Walk on the Striped Side (5 page)

Mr. Wroth stood to greet them,
holding out his hand to shake each of theirs. Average height, average weight on
a fit body for a close to fifty year old man, Mr. Wroth would have seemed like
your average elder if it weren’t for the intelligent gleam in his bright blue
eyes. Combine that with the perfectly cut brown hair, sharp angled face topped
with his natural confidence and you had a man any woman would sit up to notice.
She was betting high dollars on the idea that Aggie Demos had flirted
shamelessly with him.

Elena watched the secretary lean
into her boss’ personal space and bat her long eyelashes at him as she asked in
a badly imitated Marilyn Monroe breathy voice. “Is there anything else I can do
for you Mr. Wroth?”

Chloe leaned over and mock
whispered, “She’s
doin
’ him.” The lawyer gave Chloe a
look of abject horror as his secretary smirked at him.

Rolling her eyes to the ceiling,
Elena muttered dejectedly. “Again? Must we do this again?”

Looking back to Chloe, she
shrugged, “What? Just
sayin
’ it like I see it
sister.”

Frustrated, Elena threw her hands
up in the air. “How many times do we have to have this talk? Huh?! How many
times do I have to tell you that it is NOT okay for you to be walking around,
broadcasting people’s sex lives in public?”

Chloe used her hand to flip her
hair over her shoulder, as if bored. “I don’t know why you’re so worked up over
it Elena, really. If he’s going to give his secretary the business, he should
expect people to comment on it.”

Losing her temper, Elena pointed a
finger in her sister’s face. “No, he shouldn’t have to be subjected to your
crazy ass-“

A masculine throat cleared,
bringing their attention back to the lawyer. He was watching them with a
pleased smile on his face. What was that about? “If you ladies could please
hold off the finger pointing, name calling, and inevitably the hair pulling,
nipple twisting and slap fight sure to ensue, perhaps we could move on here?”

Huh. How did he know that in ten
minutes or so Chloe would be trying to pull her hair out by its roots while she
in turn tried to twist Chloe’s nipples clean off while Delta watched us in
amused resignation? That grin of his was still in place and Elena wondered for
a moment what he saw when he looked at the three of them.

Three half-sisters. Two of them
blessed with their mother’s Greek olive skin complexion, and Delta the odd ball
out with her much paler skin tone. All three sisters with almost identical
facial features, straight pert small noses, high cheekbones and lush lips. But
there was where similarities ended. Delta’s hair color was a rich auburn
complimented by her stunning moss green eyes.

Chloe stood out with her long curly
golden brown hair, natural subtle honey blond highlights, and a length that
reached to almost the middle of her back. Warm brown eyes that had been
compared numerous times to chocolate. The body of a 1950’s pin up model. Every
man’s sensual fantasy in the flesh. Almost the spitting image of their mother.

Sticking out like the sore thumb
that she was, Elena’s own hair was stick straight, reached to the midway point
between her shoulder blades and consisted of a deep shiny black color. Her eyes
were often described as blue green or turquoise. People didn’t notice Elena for
her non-existent busty chest, or the pin-up girl body she wished she had. No,
if she garnered any attention at all, it was because of her eyes. Not that she
was vain, because hell would freeze over before she ever acted like Chloe, but
even she admitted to herself every now and then that she had killer eyes.

Since Mom hadn’t believed in long
term monogamous relationships, all three sisters all had different fathers.
None of them knew who they were. The only things they did know about them would
be from the differences in their appearances from their mother and each other.
The variety of their looks often threw people for a loop when they saw all
three of them together. Enough features in common to make it obvious that they
were related, but also enough differences to keep folks guessing as to how they
were related.

Mr. Wroth sat back down behind his
desk to shuffle a few papers around before looking back to the women. “Ladies,
please have a seat.” The three black leather chairs were situated in front of
his cherry desk. Taking a quick glance around the room, Elena noticed that it
was decorated in calming tones of beige, blue with hints of silver accents in
small details like the shelving on the walls. Common sense told her that Wroth
had either let a woman decorate his office for him or hired a decorator. ‘Cause
she had yet to meet a man who knew how to match colors, let alone decorate a
room this comfortable. The scheme sent out a serene vibe that would more than
likely be the total opposite of the heightened sense of panic, grief or anger
that his clients probably felt.

Wroth’s
voice brought her attention back to him. “Your mother’s will was somewhat odd,
but very concise. It is to be read in two parts. We’re reading the first part
today.” Picking up a packet of papers off the desk in front of him he intoned
in the contents with a serious voice. Elena had a full attack of ADD two
minutes into his legally worded spiel and couldn’t take it anymore.

Interrupting him, she said “Mr.
Wroth, I know you’re supposed to do all this by the books, but could you please
take some pity of my short attention span and spit it out already?”

The poor man looked somewhere
between baffled and amused. “You want me to
spit it out
?”

“Yes! For the love of God get to
the damn point already. Before I die of old age.” Elena huffed.

The lawyer laid the papers back on
his desk and leaned back in his chair. And Elena was starting to wish she could
slap that damn grin he was still wearing right off his face. “Your mother’s
will basically states that she is leaving an inheritance of a substantial
amount to be split between the three of you. As well as the information on who
your biological father’s identities are in case any of you were so inclined to
look into those familial relations. However, you will not receive the money nor
the names until you spend a consecutive ninety days living and working with
your extended family.”

Confused looks were traded between
the three sisters. Leaning forward in her chair, Elena asked, “Extended
family?”

Appearing now uncomfortable, Wroth
cleared his throat again, “Yes. Extended family. Your mother has two sisters
who live here in Wilmington. They’re already here waiting to meet you. Hold on
one second please.” Mr. Wroth pressed a button on his phone.

“Clare, will you please escort
Indigo and Thea in.”

That annoying, fake breathy voice
answered, “Right away Mr. Wroth.”

A moment later as the soft click of
the door knob turned and Mr. Wroth stood as two gorgeous women in their late
forties strolled in. Elena had to stifle the gasp that threatened to escape.
The resemblance between the two women and her late mother Aggie were uncanny.

Waving his hand towards the first
woman Mr. Wroth spoke. “This is Indigo Demos, your mother’s younger sister by
two years.” While the small wrinkles around her eyes and mouth indicated that
she was at least slightly stressed, she gave a friendly - almost teasing - wave
towards Elena and her sisters.

Indigo had shining brown hair that
was contained in two braids that reached halfway down her back. That would have
been okay if there hadn’t been a multitude of flowers woven in and out of those
braids. She was dressed in loose, distressed dark blue jeans slung low on her
slender hips, and being held up by what looked like a white braided hemp belt.
Her aunt’s orange and white tie dye tank top was so bright it practically
blinded you, and she was wearing Birkenstocks on her feet.

Apparently Elena was related to a
frickin
’ hippie.

Elena felt the familiar muscles
under her eye start to twitch. She was only seconds away from complete loss of
any good manners because it was taking every ounce of will power she owned not
to start actively searching the woman for the peace sign tattoo Elena was sure
the woman had somewhere on her willowy body.

If her aunt started singing Crosby,
Stills, Nash and Young, Elena was
so
out of there.

Mr.
Wroth’s
voice broke into Elena’s inner musings about setting fire to that tie dye tank
top the moment the woman took it off.

“And this is your mother’s older
sister Thea. Thea and Indigo, these are Agatha’s daughters Chloe, Elena and
Delta.”

Elena turned her attention to the
other aunt. Thea Demos looked to be the polar opposite of her sister Indigo.
She stood facing them with her legs braced, her arms crossed over her chest and
a grey short sleeve t-shirt that reveled rather toned arms. If she decided to
punch someone, Elena knew it would hurt like hell. And she totally respected
that.

Delta leaned over and whispered by
her ear. “It could be you in twenty years Elena. It’s like an older mirror
image.”

Elena had to admit her sister was
right. They both sported healthy tomboyish figures, and the same general aura
of bad attitude. She’d been told many times in her Army career that the world
simply could not handle two of her. It looked like those individuals who made
that statement had been wrong. She’d also been told once that anyone harboring
a personality even remotely like her own would either love her or hate her. So,
either Elena and
her new Aunt Thea were going to get
along like gangbusters, or they were going to strangle each other in the very
near future. Of course, all inner debates about how she would get along with
her Aunt Thea ended when Elena caught the lawyer staring at her Aunt Thea’s
ass.

She felt Chloe lean into her side
again. “He’s
doin
’ her too.”

Could somebody just fuckin’ shoot
her now?

CHAPTER-FIVE

November 2013 – Wilmington, North Carolina

Elena

“Three sisters walk into a wolf
owned bar-“

“Again with the jokes Chloe?” Elena
shot a dirty look at Delta who was giggling at Chloe’s antics. “Okay, it’s time
for the rules.”

Chloe mocked. “Again with the
rules?”

“
Yessss
.”
Elena hissed back at her. “Because without rules my airheaded oldest sister
tells vampires bad jokes, which nearly gets the life sucked out of us! If Aunt
Thea hadn’t been there with her freakin’ piece of maple 2 x 4, you probably
wouldn’t be here now! And because of
that
, the vampire refuses to be an
informant for her anymore.” Elena turned her glare to Delta who was still
giggling. “And without rules Delta walks around to any
Other
she meets and asks them inappropriate questions all in the name of ‘research’.”

Delta stopped giggling to sputter a
defense. “I just wanted to know! It’s not like I can go check out a book at the
library to learn more about them!”

“God, it’s a miracle nobody’s
managed to kill you two yet.” Elena ran her hand through her hair in
frustration. “No jokes. No questions. This one is important for me and you know
that. Don’t fuck it up.”

“Are you ready to talk about it
Elena?” Delta spoke the question softly with compassion. Which just pissed her
off, because now she was going to have to tell her sisters about
him
.
Originally, she had no intention of ever telling either of them of her
humiliating experience with the very person they were about to confront. That
had been shot to hell though after their aunts had given them the info for this
case and asked them to start the investigation while being monitored. This was
the first step towards proving that they had what it took to start working on
their own for the family run private investigative business. Elena loved
working with her Aunts, so she refused to let either of her sisters fuck this
up for them.

Glancing at the door to the bar,
half of Elena was been downright gleeful at the idea of walking in there and
making Gage Ivanov's life a living hell in any way she possibly could. If that
meant harassing him about his sister, so be it. The other half of Elena wanted
to run as far away as fast as possible from the man who had absolutely shattered
her into a million pieces. Almost two years later and she was still trying to
metaphorically super glue herself back together.

Aunt Thea finally got out of the
SUV and joined their huddle behind the vehicle. Taking a deep breath, she tried
to get her shit together. It was time to get this over with. Running a hand
through her hair, she forced herself to calm down so she wouldn’t snap at
Delta. It wasn’t her fault that Elena had to go confront the douchebag from her
past. “I’m good. Don’t worry about me. All I’m asking for is that you two not
start shit while we’re in here. I want to go in, do what we got to do, and then
get the fuck out of here. Okay?”

Chloe was unusually silent as she
nodded her head and started walking after Aunt Thea towards the bar. Elena and
Delta followed close behind them, through the front door and up to the long
stretch of bar along the right wall. The four of them settled on bar stools and
Chloe crooked her finger at the bartender who was watching them with interest.

Leaving Chloe to ask after Ivanov,
she made a quick visual scan of their surroundings. There was a couple of guys
towards the back playing pool. No way to tell if they were demon, vampire or
shifter unless they did something supernaturally freaky. On the opposite side
of the bar several men and women had pushed a bunch of the smaller tables
together so that they could all sit at one long table together. Elena was
guessing from watching them talk and lounge all over each other that they were
probably shifters. It was something about the way they interacted with each
other that gave them an impression of being a solidified group. Since she was
sitting in a wolf shifter owned bar, Elena was guessing that they were probably
part of a pack of wolves.

She heard Chloe murmuring to the
bartender beside her, and a following sound of beer bottles thudding on the bar
top, but Elena kept her eyes on the rest of the bar. She didn’t like the idea
of anything sneaking up on her. And that’s where her attention would have
stayed to if it hadn’t been for the sudden sound of a door slamming against the
wall. She turned herself back around to face the bar when she saw
him
storming towards her.

Her breath caught in her throat as
she took him in. His face was twisted in a mask of rage and he was so pissed
off that he was literally stomping in her direction. After almost two years
she’d hoped something horrible had happened to him. Something that would have
disfigured him hideously so that he still didn’t have the ability to make her
heartbeat skip. Luck wasn’t on her side since he was still as drop dead
gorgeous as he had been the last time she had seen him. Damn but it seemed as
if fate must really fucking hate her. She pushed her pain down and flipped that
internal switch that turned her into an unfeeling bitch. Being numb on the
inside was better than trying to sort through the barrage of emotions that were
trying to overwhelm her.

Elena picked up her beer bottle and
takes a few fortifying gulps. As Gage stopped in front of her she felt her
sisters
tense up on either side of her. Ever at the ready to
jump in and fight her battles if they felt it was necessary.

He snarls at her. “What the fuck
are you doing here, Sergeant Demos?”

Elena set her bottled beer back on
the bar and decided not to let his anger at her appearance bother her. Pasting
a smile on her face that she didn’t really feel, Elena leaned forward and
rested her elbows on the bar. “I take it that you haven’t heard, Master
Sergeant Ivanov. I’m out. As for the reason as to why I’m here in this bar,
though, well that’s easy, I was looking for you.”

A man saunters up to the end of the
bar, and Elena immediately knows who he is. Alec, Gage’s brother. The man who
was on the other end of that phone listening to Gage tell him how Elena was just
a piece of ass. How she would never be good enough for something more permanent
with him. Alec looks just like the man who was once the love of her life,
except he’s the light to Gage’s darkness. His hair is white and in a
mohawk
, his eyes are a weird arctic
blue, his arms are covered in tattoos and there’s a smug panty dropping smile
plastered to his face. While Gage is glowering at her, his brother Alec is
eye-fucking Chloe. If she weren’t so concentrated on not showing the asshole in
front of her how much he broke her heart, she’d laugh at the differences
between the brothers.

Gage loudly snaps, “Why would you
be looking for me, you little harpy?”

Elena refuses to let his animosity
affect her. She widens her grin widens because she knows it’ll bother him. “I’m
here to ask you about your sister, Ivanov. Seen Lulu lately?”

Gage leans across the bar to get in
her face. “Why are you looking for Lulu?”

Reaching into her back pocket,
Elena pulls out her new business card and pushes it across the top of the bar
so that it’s right in front of Gage. “I got drafted into the family business
recently, so I’m just here doing my job.”

Gage shoots her a disgruntled look,
and then drops his gaze to the card. Wiping his face to display the best blank
look Elena’s ever seen on him, she watches as he brings his attention from the
card back to her and says, “That’s not possible. You can’t work for AI. That
would mean you’re-“

Oh this is the good part. This is
where she gets to rub it in his face that she’s so much more than that hot
piece of ass he’d labeled her as in that phone call to his brother years
before. And by that bead of sweat that just rolled down the side of his neck,
Elena knows that Gage is already well on his way to putting together the truth.
“That’s right, Ivanov. Amazon International would mean that I come from a line
of Amazons, wouldn’t it?” she asks in a sickly patronizing voice as if she’s
talking to an exceptionally small child.

Elena sees Gage’s fingertips turn
white as he grips the bar top. The only other outward side besides that small
drop of sweat that lets her know he isn’t as unaffected as he’s pretending to
be. So she goes in for the kill because she’s more than ready to make her
point, rattle him up, and then get the hell out of here. “And I’m here with my
sisters to investigate your sister, Lulu, for the charge of murder.”

When Gage lets a fierce snarl out,
she considers it a total win that she didn’t pee her pants in fear.

Gage

Was this a fucking joke? At the
moment he’d give his left nut for someone to jump out from some hidden spot and
yell at him that he’d been
punked
. So of course, it
was just his luck that it didn’t happen. No, reality was sinking in fast.

The only woman he’d ever almost
given in to the urge to take as a mate was sitting in front of him, pretending
to be calm and collected as she informed him that she was descended from a long
line of Amazons. This species of human was genetically superior to those around
them. As a result, while they still lived an average human life span,
everything else in them was wired for survival. They were literally born and
bred with unique traits that made them the ultimate fighters. Every single one
of them had been endowed with either a unique understanding for strategizing,
an uncanny ability with fighting and the use of weapons, or extreme
intelligence. It was Mother Nature’s way of taking the next step in human
evolution.

Elena fell nicely in that middle
category. Why in the hell hadn’t he seen it before? Granted, most women were
already better shooters than your standard human male, but Elena’s skills with
weapons had always been exemplary. Gage had gone and observed her at the range
as often as he could because it was his proverbial catnip. Watching Elena as
she went through the expert level drills, easily taking out targets with that
big ass .45 of hers, was cause for an instant hard on. He’d fuck her for hours
after that. How had he been so blind as to miss all of those signs?

Now, his mate sat in front of him
with a look on her face that said ‘
I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on
fire
’, and karma was slapping him in the face quite nicely with just how
badly he’d fucked up. What the ornery woman didn’t know was that she had just
sealed her own fate with him, and if she thought she was walking out of this
without repercussions then she was sorely mistaken. She’d actually had the
nerve to come in here, shove it in his face that she wasn’t just some fragile
human, and then even continued by threatening his sister. Oh, hell yeah, she
had it coming, and he was going to give it to her good.

Fuck, yeah. He was going to finally
do what he should have done that first night he’d met her; he was going to bend
her ass over his lap and spank it. Once he had that sweet little backside of
hers all warm and red from his hand, he was going to pick her up and bend her
over the end of his bed. When he had her positioned just like he wanted her, he
was going to shove himself into that tight, wet heat she had between her legs
and fuck her so hard she’d swear she felt him in her throat. Before he was
done, she’d be screaming so hard and so long she’d blow that voice of hers out
so she wouldn’t be able to argue with him for a few days about anything. Then,
just when he felt like he couldn’t take it anymore because he was going to
explode inside of her, Gage was going to sink his teeth into the back of her
neck and
mark her
. That crazy ass bitch was his mate and he’d be damned
if he walked away from her again.

She started tapping her nails on
the top of the bar and it brought Gage out of his plans for her. Elena had this
smug smile on her face like she thought she’d already won the war between them.
Wrong. He had fought in more
wars
than that pretty
little head of hers could imagine. She didn’t have a chance in hell to win
against him. It was time to wipe that look right off her face.

“So you’re here for Lulu?”

That finger of hers kept going.
Confident. Strong with its steady beat.
Tap
. “Yes. Do you know where
your sister is Master Sergeant Ivanov?”
Tap
.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I’m
going to give you that information Demos.”

Tap
. “Why not? Afraid your
sister is guilty? Trying to help her hide?”
Tap
.

Leaning forward into her space he
crooned back. “Let’s get something straight here baby, we both know you’re not
any kind of actual law enforcement. It’s not like you can arrest her.”
Tap
.
“So stop trying to act all big and bad like you’ve got some kind of actual
power here. No one is scared of you.”

Her rhythm faltered for a second
before continuing.
Tap
. “I don’t need to be any kind of law enforcement
to bring your sister to justice if she’s guilty. All I have to do is turn her,
and any evidence I find of her guilt, over to my client. He’ll give her all the
punishment she needs.”
Tap
. “And don’t call me baby.”

“Oh yeah? And just who is this
client my sister should be so concerned about?
Baby
.” Her eyes narrow,
but those fingers of hers don’t falter again.
Tap
.

“Our client is one of the Ninth
Circle Council members. He also happens to be the brother of the murder victim.
Concerned now Purr Boy?”
Tap
.

Gage knew his mate inside and out.
So when a big grin suddenly spread across her face, he knew it was because
Elena had seen the muscle in his jaw tick. He knew
Others
that weren’t nearly as observant as the woman before him.
Tap
. “What’s
wrong Ivanov?
Cat got your tongue
?”