The omegas shoved Moe, Joseph, and Chris down on the leather couch against one wall while Liam took Jayna’s arm and sat her in the lone arm chair positioned in front of the desk, so she was uncomfortably close to the gun there but still far enough away that she’d never be able to lunge for it before Frasheri could grab it.
Jayna gripped the arms of the chair, her nails extending just enough to dig into the polished wood. Just stay calm and keep them talking, she told herself. According to Eric, the SWAT compound was fifteen minutes away by car. That meant she had to figure out a way to stall for at least thirty. Her life and the lives of her pack mates depended on it.
“Liam tells me that Eric’s a cop,” Frasheri said. “Is that true, Jayna?”
Okay, she hadn’t expected that. She’d expected the Albanian mobster to order his men to kill her and her pack immediately, then get as far away from Dallas as he could.
So why wasn’t he?
Because he didn’t want to believe Liam—not only because Liam was Kostandin’s right-hand man, but because Frasheri had already invested so much of his trust in Eric. And Eric knew where Frasheri was hiding his stash of money and weapons.
But if she tried to deny it, Liam would only prove her wrong. So she wouldn’t deny it. Instead, she’d use it to her advantage.
Jayna lifted her chin and met Frasheri’s eyes. “Yes, Eric is a cop. He’s one of the SWAT werewolves.”
Frasheri swore, the vein at his temple pulsing, his hands curling into fists. From the corner of her eye, Jayna saw Joseph and the other guys looking at her in shock.
“He was a cop right up to the moment he decided to save my life that night in the warehouse,” she added quickly. “When his alpha found out, he fired Eric from the team and kicked him out of his pack. That’s why he came here.”
Liam snorted. “Oh, please. You don’t really expect us to believe that, do you?”
Frasheri held up his hand, cutting Liam off. “What do you mean, he saved your life?”
Jayna shrugged, trying hard to project that total sense of calm confidence Eric seemed to wear like a jacket. “I thought I was about to die, or get arrested if I was lucky. But then Eric came around a corner and instead of shooting me or arresting me, he hid me in a packing crate.”
“Bullshit,” Brandon muttered.
Jayna had an insane desire to stick her tongue out at the omega but settled for glaring at him. “How do you think I got that expensive perfume all over me? He smashed the bottles on top of the crate to cover my scent from his pack mates.”
Frasheri stared at her for a long time. “Why would a cop do that?”
Liam came around from behind her so he could look her in the eye when she answered the question, no doubt so he could determine if she was lying. She knew he wasn’t that good at detecting lies, but in this case, she didn’t have to take the risk—not when it was easy to tell the truth.
“Because he’s not just a cop—he’s a werewolf. And werewolves will do anything when they meet The One for them.”
Frasheri let out a short laugh. “You’re kidding, right? You’re telling me that Eric took one look at you and decided to chuck his whole career because you’re hot?”
“It has nothing to do with looks,” she said. “It’s deeper than that. You’ve heard about wolves in the wild mating for life, right? Well, it’s like that for werewolves too. Some of our kind say that there’s only one mate out there for us. When we meet The One, we know it right away, and nothing can come between us.”
“That’s crap,” Liam snapped. “I’ve never heard anything like that.”
“I have,” Caleb said slowly as if unsure whether he wanted to get involved in the conversation. “I never thought it was true, but I’ve heard a lot of older werewolves I’ve met talk about it. It’s kind of like an urban legend.”
Frasheri’s gaze traveled from Caleb to linger on Liam before coming to rest on her. “So you’re saying this is some kind of werewolf love at first sight? So strong that Eric immediately turned against his own pack to be with you?”
She nodded.
Liam snorted. “Jayna, you are so frigging naive. I guess it never occurred to you that Eric might just be playing you to get inside the pack so he could arrest us?”
Jayna narrowed her eyes at Liam. “Right. It was all an elaborate ploy to get inside so he could arrest us. Did you forget that Eric went out and killed one of the members of his own pack last night? Then again, maybe you did forget since you should have been the one there putting a bullet in that SWAT werewolf’s head instead of letting Eric do it.”
Liam jerked as if she’d slapped him. “What the hell are you trying to say?”
There had been a time when Jayna would have refrained from saying anything hurtful to Liam, but that time had long passed. Right then, she barely felt the normal alpha-beta connection that had always been there. It was like it had never existed at all.