Page 48 of Knotted their Beauty

Why won’t you answer?

I go back to my call log as I start the engine and speed out of the parking lot, calling Lennox over and over before I pull up my tracking app.

Because yes, I managed to plant a digital one on him the last time we did actually speak on the phone. I pinged his location, pulled the signal, and after a few fancy moves my little brother taught me, I was able to track that alpha as well as he’s been tracking me.

Having his location still doesn’t mean anything is wrong, and as soon as I have the address of his current one, I’m getting on the nearest on ramp and racing toward him.

Thank god it’s only an hour and a half from here to Malibu.

Not that it matters much.

I’m going so goddamn fast I’ll make it in forty-five minutes.

Which is exactly what I do.

It might be a record, making it between cities as fast as I did, but now I have another predicament.

Apparently Lennox is a little more on the bougie side than I thought.

He’s staying at the Malibu Beach Inn.

Talk about luxury.

Everyone is entitled to it now and then, and if you have the means, go for it. I’d love to stay somewhere like this, beach front and all, for a long weekend or some shit, but I wasn’t expecting this from Lennox.

I bet he had to sweet talk them into letting him bring his dog. There’s no way that alpha was going to stay anywhere without him.

He’s hot, and very charming, he basically oozes charisma, so I doubt he had any trouble, but I can’t see them letting someone bring their pooch into such a classy place. Even one as well behaved and adorable as Rufus.

While I don’t know what floor he’s staying on, which room is his, or how to go about getting that info on the fly without something as simple as a last name, there is a bigger problem at hand.

This place caters to a very specific aesthetic, and I look every bit the felon I am.

Really, I look like a poor kid from the other side of the tracks, one who got into a lot of trouble while he listened to classic rock and heavy metal, spent time in and out of jail for assault, then grew up to play pro hockey. Then got forced into early retirement for allegedly murdering someone on the ice and the huge PR nightmare that caused.

So, yeah, I guess I look like a felon, and that’s not really the vibe this place is going for.

Strolling in and asking, or demanding, for information on a charismatic alpha with a cute dog isn’t going to fly, and it’s getting kind of late, so they’d be more inclined to call the cops if I tried.

Not that my alternative and only option doesn’t have the potential to end with the same outcome, but I can’t shake this feeling that something is very wrong with Lennox.

Risking more jailtime, it is.

After parking a few blocks away from the Malibu Beach Inn, I pull my hood up over my head and start walking toward the resort.

I am the fucking poster child for criminals everywhere right now.

The sun is setting but it’s still at least eighty degrees, and my dumbass is dressed like I’m about to commit a bank robbery. All I’m missing is the ski mask.

Talk about a walking red flag.

It’s fine.

No one is going to fuck with me becuase of the way I look, and there’s no doubt in my mind, my vibe is volatile enough that I could be dressed like Mr. Rogers and everyone would still leave me alone.

Doesn’t mean they might not make a call from a distance.

I don’t give a shit, though.