Page 62 of Shades of Scars

I exchanged a look with Caito. “Because he wasn’t just watching her to report. It turns out that there are two bounties out for Scarlett. One is apparently to grab her and bring her to a specified location once she’s obtained. The other is to outright end her.” Both Lark and Wren stiffen at that, and they are just as affected by the news as we’d been when the beta had spilled it.

“I called an old friend on the way to the hospital to confirm the bounties, and he says they’re real. He also thinks that they were posted from two different seekers. One of them is Erossi. The other, he’s not sure.” Caito chimes in, and I feel the first stirrings of panic start up in my stomach.

“Which one did Erossi post?” Wren asks through clenched teeth.

“He’s the one that wants her brought in.” Caito confirms.

“Fuck.” Lark growls, reaching up to shove his fingers through his sandy blonde hair, the silver and gold streaks catching in the light streaming in from the window at his back and shimmering. Those steel blue eyes of his are hard, but troubled.

“We can’t let her out of our sight. We need to move her into the penthouse fully. Maybe even have someone watch that roommate of hers.” I speak up since the rest of my pack mates seem stunned into silence.

Caito nods in agreement, then he pulls his phone out of his pocket, messing around on it for a minute before he passes it over to Wren. “That’s the price on our omega’s head. It’s going to bring all the worst kinds of people out of the woodwork looking for her.” Wren takes the device, eyes scanning it, before he hands it back.

He looks absolutely fucking livid.

I can’t even bring myself to look at it.

“No one is getting their hands on her.” He says it like he believes it, and fuck—I wish I did.

“As soon as she wakes from her nap, we need to tell her about this.” Caito opens his mouth to argue, but I hold my hand up, stopping him. “I don’t give a flying fuck if you think it’ll spook her. She deserves to know. Deserves to make a choice. We also need to be careful about how we deal with this. We can’t just go after Erossi when he’s been careful not to connect himself to anything regarding Scarlett.”

Caito slashes a hand through the air. “Wren is richer than God. If we need to, we can buy out silence if we kill the fuckers. That’s my vote.”

Wren makes an exasperated noise. “We can’t fucking do that, Caito. We have no idea who Erossi has in his pockets. I may be rich, but I am not invincible. If we don’t handle this mess the right way, we will be at risk of losing more than just our livelihoods. If we’re all arrested for murdering the Chief of Police in some far off port city that isn’t even connected to us in any way, then we might as well be condemning Scarlett and our unborn child to a life of danger. How can we keep them safe if we are behind bars?”

“I might be able to help if you’d just loop me in on your plans instead of having discussions that affect all of us behind my back.” I jerk at the sound of Scarlett’s hard, cutting words slicing through the air after Wren’s speech, and we all glance over to spot her leaning against the door frame, arms crossed over her chest.

“We… are just trying to come up with a game plan to deal with the threats hovering over you, Sweetheart. We were going to talk to you as soon as you woke up.” Wren winces, rising to his feet from his chair so he can round the desk and move towards her. Caito also starts moving for her, but she holds up her hand, stalling them both in their tracks.

“I spent seven years with that pack. None of you thought it might be helpful to ask me what I might know about their inner workings?” She arches a brow, keeping her emotions carefully concealed behind her seemingly blase attitude.

Caito is watching her carefully, like a bull fighter would watch a bull about to lunge for him. Except he’s forgotten his scrap of red cloth and the arena he’s in has no chance of escape. “You don’t need to stress and involve yourself with this,mo chroí. We can handle those assholes. All you need to do is focus on resting and thrive.” He says, holding his hands up in a placating gesture, but it’s the wrong fucking thing to say.

She narrows her eyes, plush lips thinning in a tight line. “Giving you information that can help unravel the tangle of lies and crime that Harlan is twisted in wouldn’t be stressful. It would be a fucking relief to finally be rid of him so I can move on with my life.” The way she says Erossi’s name makes a knot form in the pit of my stomach. It doesn’t take eyes to see just how terrified she is of him.

I can smell it in the way her scent shifts, the citrus undertones no longer tangy, but tinged with rot.

Lark rises to his feet, stepping forward and holding out a hand to her before any of us can say anything. “Let’s get you fed first. Kars says you’ve lost a bit of weight from the vomiting. I’ve prepared a dish that I think you’ll enjoy and it’ll be great nutrients for you and the baby.”

She hesitates, looking around at the rest of us, before she takes it. Once he’s disappeared with her, Wren waits another minute or two, and then he sighs. “After dinner, the two of you can go clean up your mess down at the boat house. Make sure before you decide to kill him that it’ll be worth the risk,” he jabs a finger at Caito. “Remember.Nothingcan connect him to Black Tide Valley.”

He snatches his cell up after that and slips out of his office to follow Lark and Scarlett without another word to either of us. I groan and scrub a hand down my face. “I was hoping he was going to be our pack lead and clean this shit up himself.”

Caito shrugs, pulling his phone out of his pocket and staring at the screen for a minute. I move to him, curious what he’s looking at. I peer over his shoulder to find him watching some footage. It takes me another few heartbeats to figure out what I’m looking at.

My eyebrows shoot to my hairline. “I didn’t know Wren put a system up at that boat house. It’s unoccupied.”

Caito gives me a look before slipping his phone back where it was. “He didn’t. I did. As soon as we learned about Scarlett’s past, I made sure I set up a system down there in case something like this happened, and we needed somewhere to take our guests for chats.” The way he saysguestsandchatsmakes my stomach flip flop.

“Man, you really are one scary motherfucker. Where the hell did Wren find you, anyway? An assassins guild?”

The way he smiles at me is even worse.

“Come on. I don’t like Wrenly and Lark hogging all our omega’s attention.” He stuffs his hands in his pockets and casually walks out of the office, whistling an unknown tune under his breath as he goes.

I just stare after him for another few seconds in stunned silence, and then I follow, pushing all thoughts of boat house torture and the threats against our omega out of my head.

For now, I just want to have a normal meal with Scarlett without the possibility of bloodshed.

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