coworkers to see.

Peter had left him gasping in the elevator and joined the ladies at the front door, growling—his bear so close to the surface.

There were too many witnesses at CarrHealth, though, and many of them recognized Doc. She was something of a local celebrity. They’d had to leave Wes.

Sarah had a hunch Wes would leave the company and quietly disappear before the Shrews could apprehend him. That didn’t mean any of them were safe. He knew who they were and where they were. At any time, he could set up a lab elsewhere and resume his scheme. Peter hadn’t beaten him up
that
badly.

Not badly enough, in Drea’s opinion.

When the attention of the crew around them turned to the warbling karaoke singer near the end of the bar, Drea leaned back and whispered to Peter, “What’s wrong?”

Peter rubbed her arms and then looped his around to her belly. “Nothing.”

“Come on, I don’t buy that. Tell me.”

He let out a ragged breath and pressed his face against the crook of her neck. “Andrea…”

“Tell me.”

“I didn’t want you to see what. Me losing control like that. He was so unapologetic, and I was so angry. When I think about how he had a hand in fucking over Tamara’s life and how it’s his fault, in part, that Gene spent all those years terrorizing you—”

She put a finger over his lips and whispered, “It’s okay. Bryan would have done the same thing.”

“I don’t think he would have. I’m
trying
to be better than what I am. I don’t know if I can be.”

“Who asked you to be? You keep waiting for me to tell you that I don’t like the person you are. Is that right?”

“You’d be entitled to. That’s why your brother and my sister tried to keep us apart for so long.”

“No. That was because I’m a naive nitwit.”

“Stop.”

“
You
stop.”

“Fine.” He rested his forehead atop her shoulder and sighed.

“Remember, I promised you that I would keep you. You haven’t done anything to make me change my mind. The knight-on-a-white-horse routine isn’t what I’d call a turnoff.”

He squeezed her tight as his low growl rumbled against her back.

“I go crazy when I think about anyone hurting you. Tamara won’t let me get anywhere near Gene again. I guess she thinks there wouldn’t be enough left of him to question if I had my way.”

“Sounds like a typical Bear response to me. At least
one
of us is typical.”

“I love that you’re not typical.”

“And I love that you are.”

“Do you?”

“Mm-hmm.” She nudged his hair back from his ear and rubbed the lobe. She also loved that she had her very own Bear to touch whenever she wanted to.

“I may require more convincing,” he said softly.

“Me, too,” she said. “And I think that’s okay.”

No. She
knew
it was. There was no longer a hostile voice inside her head telling her otherwise.

Confidence for a change. I like that.

Change, for once, was good, and she didn’t doubt for a moment that they weren’t all in store for a heap of it. With her bear gone, her mind clear, and Peter standing by, she’d be ready.

Finally ready.