Hot Alphas by Lora Leigh

mistake. You blab, J.D.”
    For God’s sake, why did he keep involving her mother?
    â€œDon’t tell her?” J.D. asked her as though amazed she would suggest it. “And you think she wouldn’t find out?”
    â€œWhat does it matter?” Crossing her arms over her breasts she found herself less than willing to continue this debate. “You can’t force me to leave. I won’t let you. Conserve your energy and the hair you’ll end up pulling out by figuring out who it is now rather than later. Or worse yet, when he catches me unaware and kills me because none of us were expecting it.”
    â€œShe’s right, Dad.” John D. was no longer amused.
    â€œI didn’t ask you,” J.D. growled.
    â€œIf we keep her from sight,” Cooper cut in then, “let no one know where she’s at, someone will start asking questions. That someone would lead us to the answers we need.”
    â€œI didn’t ask you either,” J.D. growled, casting Cooper a silencing look.
    â€œThen ask me.” The sound of Turk’s voice had her wincing. “She stays right here. No one would know. They could suspect she’s here, next door at Iron’s place, or downstairs at Jake’s. They’ll have to come looking for her and when they do, we can eliminate the threat once and for all.”
    Stay here? At Turk’s place?
    â€œWell, sis,” John D. drawled then, obviously amused once again. “There are your options. Door number one or door number two?”
    â€œTry door number three,” she murmured.
    Her brother’s brow lifted as laughter gleamed in his emerald-green eyes. Behind her, Turk muttered a curse.
    â€œAnd what would door number three be?” Only Cooper was brave enough to ask.
    J.D. sighed. “She’ll decide once she makes up her mind which of us deserves to die first.” He looked at Turk. “She’s staying with you. I live with her mother, I know that look.”
    She was quite certain he did. Since J.D. and her mother married nine years before and he’d seen their couch as a bed more times than once.
    â€œI’ll sneak over and get her clothes,” John D. decided, then turned to Cooper. “Get Gabby over here to drive her car around and stay in her apartment with Jake. With a little work, she could look enough like Erin to perhaps fool whoever’s looking for her.”
    Gabby was the bar’s camera and security tech, normally hidden in the basement of the bar and buried in code and camera surveillance.
    John D. was all but rubbing his hands together in glee.
    â€œBoys and girls, let’s have fun.”
    â€œGood God, I should have drowned you at birth.” J.D. stared at his son as though he were demented. “Gabby will eat Jake alive, Miss Do-it-my-way-here”—he jerked a thumb at Erin—“will probably end up strangled before Turk realizes he’s done it and you’ll leave a hell of a mess for me and Cooper to clean up.”
    John D. laughed. “And just think, I’m your heir.”
    â€œIt’s not too late to drown you, John,” J.D. assured him. “Not too late at all.”
    His son only laughed back at him before shooting Erin another of those cocky winks.
    Damn, J.D. could practically feel life beginning to twist and turn. What was would be no longer.
    So why wasn’t he fighting it harder?

 
    CHAPTER 9
    Nearly a week later, Turk closed and relocked the apartment door after another visit from J.D. and his diabolical son. He was beginning to think perhaps John D. did deserve to be drowned at birth as his father had threatened.
    If the little bastard kept flirting with Erin the way he was while pretending a brotherly air, then Turk would take care of that little task himself.
    â€œI think that went rather well,” Erin stated cheerfully as he stepped into the living area to glare down at where she had stretched out on his