The Institute

Lucas knitted his brows and looked Imani up and down. "I'm sorry, I don't understand."

"Well, it... disappeared?" It came out as a question because she didn't know how to phrase it without sounding like a crazy liar. She let out a sigh when he raised an eyebrow skeptically and took a moment to gather her thoughts before she spoke again. "It, uh... Your e-mails never appeared in my inbox. I didn't see them till Saturday and that was only because my brother retrieved them."

Lucas wore a puzzled expression as he stared at her, trying to understand what she was saying, and her shoulders sagged.

"Okay, let's try this," she said as she got up from the seat with her phone in her hand. She bent forward slightly to avoid hitting her head on the ceiling of the car, as she made her way around the table to the seat next to Lucas.

Her scent was strong since they were in a car with the windows winded up and he had tried to distract himself from it. But she sitting next to him right now made him even more heady than he was before and he cleared his throat repeatedly.

"You've been e-mailing my work account," she stated, glancing at him as she unlocked her phone and opened her e-mail inbox. "Could you e-mail it now?"

"...Okay," Lucas said as he picked up his phone from the table and quickly composed an e-mail before he sent it to her.

She held her phone in between them and they both leaned close to look at it as she reloaded the page, waiting the e-mail to be received. And waited. And waited.

"What the heck?" he muttered under his breath when she reloaded the page again after a couple of minutes and the e-mail still didn't show up.

She had contacted him with a different e-mail on Saturday and he was sure she received his response instantly because they talked for a couple of minutes before she set up a meeting. Then he realized that there was only one thing that could be responsible for her not receiving his e-mails on her work account.

The Barnes Institute of Medical Research.

Lucas knew that the employees of the Barnes institute had their work e-mails created and managed by the institute to stop unimportant e-mails, which weren't automatically marked as spam, from getting to their inbox.

He suddenly felt angry because his e-mails hadn't been unimportant before it dawned on him that it was most likely because someone didn't want Imani to receive his e-mails and an order was given to make sure of that.

The only person that could give that order was Parisa.

"On Friday, I briefly saw an e-mail from Vinay but it disappeared after a couple of seconds so I asked my brother helped me to retrieve my e-mails... most of which were from you, Vinay and someone named Ella. That's why I used my personal e-mail to contact you on Saturday night," she told him as she stared at his sharp jawline which was covered in the perfect five o'clock shadow.

"Parking... Arrived at destination, Bostel, Wolfborn. Caution. Werewolf territory," a voice filled the car and it slowly came to a stop in front of a building.

Lucas looked up from the phone and at her, realizing her face was really close to his, as his tongue darted out and wet his lips. Imani's eyes darted to his mouth and back to his smoldering deep blue eyes before she swallowed, pressing her lips together.

Suddenly, the door next to her was yanked open and she jolted in her seat while the phone in her hand dropped to the ground. She let out a yelp when she turned her head to see a man standing next to her and peering into the car.

Lucas' expression hardened when he saw that Kyle Stevens was the person that opened the door. "What the fuck?!"

A couple of minutes before they left the underground parking lot in Harrison Corp., Lucas had received a message from Kyle that said 'We're at Wolfborn now and we don't see you'. He hadn't given it much thought because Imani asked if they could come to the lab the next moment so he had really not been expecting to see the man here.

"I'm sorry. Am I interrupting something... Alpha?" Kyle plastered a smile on his face when he saw Imani and a muscle in Lucas' jaw twitched. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Tallerico."

"Close the fucking door."

Kyle gritted his teeth in anger but made no move to close the door and Imani's heart began to hammer in her chest because of the undeniable tension in the air. She wanted to be suddenly small and crawl away from the middle of the two men glaring at each other as she lowered her head, covering her face with her hair.

Lucas heard Imani's heart racing and even though he couldn't see her face, he could tell she was nervous. He absolutely didn't like the fact that Kyle made her nervous and his eyes briefly turned wolf, making Kyle realize that he wasn't to be fucked with right now.

The man slammed the door close and Imani jolted in her seat again before Lucas placed his hand on one of hers.

"I'm sorry about that," he said as he picked her phone from the ground and placed in on the table. "Give me a minute."

He reached for the door handle next to him and Imani suddenly grabbed his other hand which was still on hers, making him turn to face her again.

"Where are you going?" she asked with wide eyes before she glanced at their surroundings. Kyle was still standing next to the door while a couple of people were on the street and staring at the car.

"Don't- Don't leave me here," she pleaded and Lucas touched her hand which tightly holding one of his.

"I'm just stepping outside to talk to him, Imani. I'm not leaving you."