Technical Threat (Westin Force #4) - Julie Trettel Page 0,39
room. She seemed quite popular with the locals and knew everyone. She was great at managing, waitressing, and even cooking which I knew because she’d taken it upon herself to make me a snack midday.
Nonna howled her approval. Sage agreed to keep my booth and watch my stuff as I took Nonna back after that. She talked on and on about Susan the entire way. If it were any other woman on the planet she was gushing over to me, I would have been tempted to dig out the duct tape from my bag, to shut her up, but it wasn’t just about anyone, it was my mate.
“You seem happy, Caleb,” she said as I pulled up to the hotel.
“Surprisingly, I think I am,” I conceded. There was really no point in hiding it.
I’d seen other couples fight their bond, and it hadn’t been pretty. I felt no need for that. I was excited to get to know my mate better. Mary Westin was the former Pack Mother of Westin Pack, she had a saying that God never makes mistakes when matching true mates. So far, I couldn’t disagree with her one bit.
I returned to Shay Vous with a huge smile on my face. Business had picked up again but true to her word, Sage had held my booth for me. I sat back down and thanked her. She left me to my work after that though and pitched in to give them an extra hand for the dinner crowd.
Susan stopped by my table to take my dinner order herself. She seemed a little shier as the day went by. I suspected she was nervous about going back to the hotel with me.
Nonna had asked me if I wanted her to get a king room and move my stuff into it, but I asked her to instead get a second double room. I didn’t want Susan to feel trapped or pressured in any way. It would hurt if she asked to stay with Nonna instead of me, but I would survive and do whatever she needed to feel comfortable tonight. Two rooms each with double beds meant she had options and a bed of her own if that’s what she needed.
By the time I was done eating dinner I had all the information I needed on Shay Dubois and was ready to make my move. All the lights were on across the front of the house, so I knew she was home. I could see from her personal finances why she was selling Shay Vous. She was in foreclosure on her house and her bank account was dry.
It dawned on me that she could have made the attack on Westin Force for the money. I didn’t particularly want things to get ugly, but if that was the case and she refused to give me her boss’s name, then I was prepared to do whatever it took. This was too important to the security of Westin Force.
I flagged Sage down and asked her to come over.
“I need you to do me another big favor little one. I have some business to handle. I shouldn’t be gone long.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’ll watch your stuff.”
“Thanks, but I also need you to type this number into your phone.” I pulled up Silas’s contact information and showed it to her. She didn’t ask why until after she had it stored.
“What’s the deal with Fred?”
It wasn’t safe to store real names in my phone, so everyone had a code name. Fred was for Silas Granger.
“Give me your number.”
“Shouldn’t you be asking for Susan’s instead?”
“I’m not asking her to do this, smartass.”
She rattled it off as I stored it into my phone.
“If you weren’t Sage, what would you most want to be called?”
She snorted. “Seriously? I don’t know? Something foreign and pretentious like Pippa,” she said in a horrible British accent, at least I thought that’s what she was going for.
“Fine, Pippa it is.” I saved it in my contacts. “Now, if you do not receive a call from me or I’m not back here within the hour, I need you to call that number and tell him something went wrong.”
“Call Fred?”
“His real name is Silas.”
“And what will he know you as?”
“Tarron. I didn’t lie about that.”
“Just checking, Caleb,” she said sarcastically.
“I don’t give out my real name to many people, Sage.”
“And you store your contacts with fake names. A little paranoid?”
I grinned. “You have no idea. Are we cool? You can do this?”