Chapter 136

Sarah POV

“Ah, but my fame wasn’t instant,” Melissa said. “As the alpha daughter of one of the leading pack families, I always knew I’d be living in a fishbowl.”

“Got any secrets to—oh my! Did the robot hit the cart?”

“I don’t think so. The camera angle isn’t great.”

“We can complain to management,” I said.

We watched in silence for another moment as the robot came to rest. An arm extended from it with what looked like a camera on the end. It rose up and then down on the sides of the cart.

“Can they move the bomb with the robot?” Melissa asked, and it was just chatter. We were both just guessing at things.

“I think the camera is trying to show if they can manage it,” I said.

“My best secret about living a famous life is to determine what needs to stay private if you can, but never have something that can destroy you if it comes to light. If you keep a diary, don’t put anything in it you couldn’t stand having the world read, and if someone takes a photo of you naked, make sure you’ll look good in it.”

I laughed, barely managing to keep the hysteria out of it. The bomb squad out in the hallway was gathered around a laptop and obviously conferring.

“I think they’re going to have to go in there and move it,” Melissa said.

“I think you’re right. Goddess, this is awful. If one of them gets hurt, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“Neither of us is responsible for that bomb. Only the people who put it there are to blame.”

The leader of the squad said something to the others then made their bodies go very still, then they seemed to regroup. The leader turned toward the door to the conference room and walked inside.

I all but hear our necks snap as Melissa and I both looked to the monitor showing the bomb and the robot with a round metal container inside a square frame resting on its trailer. The squad leader walked cautiously toward the bomb, examined the cart, and then took some sort of reading with a device in their hand.

“So how about you?”

I wanted to tell her to be quiet and I wanted her to talk like a radio announcer at the same time. Talking was terrible. The silence was terrible. It was all just terrible.

“Secrets?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. I’ve been lucky in having Chloe to worry about, and now Grace too. If it were just all about me, I don’t know what I’d do.”

“That makes sense to me,” she said. “I have family, but nothing like a child or, obviously, a mate.”

We watched as the figure on the screen touched the bomb, putting their hands carefully on either side to lift it up. Slowly, they turned, being careful not to knock the bomb against the cart.

I reminded myself to breathe and felt like throwing up.

“Hey, Sarah.”

I looked over at the quiet voice. Melissa was smiling at me nervously.

“When this is over, what do you say we get drinks and talk about it until we pass out?”

“It’s a date,” I said, and we ended up shaking on it.

The person had gotten the bomb clear of the cart and was now walking it toward the container. As he neared it, the portal swung open, and I assumed the squad out in the hallway was controlling it. One step, then another, then another, and now the person was putting the bomb inside.

Slowly, they lowered it, then took their arms out of the container, which gently swung shut.

Almost instantly, the container shook, rattling around like something were trying to get out. And then it went still again. And While I thought whatever it was must be from the center of Hell, I say the person in the bomb suit barely moved.

“Oh, my goddess,” I breathed. “That was a bomb.”

“Dead man’s trigger. Closing the door must have cut the radio signal.”

I looked at her. “You some sort of bomb expert?”

“I watch a lot of TV police procedurals in hotel rooms,” she said.

Then we both burst out laughing. After a few seconds, I got up and found the door to the promised restroom. I was as quick as I could be, and Melissa went in right after I came out.

Alone, I looked around the room and wandered over by the cart. They would still need to clear the hotel. We would be hours in her yet.

“Yes, goddess, please,” she said as she came out. “Is there vodka?”

“Werewolf strength,” I said, recognizing the label. I was going to pour some in a glass when I realized the little black door at knee height was a little fridge complete with a freezer compartment and ice.

“Three cubes,” Melissa said next, and her body made a whooshing noise as she collapsed back into her chair.

I got ice for two glasses, poured some straight for her and some with bottled water for me, handed her her glass, and whooshed into my own chair.

I raised my glass to her. “I never, ever want to do this again.”

“Your mouth to the goddess’s ear.”

We drank, and the phone rang. We both just sort of looked at it for a moment.

“I’ll get it this time,” she said, got up, and went to it. “Hello? Alpha Zane? Yes, we’re fine.”

She listened for a minute.

“Of course. I will be telling everyone how very well this was handled and how safe I was made to feel.” She paused, listening. “Actually, Sarah and I were both impressed by not just the emergency personnel but also the hotel staff.

“We got to watch as they looked after the guests, made sure everyone was out, cleared the doorways. They even helped a human boy in his wheelchair get out of his room, which I assume means they had to help him on with his robe and slippers. It was all very professional.”

She turned to me with a smile. “Yes, I’ll tell her. Yes, we’ll just wait here.”

I could tell she was about to hang up and wanted to protest that I needed to speak to him. In fact, I was desperate to hear his voice. But he was right; this looked better.

I just nodded back with a smile.

She put the phone down. “He says it will be several hours before they’ll want to let us out.” She walked back to our chairs, reached down to the coffee table, and then shot back her vodka, somehow not choking on the ice.

“I’m starving,” she said next. “That grilled chicken was hardly enough to feed a supermodel.”

I laughed again. “The salad was the pathetic part. Did you notice everyone got exactly four cherry tomatoes?”

She laughed and poured herself another drink, but I noticed she checked out the level of my glass first. I was sipping slowly.

“They probably counted the lettuce leaves too.” She looked thoughtful as she returned to her chair and sat.

“I have a friend in PR, doesn’t work for me. He told me once his best advice for getting people to attend a meeting was to have them in the morning and serve a lot of bacon.”

I giggled.

“Seriously,” she asked me, her blue eyes gentle but highly curious. “How did you know it was a bomb?”

“I saw the wires.”

“Yes, and I saw the little performance you put on to get over to the cart. How did you know to look?”

“I don’t care how much wolves like to talk about equality, no alpha I’ve ever met would pretend to be a gamma just to get a job. And there were two of them. And she put the cart just so, you know? And there you were, sitting there for everyone to see.”

I frowned at my own words.

“What?”

“Zane thinks I was the target, maybe by the same group that had a guy shoot at me a few weeks ago.”

“Someone shot at you?”

“But the cart was much closer to you than me.” I looked at her with my own questioning eyes. “Do you know why anyone would be willing to bring down a hotel to kill you?”

She scowled and downed half of her second drink.

“Maybe.”