Page 133 of All Packed Up

Nic chuckled. “I’m glad. What is it?”

“I’ll just email you the voicemail. They called after hours.”

Nic frowned, and a pinch of unease slithered through his stomach.

“Is that all?” he asked, anxious to see who’d called.

“The window repair came by and fixed up the window in the women’s bathroom. I forwarded you a copy of the receipt. But other than that… I’ll let you know if anything comes up. So far so good,” Ashley promised.

A slight smile curled his lips. At least that was one problem taken care of.

Nic reminded her of some things to do around the gym, and eventually, his manager shooed him off the line. “Everything is fine, now enjoy your vacation! You’re not supposed to be working anyway.”

Nic had told them he’d planned an impromptu vacation. The first ever, and his workers had practically pushed him out the door. And now they were chastising him for working.

“It’s my vacation, I’ll do what I want,” Nic said.

Ashley chuckled over the phone, and through the line, Nic heard the bell ding from the front door. “Gotta customer, bye!”

She hung up before Nic could even echo the sentiment, but quickly turned his attention to the new emails awaiting him. It blinked ominously from his inbox, and he opened the file. On his shitty laptop speakers, a crackle of a deep voice greeted him. “Hello. This message is intended for Nic Holland, owner of All Jacked Up, the beta who lives in apartment C69.”

Nic straightened his spine as a shiver of unease slithered down his vertebrae.

“My name is Derek Sterling, and I am the head alpha of the pack who claimed Wendy Sterling. We request you return her to her original family, the ones who will take care of her. If you refuse to do so, we will have no choice but to involve the authorities. If you’d like to talk, please ring at…”

Nic listened to the voicemail once, twice. By the time he was done replaying it, he’d remembered the alpha’s very tone, his number. At first listen, the alpha seemed professional, polite, reasonable. But the more Nic listened, the harder edges he picked out. The alpha was putting on an act, trying to act anything but perturbed, anything but angry.

“Over my dead body,” he grumbled.

Those alphas could call whoever they wanted, when they wanted. He wasn’t playing into their hands.

Nic clicked out of the voicemail system, shoving that problem to the side with a not so gentle nudge. He felt his face flushing out of anger—yeah, he was pissed. They were going to threaten him? That was how they wanted to get Wendy back? Unwilling?

Fuck those alphas.

“What’s over your dead body?” Tate asked, leaning around the corner.

Nic frowned, turning toward the yard, finding it empty. Hadn’t he just seen the alpha down there?

Crossing his arms, he leaned back, swung his legs over the other side of the chair, and studied the alpha. “Why’s it any of your business?”

Tate leaned against the doorjamb, leveling him with an equally suspicious stare. “It’s not. I came to ask if you got the text from our landlord.”

Nic sighed, ran his hands over his face. “Yeah. Fuck. And there’s more,” he grumbled. “I got this voicemail last night.”

He played the recording for Tate, anticipating every word that came next, and wishing he had a face to pin the voice to. So he could imagine ruining it.

“Wow. Stalkers much?” Tate questioned. Worry carved trenches into his brows.

“I know.”

“What are you going to do?”

Nic chewed his lip, eyed the other alpha. “Well… I was going to ignore them.”

Crossing his arms, Tate leveled him with a stare, cocked his head questioningly. “Why’s that?”

“If they were serious about calling the authorities, they already would have, and they’d be busting down the door. The fact that they haven’t yet tells me those alphas know they’re in the wrong. They’re hoping to scare us into cooperating so they don’t have to involve the cops.”