Targeted By Love (Between the Greys #1)

22. Maynard

22

MAYNARD

“I need to show you something.” Ezra was at the front door and he mouthed the message. I didn’t need an interpreter to understand he didn’t want Rhodes to hear. And I refused to upset my mate any more than he had been since he met me, especially now that he was pregnant.

“Forgot something in the car, babe. Back in a minute.”

One bodyguard remained at the apartment entrance and the other walked in front of us as my brother and I headed for my car. But Ezra pulled me away.

“Has it been checked today? For explosives?”

I caught the bodyguard’s eye and his almost impeccable shake of the head.

“No.”

Ezra steered me toward the end of the parking garage.

“I found something.”

“Something as in Seb?”

He made a “maybe” face and shoved his tablet at me, an inch from my face.

“What am I looking at?” My brother expected me and the rest of our siblings to be as tech literate as he was. And rather than wading through a slew of data, I wanted him to tell me. I stared at enough figures in my day job.

“It’s a mention of Seb.”

That news didn’t spark joy. It was confirmation of what we already knew, and despite their disagreements and different personalities, Seb and Rhodes were brothers. Maybe he had been found and arrested. Or worse. He was in a shallow grave, his remains being whittled away by ants and beetles while flies laid their eggs to eventually become maggots.

I shivered because I’d put many former living beings in that situation, though where possible, our wild wolf cousins disposed of the bodies.

“Just spill. Is he alive?”

“As far as I know. Pretty certain he’s in hiding.”

“So? We assumed he was or… you know.”

“I can’t access the file, even with my skills, but if I had to guess, he’s either in witsec or the feds have him in a safe house.”

I rolled my eyes at my brother acting as though he was part of law enforcement and referring to witness protection as witsec.

Hmmm, so Seb had information they needed, and rather than toss him in jail where someone would shove a knife in his ribs, they had him tucked away.

“Perhaps he’s going to sing like the proverbial canary and that’s why they have him.” Did they do a deal so he’d get a reduced prison term if he’d testify against Germaine? Except what jury is going to take the word of a petty—or maybe a hardened—criminal? And no matter the outcome of the trial, he’d be killed in prison, even if he was in solitary confinement.

My mind whirred, going in one direction, pulling back and starting down another, but gradually, I pulled the threads together.

“This is what we know. Seb has been a petty criminal since he was a teen.”

“Check.” Ezra made a chart and put a mark in the column beside, “petty criminal.”

“He gambled, and that probably led to debts, which is where he got into the clutches of some very bad guys.”

“From petty to big time, or bigger.”

“Germaine dabbled in drugs, and while Seb wasn’t addicted to the hard stuff—we’d have seen signs—he bought weed from the bear den. He was in debt and forced to pay off the money by selling hard drugs. But he stole money or drugs or both. Or something like that.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Ezra noted.

“His activity catches the attention of law enforcement who offer him a deal, the details of which we don’t know.” All of it was guesswork.

We went back and forth offering more suggestions. Germaine discovered he was being double crossed and ordered the hit, a signal to Seb he had to stay in line. When I didn’t follow through on the hit, Germaine had a bomb planted to kill Seb and to heck with his new husband. The feds pulled Seb out and hid him away. Rhodes hadn’t heard from the husband recently either.

It was dawning on me that while Seb had a checkered past, maybe he’d been trying to do the right thing—or he’d been backed into a corner—and wasn’t the bad guy Rhodes knew him to be.

“It’s mostly speculation. We have no evidence.” Ezra tucked the tablet under his arm. “What do you want to do?”

“I’d like to speak to some of our police contacts.”

“Alpha would not be pleased you bypassed him.”

Boaz would be furious too. “Who says I am?” Alpha had to be informed, as he dealt with Germaine and the other Alphas regularly. And I had to fess up to Alpha about my other job. I doubted he’d tell me to stop, just to be more circumspect.

“Good luck. I’ll make myself scarce.” Ezra made to step away, but I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck.

“Who are you more afraid of? Alpha or Boaz?”

Ezra’s flared nostrils and his lips snapped shut gave me my answer. Our brother was one scary dude sometimes.

“You’re coming with me.” But rather than meet at pack headquarters, I invited Alpha to our apartment. I’d kept many secrets from my mate, but this was his brother. He had a right to be part of the decision-making.

Nervousness flowed through our bond as I told my mate about what we’d discovered, followed by relief when he understood that the chaos would be a thing of the past. The meeting was calm, facts were discussed, and assumptions were understood to be just that.

And while Alpha raised a brow when I detailed how I killed people for a living, he said, “Watch your back. I can’t help you if there’s ever any blowback.”

He was silent for a moment. “Was that you… in the park… the guy whose bike was found but not his body?”

I nodded, hoping Alpha wasn’t annoyed.

“And you had help disposing of the body?”

Again, I nodded.

“Hmmm… he was a bad dude. I might have to hire you myself one day.”

When everyone left, my mate and I were the only ones still in the apartment, and the air was lighter than it had been since this all went down.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“That I should think less horribly about my brother, but also, that he deserved my disdain.” He shoved his hands in his pockets.

I felt for him. My brothers and I sometimes fought, but at the end of the day, we loved each other. That wasn’t true of my mate and Seb.

“You don’t have to forgive him because he might finally be doing what is right.” And we weren’t certain that was the case.

“I do have to forgive him. Not for Seb and his husband, but for me. Still don’t like him, though.” He shook his head. “Don’t think I’ll ever get there.”

“And you never need to.” I imagined he’d have some similar confusion when it came to his mother also. She was the worst of the two, allowing Seb to treat Rhodes the way he had and being less of a mother than my mate deserved.

“Thanks for not judging me.” He leaned into my chest.

“Oh, I judge you plenty on your food choices. I don’t have time to judge you on the rest.” His cravings were off-the-charts weird. The foods were all good, but the way he combined them… yikes.

“Speaking of cravings, now that things are worked out, can we check out that new Korean corn dog place?”

“The one next to the rolled ice cream shop?” They had every flavor combination under the sun.

“I was thinking we could go there, too. I think the cotton candy ice cream would go well with the sausage and cheese rolled in ramen corn dog.”

“Anything you want, omega mine.” Safe to say I wasn’t going to be having that combination… ever.