Mated To Magic (Stark Creek Shifters Book 1) by Barb Shuler (free ereaders .TXT) 📕

“Try me, sweetheart.”

Liam chuckled and took his seat. “He’s got his hands full with you two. While I have you, Mia, I need you to pick some new passwords. I’ve put an extra layer of firewalls that are impenetrable, but it needs a code, which will be your fingerprint, as such. That way if someone does try and get in, we can track it via theirs. I’m gonna keep looking through everything to see if I can find anything out of the ordinary.”

“Alright, thanks, Liam. If you need anything, I’ll be next door or in the bar with Jay and the girls.” He gave me a salute and I turned to leave. “Come on, before the boys start putting the stock away and you can’t find anything.”

Jay growled then turned and left the office. She headed straight for the bar while I went out to see about Lou. I wanted a copy of the order he brought so I knew what we actually got, and I needed to talk to him about a second delivery. If he couldn’t do it tonight, I hoped we had enough of everything and he could come back first thing tomorrow.

Carrying the order back to my office, I heard cursing coming from the bar. Detouring there instead, I saw Jay at her end.

“Mia! I am going to kill that son of a bitch and string him up by his toes!” I blinked and was a little taken aback.

“Wait, which son of a bitch are we talking about before I sign off on that?”

“YOURS!”

I let out a small groan. “What did he do now?”

“All my bottles are around the wrong way and the glasses have been moved! He steps foot in this bar, I’m going to kill him!”

“I’m not involved. You two can fight it out!”

“You told him! You gave him the ammo, so you are just as responsible for this as he is.”

“Everyone knows about your OCD, that isn’t on me!” I was fighting the urge to crack up laughing. I knew it was only going to piss her off more, but he had seriously better be careful when he comes back to get me later. I hoped she would calm down by then. Taking my phone out of my pocket, I went back to my office. As I unlocked my office, I sent him a text message.

Mia: Please give me a heads up if you decide to mess with the bar so I can make sure all death threats on your life aren’t heard by my delivery guy and the humans you have scared.

I hit send and slid my phone back into my pocket. Putting all the orders out in front of me, I ticked off everything that was the same. The damage wasn’t too bad. Worst case scenario, we could sell the cheaper stuff and just blame the supplier for being out of my top shelf whiskey and bourbon. We should be right for tonight.

Opening up my emails, I sent a new order off to Lou, asking him to bring it in by no later than tomorrow morning. The guys would be here doing security training with Dalton’s guys; they could accept it for me if I didn’t make it in. Before I took over, they had never sold any of the good stuff. I knew what people liked, so I changed that. We also had cocktail hour on Saturdays and Phoenix, my godsend when it came to that shit, made them up. She was quick, which a lot of other places around here weren’t.

We did some research before we brought them in and found that people got sick of waiting forever for drinks to be made and ended up leaving. The staff also made the mistake of not taking the money when they ordered the drinks. I was quite proud of the hard work the girls had put in to help make this place what it is now.

The old owner came in one night and saw how busy we were. It had been peak tourist season, so there were a lot more people in Stark Creek then normal. He got in contact and asked me how much it would take to buy the place back, but I told him no amount of money in the world would be enough. We had all put so much hard work into making it what it is. If I sold it, the staff would all come with me. We were a team. Nothing he or anyone did could break that up.

A few hours later, I heard a knock on my door. I looked up.

“Boss, we have company. We’ve checked their ID’s. They’re Dalton’s men.”

“Thanks, Angus, bring them in.”

He nodded and stepped back, motioning them forward. They stepped through the door, although how, by the size of these guys, I don’t know.

“If you don’t mind showing me your ID, I’ll take you in to Liam. Dalton is still out, but he will be back, so if you have any issues see Liam or myself. Anything you need, my team can get for you.”

I checked for myself, not that I didn’t trust my guys but for my own peace of mind, then shut my door behind me and led them to Liam. Knocking again before opening, he looked up at me with a frown.

“Everything okay, Mia?”

“All good, I just have Dalton’s guys here. He said to bring them in to you once they got here.”

He nodded and stood up, moving past me and out into the hall, to greet the guys. Deciding to leave them to their business, I went to check on Jay to see if she had calmed down any. From the glare that I got when I walked in, I would say no.

“Ladies, we have some extra company with us tonight. Don’t be alarmed if you see some large guys hovering around the bar. They won’t bite.”

“Wow, Mia, when you said you wanted to beef up security, you weren’t kidding!”