My Fated Alpha's Cruel Game (Elena and Marcus) novel Chapter 14

Chapter 14: Chapter 14 Vanished Without Trace

Elena’s POV

My mother’s eyes stayed on the elegant box resting on the little kitchen table for a moment too long.

She didn’t press. She never pressed. She just crossed to the coffee pot, poured a careful cup, and sat down across from me at the little table under the window.

“That’s an expensive dress inside that elegant packaging,” she noted quietly.

“I know,” I said, meeting her gaze. “I have to return it to its owner today.”

“Today.”

She wrapped both hands around the mug. Her knuckles were thin. I could see the veins on the backs of her hands, blue under skin that had gone too pale lately.

“Don’t run yourself into the ground, love.”

I looked up.

She was watching me over the rim of her cup. Her eyes were the same color as mine, only tireder. Her smile was small and crooked and very, very gentle.

“I mean it,” she said. “Whatever you’re fixing. Whatever you’re paying for. Don’t do it all at once.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

She set the mug down. She reached across the table and she squeezed my good wrist, briefly, the way she used to do when I was small and needed walking into a room I did not want to enter. Then she got up. She pulled her coat off the hook. She kissed the top of my head as she passed.

The door shut behind her.

I sat for a moment in the quiet.

Then I closed the book. I grabbed my bag. I went.

The walk into town was long.

The road curved out past the last of the pack houses and then dropped down into the flat stretch that led to the highway. I kept my hands in my pockets. I kept my head down against the wind.

The industrial end of town was the part nobody showed visitors. Long low buildings. Chain link. A wide gravel lot with rows of trucks lined up like sleeping animals, their cabs dark, their trailers hitched.

The distribution facility sat at the center of it all. A squat building the color of wet concrete, with a row of loading bays open along one side and men in reflective vests moving pallets back and forth. A sign on the door said HIRING.

I went in.

The office was warm and smelled like old coffee and machine grease. A man behind a cluttered desk looked up over a pair of reading glasses when the bell over the door rang.

“Help you?”

“I saw the sign.”

He took the glasses off. He looked me up and down, not unkindly. He had a round face and a salt-and-pepper beard and a pen tucked behind his ear.

“You’re Fairfax’s girl.”

“Yes.”

“You’re in school.”

“Not anymore.”

He raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“I tested out,” I explained. “They moved my credits up. I officially graduated.”

“Done done.”

“Done done.”

He whistled, a low appreciative sound, and leaned back in his chair.

“Well,” he said, looking genuinely impressed. “Good for you.”

“I need work.”

“I need workers.” He rubbed his jaw practically. “Some of my regulars walked out recently. I’ve got customers complaining constantly about delayed deliveries. You ever done warehouse?”

“No.”

“Lift.”

“Yes.”

“On your feet all day.”

“Yes.”

“Cold.”

“I’ve been cold.”

That got me half a smile. He pulled a form out of a drawer and slid it across the desk, along with the pen from behind his ear.

“Fill this out. Start first thing in the morning. Wear boots if you’ve got ’em. If you don’t, I’ve got a spare pair in the back that’ll be too big but they’ll do until you can buy your own.”

I sat down. I filled in the boxes. My hand was steady. My heart was not.

When I slid the form back across, he glanced at it, nodded once, and dropped it in a tray.

“Tomorrow morning, Fairfax.”

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