So Lucan kept going. And as they went along, in the back of his mind, he was missing her already.
It seemed ridiculous to be mourning Rio’s loss while she was right next to him. For fuck’s sake, he could reach right out and touch her—not that he would. He’d terrified her enough.
He was such a prize.
“Here! Stop!”
He hit the brakes and looked across the car’s beat-to-shit interior. “That’s it. That’s the house.”
The mansion was set far back on a rolling lawn, behind a set of sturdy gates and a stone wall that was federal-penitentiary-worthy. The columns were indeed six, right across the front, tall as evergreens and more than capable of holding up the pediment and slate roof above them.
It was exactly as the memories of that dealer out on the street had detailed.
“Service entrance,” Lucan said. “Let’s go around back. That’s how the guy would get on the property when he came to visit.”
It took them some time to find an alley cut-through in the street, and then he trolled by the back of several estates, staring into the trees and wondering how many hidden cameras were tracking this old junker as it violated the pristine neighborhood’s roadway.
“Is this it?” Rio asked as she leaned into the windshield. “This entrance here.”
“Yeah.”
Lucan pulled into a service port on the far side of the rear gate. There was a carriage house locked in by the stone wall, and through the iron bars of the fence, he could see a pool area, and then the back of the mansion.
“How do we get in?” she murmured.
“It’s not going to be a problem.”
“But how are—” She stopped herself, as if she were remembering the way the drug dealer downtown had been handled. “Okay, let’s do this.”
After he turned off the engine, they got out and met at the front grille—and he pressed the keys into her palm.
“You take these. If anything goes wrong, I want you to get in and drive away. Don’t worry about me.”
Her eyes bored into his own, and he had a feeling she had questions, so many questions. But now was not the time. Never was the time.
“All right,” she said after a moment. “I will.”
Lucan made a move like he was going to kiss her—and stopped himself in time. Stepping back, he nodded.
And dematerialized away. Right in front of her.
When he re-formed on the far side of the locked gates, she was covering her mouth with both hands. He hated the fact that he’d freaked her out again, but they needed to get inside and it was the work of a moment for him to—
Two German shepherds came barreling around the side of the pool house, the dogs trained to not bark when attacking. Their scents gave them away because he was downwind, however, and then there were their pounding paws over the short grass.
Lucan wheeled on them and crouched down. The growl that came out of his throat was not from him. It was his other side talking.
And that pair of perfectly trained killers pulled up like they were about to go off the edge of a cliff.
Moving forward, he backed them away, his snarl submitting them, his eye contact promising them what would happen if they misbehaved: He would school them like they were pups. Instead of eighty-to-ninety-pound fully grown males.
After he’d driven the dogs behind the pool house, he turned around and jogged to the gate—and that was when a guard came out of the side door of the cottage. The guy was pissed off and out of uniform. Or maybe he was just a paid caretaker.
The man noticed the Monte Carlo and Rio right away.
Meanwhile, Lucan stalked up behind the human male. And just as the man said, “Can I help you—”
Subduing him was the work of a moment. Lucan just threw an arm around that throat and hauled the torso back against his own.
Which was when he discovered that the “caretaker” was, in fact, armed.
Lucan caught the gun that came up, took control of the weapon, and calmly put the muzzle to the man’s temple. “You’re going to let her in now.”
There was a little too much going on in his own brain for him to get into the guard’s noggin and grab access codes or some such. So the Smith & Wesson worked just fine. Or should have.
When there was some argument, Lucan bared his fangs—
“No!” Rio said. “Don’t kill him! Everyone on-site is taken alive. They could all be in on the enterprise. Everybody lives.”
Bummer. And inconvenient.
But like all bonded males, he did what his female said—and put his sharp-and-shinies back in his upper jaw.