Bad Love: An Alpha's Regret (Leah and Aaron) novel Chapter 138

Chapter 138
Is that what he wants?
I smile. “I’ve loved you for a long time,” I tell him.
A month ago, I never would’ve admitted such a thing. But now, his pride. Mine. What does it matter?
Life is about love.
And love is everything.
He grins. “That’s good.”
He doesn’t give me back the words. I’m not sure he can. Aaron has been broken down
in ways that make my traumas seem tame.
That’s another part of life, I’m learning. Accepting people as they are.
And I accept him.
If this is all he can be. It’ll be enough for me.
I drag myself away on shaky legs.
I’m sore in certain places, but even that is kind of a turn-on, because it’s the things we did that make me overly sensitive. And it’s these residual feelings that will remind me
of him in the long hours to come until I see him again.
“I’ll pick you up for dinner tonight.”
My heart quickens at the thought of another night in his arms. Another ‘date.’ I nod.
“Okay.”
“Eight o’clock. Don’t be late.”
I slide back into my dress and grab my purse. I don’t bother with shoes.
e
I’ll do my walk of sha me and take the elevator down a few floors.
In the whole scheme of things, what does it matter?
Funny, how dying is giving me all new perspectives on how to live. I hang onto those
and use them to keep the sadness at bay.
Crying won’t change things.
Although deep down, I wish there was another way…
**
*
*
The hours crawl by.
manage a quick shower and change clothes. When I leave my hotel room, James is
waiting outside for me.
He offers a smile and then walks by my side to the elevator, out of the hotel. He pauses only to settle me in the backseat of the SUV.
When we reach Pack Roberts building, he walks me all the way up to the conference
room.
He took the whole door-to-door service very seriously.
“I have meetings with some of my packmates.”
“We’re your packmates,” he reminds me. “But okay. You can head up. I’ll hang out down here in the lobby.”
I get the impression that he’ll be my shadow for the foreseeable future.
“How did you get stuck with babysitting duty?” I ask.
He looks offended. “I volunteered, Leah. It’s an honor.”
Da mn it, it that didn’t make me almost weep.
“Hey, do me a favor, keep this on you at all times that I’m not around or when you’re not with Aaron.”
I take the package he extends to me. It’s not big. It looks like a giant pen. Only about an inch around. “What is this?”
“Kind of like an Epipen.”
I frown. “But I don’t have any allergies.”
“It’s not for you. And it doesn’t contain epinephrine.”
I hole
up the tube-shaped object. It’s red at one end.
“It’s wolfsbane, Leah. Not enough to k ill, but definitely enough to incapacitate. Someone comes at you, you slam that red side down-anywhere you can hit them.”
It’s injectable poison. I nod and slide it into my back pocket. “Okay.”
FO
I just pray I’ll never need it.
In the restricted computer lab, Liam is at a bank of monitors talking quietly with Dennis. “This round of beta testing shows promise,” he says to me. “We’ve run several thousand simulations and the model of learning with the statistical results of the tests is overwhelmingly positive.”
Dennis explains to me, “A statistical error of up to 5% is considered acceptable.”
If lives are at stake, I’m not sure any mistake is ‘acceptable.
“Human error is as high as 15%.”
Oh. I guess that is better then, comparatively.
“So what happens now?” I ask them.
“We run several more tests and begin scaling up the software. We will need to employ a separate organization to test the efficacy of our firewalls.”
Liam nods. “Our offense is only effective if it can’t be hacked.”
Yes. That was one of the elements that terrified me. This is Al. It can evolve and still be ‘command-able’ but what happened if that tech was taken over by an enemy?
“There is a self-destruct mechanism that will initiate if tampered with,” Dennis says.
But I’m sure there is a way around that too.
“We’re getting close, Leah,” my brother says. His eyes are bright and shining.
Though everything about this fills me with foreboding, I smile at my brother. “I’m so happy for you, Liam. And for you, Dennis. This is a big advancement for the team.”
Dennis bows slightly and moves off.
I incline my head for Liam to walk with me.
We move to a quiet corner of this secure floor. I lean against a desk. Liam takes a seat opposite me. “What’s on your mind?” he asks.
“The wolves from last night. Who are they?”
“Business associates.”
“They seem shady.”
He snorts. “Says the woman who’s with Aaron Rathborn.”
I don’t like the implication here. I’ve never known Aaron to associate with Old World wolves or anyone that seemed violent. Well, that’s not entirely true, but I don’t like the
way
those males looked at me last night, and I’m not du mb. It was because of them that we ate dinner with an entire security detail.
I venture a guess.
“How much money do you owe them?”
“It’s not like that,” Liam sputters.
“If it is, you can tell me.”
He jumps off the desk but he’s still not meeting my eyes.
“Seriously, Liam. We are in this together. If you need money, I can swing it. Aaron will-”
“Enough!” Liam’s eyes flash with his wolf. “Can you quit bringing him up for five minutes!? We don’t need him, Leah. We have to stop being beholden to him.”
I cross my arms.
“He has his hooks so deep in you, you don’t even see it. Do you?!”
“See what?”