Beautiful Creatures Series

Chapter 53: 11

It took three weeks to pack and book movers to move Mackenzie’s things into Gordon’s house. Because she was expecting, Gordon refused to allow her to lift anything over ten pounds claiming the strain was not good for the fetus. Mackenzie was surprised at how doting he was. He bought her prenatal victims. He would cook her dinner and rub her feet while they watched TV at night. During the day, he would go to work, but they would FaceTime two or three times. He claimed it was because he was bored, but Mackenzie knew he was checking up on her. Though he had put out a warning to the others that she was not to be harmed, Gordon feared every moment he was away from her that the pack would come for her.

Things remained fairly uneventful for the first month. Mackenzie and Gordon enjoyed their time together. Mackenzie had never lived with a man before, and she found she loved every moment. Her feelings for Gordon had changed. She still lusted after him, but her heart longed for his smile and his touch. She found she could not sleep peacefully when he was not next to her. Then one morning, while she watched him dress for work, Mackenzie realized something that would change her life. She loved Gordon more than anything. She could not picture her life without him.

She wanted to tell him she loved him, but she did not know-how. Neither of them had said the words yet, and she did not know it; he was ready to hear them. The past few weeks, he had served Melissa with divorce papers and dealing with lawyers trying to dissolve his wretched marriage. Right now was not the time to tell him, given his outlook on love was skewed because of his hate for his wife. Saying I love you right now might have an altogether different reaction than the one she wanted.

She was now three months pregnant, and she had begun to show. Mackenzie smiled as she stood in front of the full-length mirror in the corner of their bedroom in her silk nightgown, running her hands over the baby bump that was forming. Gordon sat in bed, reading a book. She could see him in the mirror. “Do you think I’m getting fat?”

Mackenzie watched him through the mirror. He instantly stopped what he was doing and looked at her. “Do you really expect me to answer that because it feels like a trap?”

She sighed as she turned to face him. “I’m serious, Gordon. I feel like I’m putting on weight.”

Gordon placed his book down then got out of bed. He walked over to her and turned Mackenzie, so she was facing the mirror and looking at their reflection. He wrapped himself around her with his hands over her belly as his face nuzzled hers. “You are putting on weight,” Gordon whispered in her ear, “because you are growing a miracle, and you have never looked more beautiful.”

Mackenzie smiled and turned in his arms to face him. She laced her arms around his neck and kissed him softly. “You always know exactly what to say,” staring up into his eyes. Mackenzie knew this was the moment to say “I love you” for the first time.

The sound of the doorbell startled Mackenzie out of her thoughts. The moment was gone. Gordon looked at the clock on the nightstand. “It’s midnight. Who the hell could that be?”

“Shouldn’t we go see who it is?”

“Stay here. I’ll go see who it is.”

Mackenzie walked over to the closet and took out her robe. Pulling it on, she followed Gordon. He was already at the bottom of the stairs when she reached the top. The doorbell rang again, and Gordon paused and pointed at Mackenzie. “Damn it, woman, I said stay there, not follow.”

Mackenzie placed her hands on her hips. “Did you just call me, woman?”

“We will discuss chauvinism later, get back in the bedroom,” God. He was sexy when he was bossy, but she still was not going back to the bedroom. Gordon walked over to the door and opened it.

Mackenzie could not see who it was from the top of the stairs. “Who are you?” Gordon asked. She was worried that it was not someone he knew.

“I’m looking for Mackenzie Starr,” Mackenzie recognizes that voice, but who was it.

“Who is asking?” Gordon asked as Mackenzie started down the stairs to see a face she would never forget.

“Agent Meskler?” Mackenzie gasped.

Gordon turned and looked at her. “You know this guy?”

Mackenzie nodded. She knew him, and if he was here, it was not good. Agent Meskler had been the FBI agent who put her in protective custody. He was a man in his fifties with salt and pepper hair. He had aged since she had last seen him. His dark eyes had a look of concern. “Hello Mackenzie, we need to talk.”

“Let him in,” she said as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Mackenzie, who is this?” Gordon asked.

“Agent Lenard Meskler, FBI Organized Crime Unit.”

“Agent Meskler is the one who put me in witness protection,” Mackenzie said as the Agent followed them to the couch in the living room. They all sat down with Gordon next to Mackenzie. He reached out and held her hand. He seemed as nervous as she was. “Something is wrong, isn’t it?”

“We have reason to believe that Donald Falcone knows where you are,” Donald Falcone was the head of the mafia In California. It was his son Harold that she had witnessed murdering her parents. It was well known that his goons would take out anyone who messed with his family and toss them overboard from his yacht wearing cement shoes. She had been hiding from him for ten years, and now he knew

where she was. “There has been a leak in the department. We haven’t pinpointed it just yet, but in the meantime, you are in danger. We need to move you.”

“Move her?” Gordon shook his head. “No, absolutely not.”

“I don’t think you understand. Donald Falcone knows where you are, Mackenzie. He has already put a contract out on you. It’s all over the dark web. People are coming after you. He’s not screwing around; I’m talking professional killers.”

Mackenzie did not know what to do. She was scared. She did not want to die, and if Donald Falcone knew where she was then, Mackenzie was as good as dead. Gordon looked at her. “You can’t leave now. Not with the baby.”

He was right. She could not raise this child alone. She was not equipped to deal with its unique needs on her own. She could not leave, and if she stayed, she might die. “Your life is in danger, Mackenzie,” Agent Meskler stressed.

“I can protect you,” Gordon told her. “You know I can.”

“Mackenzie, you need to come with me now,” Agent Meskler insisted.

She was so conflicted. Mackenzie looked into Gordon’s eyes. Regardless of the danger, she could not bring herself to leave him. “Are you sure you can protect me?”

“Absolutely,” he seemed so sure of himself. Had she not known his secret, she would walk out that door with Agent Meskler immediately to protect her baby, but she believed Gordon when he said he could protect her. All it would take would be for Gordon to wolf out and rip any threat to pieces. Gordon could probably protect her better than the police.

“I’m sorry, Agent; I’m staying. I have built a life here, and I’m not letting Donald Falcone rob me of it again.”

“If you don’t come with me now, you are as good as dead. The FBI will wash our hands of you.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“I don’t think you understand the severity of this situation,” Agent Meskler said with great aggravation. © 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

“She understands,” Gordon snapped, “and she said she is staying. Now I think you ought to leave.”

“Mackenzie…”

“Get… out!” Gordon snapped a low menacing growl rumbling from deep in his chest.

They all stood up and walked Agent Meskler to the door. He paused in the doorway, pleading one last time. “Mackenzie, reconsider. Don’t let this guy decide for you.”

“I said out,” Gordon shoved Agent Meskler out the door and slammed it in his face and locked the deadbolt. Mackenzie hoped she had made the right decision. Gordon turned and faced her. “I don’t trust that guy.”

“Why not?”

“Call it intuition… he doesn’t smell right.”

Mackenzie smirked. “He doesn’t smell, right? What does he smell like?”

“Fear and desperation.”

“He’s afraid for my welfare.”

“No, I don’t think so. I’m pretty good at reading people, and it’s not you that he’s afraid for.”

***

Lenard sat in his car, his grip on the steering wheel so tight his knuckles were white. He was sitting outside his motel, trying to think about how to handle this situation. He had failed in his attempt to bring Mackenzie with him. Donald Falcone was going to be pissed off. Lenard had always been a good cop, but after a few years, he became jaded and crooked. He had started taking protection money and bribes.

He had been sure he was getting away with it until the night Donald Falcone’s goons broke into his house and took his family hostage. They wanted him to bring Mackenzie to them, or he would kill Lenard’s wife and two children. To be sure Lenard would not go to his colleges for help, they showed him pictures they had taken of his nefarious activities to supplement his income.

He was facing prison time and the death of his loved ones. He had no choice but to go collect Mackenzie and bring her to Falcone as ordered. Only he had no expected her to not go with him. The man she was living with had proven an obstacle. Now he was screwed. He could not go back to California without Mackenzie Starr’s head in the trunk of his car. If he did, his life was forfeit. He refused to sacrifice his life for her. He needed to observe the couple and find another way to get to Mackenzie. He didn’t have much time. Falcone had given him two weeks to bring Mackenzie to him, or he was going to murder Lenard’s family.

Mackenzie had to die, but first, he had to get rid of Gordon Wilder.

***

Mackenzie sat in the spare chair in the Blood Moon Studio, watching TV on a small screen TV mounted in the upper left corner of the shop. Gordon had put cable in his shop to entertain and distract his customers while he was working. Gordon had insisted that Mackenzie go to work with him. With

Falcone looking for her, he did not feel comfortable leaving her at the house. He insisted she remained at his side. First, he had offered to close his shop until they sorted this out, but she did not want his business to suffer because of her, so she had promised to join him at work instead.

She had the remote in her hand as she surfed the channels. Gordon was bent over a young woman who was getting a tree of life tattooed on her sternum. Mackenzie was annoyed that he was working so closely with a pretty young woman who was lying on the tattoo chair topless. Her small hands were covering her perky breasts for modesty. This girl passed the time by trying to engage Gordon in a flirtatious conversation. Clearly, she did not realize Mackenzie was his girlfriend. She probably thought Mackenzie was Gordon’s daughter. This woman’s flirtations were grating on Mackenzie’s nerves. Gordon did not flirt back. He spoke politely to her and kept, at least his side of the conversation, professional at all times.

Mackenzie wanted to pull this bimbo’s hair out at the root. If she did not stop trying to seduce Mackenzie’s man, she was going to have to kick this woman’s ass. The chime above the door went off, alerting them to someone’s presence. Gordon looked up for a brief moment. “Hey, Babe?” He looked at Mackenzie. “Would you see who that is?”

Mackenzie rose and went to the front of the shop. Coming around the corner, she found Aster and Aurora coming behind the counter. They paused when they saw Mackenzie. “Oh, you’re here,” Aster said, surprised to see Mackenzie in her father’s shop in the middle of the day. “Sorry, that came out a lot meaner than I had meant it to. Actually, I didn’t mean to be rude in the first place. You know what? Can we go back and redo the last minute? Ok… Hello,” Aster babbled.

“Hello,” Mackenzie threw the girl a bone. “Your father is with a client if you want to come back and see him.”

“Actually, it is you we wanted to see,” Aurora said. “Only we didn’t know you would be here.”

Mackenzie did not understand what they wanted with her. They had not spoken two words to Mackenzie since the day they learned she was with child. Sure, Aster had spent some time with her father over the past two months, but it had always been while Mackenzie was not around. She held no grudge with Aster. Mackenzie understood it must be hard for Aster to accept that her parents were over and perhaps even harder to accept the fact that her father was building a new family with a woman her age.

“What do you want with me?”

Aster and Aurora looked at one another, then back at her. They both looked embarrassed. “We want to apologize,” Aurora said.

“For the way we behaved the last time we saw you,” Aster specified.

“For the things, we said,” Aurora continued.

“We’ve been talking, and we realize that it was wrong for us to say what we did. You must be terrified about the baby, not knowing what it is, and we didn’t make things any easier.”

“We hope you can forgive us. We are not bad people, and we know you aren’t either. We would like to welcome you to the pack properly,” Aurora said. “My husband and I are hosting a barbeque, and we would like you and Gordon to come.”

“I suppose we could come by.”

“What’s going on out here,” Gordon asked as he came into the front. He paused at Mackenzie’s side and supportively placed his hand to her lower back. An unconscious show of support. Gordon was a territorial man. Mackenzie assumed that was part of his animal instinct. She honestly did not think that he consciously realized he was territorial. She did not mind when he was territorial. Gordon never

snapped at her. He never restricted her. No, Gordon marked his property by protecting it at all costs. How could anyone find that anything but sweat?

“They invited us to a barbeque tonight.”

“Did they?”

“I agreed. You don’t mind, do you?”

Gordon seemed surprised. “No, I think it would be nice. We will go if you want to,” Gordon suddenly frowned. “Your mom is not going to be there, is she?” He asked Aster.

“No. We were hoping you would say yes, so we didn’t invite her,” Aster assured him. It was nice that they were trying to accommodate him.

“Then, we will be there.”

The ladies said goodbye and left the store. Mackenzie smiled up at Gordon. “They apologized for the things they said about the baby.”

“That’s great. I knew people would come around. They just had to get over the shock. The pack is already warming up to you.”

“Are you done with that slut whore back there?”

Gordon chuckled. “Now, why would you call her that?”

“She’s practically got a neon Open sign between her legs. She’s been giving you signals all afternoon. How do you not notice that?”

“Oh, I notice,” he grinned, taking Mackenzie in his arms. “I just ignore it.”

“Ignore it?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Throw her skinny ass out the door.”

Gordon laughed. “You’re jealous. Don’t you trust me to keep things professional?”

“I trust you, but I still don’t like watching it.”

“Well, I’m done. She’s just putting her top back on,” he said, leaning in to kiss her forehead lovingly. At that moment, the client came around the corner and walked up to the register. Gordon walked over and ran through the procedure to keep it clean and help it heal while the client paid.

The client continued to make flirtatious plays for Gordon, and he was being polite. Mackenzie rolled her eyes. Ok, she’d had enough. Mackenzie walked over to Gordon as he dealt with this aggravating woman. She kissed his cheek and ran her hand over the front of his pants. Gordon’s eyes widened from the shocking contact. “Rap it up, Baby. I’m horny.”

The other woman looked as shocked as Gordon. She accepted her receipt and then walked out the door. Once they were alone, Gordon smiled at Mackenzie. “Do you feel better?”

“I do,” she grinned triumphantly.

“Good,” Gordon said and hoisted Mackenzie up over his shoulder. “Because now you have to put out.”