Page 7 of Silent Wolf
Stella was mated to Blaze, and Blaze was with Steel Protection, the security company on Main Street. They'd tracked down Nell when she'd been kidnapped, and they'd brought her home.
If they could find people, they could help people disappear too. Reese had more money stashed than last week, but she didn't think it was nearly enough to hire Steel Protection. Still, she had to do something. She'd go into their offices after her shift tomorrow and see what they charged.
She practiced what she was going to say while she brushed her teeth.I need help disappearing from my husband. I need my records hidden and my information removed from the internet.
The baby moved again while she lay in the dark, faint and low in her belly. "I'm going to fix this," she told it.
Chapter
Six
Axel hadsix trail cameras open on the bench behind his desk at the back of the office, flashing firmware for the Kincaid ranch job. Valeria didn't work the front desk on Saturdays, so it was just him downstairs. The front door opened, and the scent of lilac and clean cotton came through.
He knew the scent before he knew what was happening. His wolf lunged up under his skin so fast the small screwdriver skipped off the camera housing and across the bench. Reese was in the doorway. Her photograph made flesh, slightly older, a little fuller through the body. Hair pulled back, wearing her diner uniform.
Mate. Mate. Mate.
She stopped just inside the door and looked around the room at the dark workstations, the glass-walled conference room, the short hall to the break room. He could hear her heart beating too fast from across the floor. Her eyes found him last, and she gasped, taking a step back.
"Can I help you?" he asked, realizing she hadn't been expecting to find him here.
"You..."
He set the camera down and stood slowly, keeping his hands visible. He came halfway across the floor and stopped. "Night Owl?" he asked, creating the opening for her.
She didn't move. "Silent Wolf."
"I'm Axel Rivers."
"Reese... Walker." She said her first name and almost didn't offer the last. "I didn't come about mate.com."
"Okay." He felt the bond pulling at him, urging him to reach for her. He ignored it. "What did you come about?"
"I need my information scrubbed off the internet. So no one can find where I live." Her hands stayed at her sides. "Is that something you do?"
"You're in luck. That's my specialty, actually. We can start a free consultation about your specific needs if you'd like."
"Okay..."
"Go ahead and have a seat in the conference room. I'll get you some water."
She went into the conference room and sat in the chair facing the street. He went down the short hall to the break room, grabbed two bottles of water, and brought them back to the conference room. He set one in front of her and took a seat on the opposite side of the table.
He grabbed a pen and a legal pad from the stack at the center of the table. "Tell me what's going on."
"I left my abusive husband three months ago. He doesn't know where I am, and I need it to stay that way."
The wordsabusive husbandlanded hard in his chest. His wolf growled, and his heart ticked up a notch. He kept his face neutral and wrote that down.
"Has he attempted contact since you left?"
"Only through an old email account. I stopped checking it after the first week." Her thumb pressed the cap of the unopened bottle. "He doesn't have my new phone number."
"Is the new number attached to any account in your legal name? A carrier plan, shared billing, anything he could find?"
"No." Reese shifted the unopened bottle between her hands. "It's prepaid. I bought the phone with cash."
Axel made a note on the pad. "Are you using any bank account he knew about?"
