Chapter Seventeen
Brick
I may not survive this.
It’s that thought above all else that eventually forces me to turn back to my human form and get my ass back to Manhattan.
Vance insisted on coming with me to the Berkshires, despite the fact that I threatened to tear out his throat if he wouldn”t leave me alone. I ran my wolf for thirteen hours straight there until I collapsed and Vance dragged me back into the cottage.
Liz and Dane were frantic, trying to feed me, get me in the shower, and make sure I didn”t go back out to run. Nobody spoke a word about Madison Evans, and for that I have to be grateful.
They all fear I’ll go moon mad.
I fear it, too.
This situation was like a human getting a stage four cancer diagnosis. I’d met my mate, my wolf had chosen, and now he was being denied. A wolf with as much alpha power as I carry can’t survive such a blow. I don”t know if I’ll even make it to the full moon. Not with this much rage and betrayal swimming around in my head.
Knowing my pack and company need my leadership right now, especially if I’m going to go feral by the full moon, I am in the office by morning in a suit and tie, ready to take heads.
Getting off the elevator to a silent top floor is too much, though. I stop and stare at Madi’s empty desk with bitterness. The office still smells faintly of her orange and Frankincense scent. I swear I almost detect the scent of her tears from the day she left, but that’s just my brain producing a memory.
The memory makes my chest tight.
I don’t mean to, but I walk over to her desk and stand above it. Not to catch her scent. Just to make sure she’s cleaned all her belongings out.
She hasn’t. Her tube of hand lotion still sits beside the phone. A lip gloss is next to the computer. There’s a greeting card standing behind her monitor that reads, You’re killing it. I snatch it up and open it.
It’s from her brother. Inside he wrote, “I didn’t get you a graduation present, but I saw this and thought of you. Congratulations on the Moon Co job. You’re killing it!”
My chest hurts even worse. The memory of Madi drunkenly poking my chest that night her band played, telling me she knew I’d paid for her brother’s tuition surfaces.
I want to villainize her. Demonize her. But just like my mother, she’s someone I loved first, before she ripped my heart out.
It’s not black or white. Good versus evil.
She’s a real person with emotions and insecurities and people she cares about–like her younger brother. Her friend Aubrey.
I’d stupidly thought she cared about me, but it turns out it was all a lie.
Still, it’s hard to untangle the love from the hate.
I pick up her desk and hurl it at the wall, then stalk into my office and call Vance. “I want all the execs working on the top floor until this gets resolved,” I bark.
I can’t stand being alone up here. It will hurtle me to madness even faster than I’m already going.
My team streams in and updates me.
The programmers have figured out how to patch the system and Moon Co is up and running again, but our stock price dropped a hundred million overnight. Nickel is working his ass off doing interviews and sending new press releases to try to get it to bounce back.
I sit and listen and then fold my hands. “Okay. What do we know about the mechanics of the breach?”
“We still only know that it came from Madi’s computer. It looks like she loaded it the night of the holiday party, and then it was set to activate at a later date or was remotely activated.”
I blink, hit with a torpedo in the center of my chest.
The night of the holiday party.
The one where I drove her home and spent the night at her apartment. And she broke things off with me.
“Find out which it was. I need to know everything about how this happened.”
“What about the Adalwulfs?” Jake asks.
“What are you asking?”
“They need to pay for this.” His gaze burns with vengeance.
“Yes.” This goes far beyond me scooping up the land they wished to purchase. They tried to take down my entire company, same as they took down my father’s. “They certainly do. But we have more pressing concerns right now. We need contingency plans in place for leadership of the pack and the company.”
“What for?” Nickel asked.
“You know what for.”
Billy goes pale. “Are you saying…”
I nodded gravely. “Madi is my mate. My wolf will drive me to madness for refusing her. I’m already losing control.”
“I told you,” Vance mutters to Billy.
“What about Thaddeus?” Eagle suggests, standing from his chair and pacing around the conference room.
Thaddeus is Manhattan’s vampire king.
I hesitate. Wiping Madi’s mind of the existence of wolves is probably necessary, but the idea turns my stomach. She’s so young and bright. It could ruin that genius mind of hers.
“I don’t just mean wiping her mind. I mean…” –he looks grim– “control it. You need her to surv–”
My hands close into fists, and a growl rockets from my throat.
Billy watches me like I’m a lunatic with a loaded gun. “Table that for later,” he says in a low voice to Eagle without taking his gaze off me.
“No.” I put an alpha command into my voice, and everyone in the room falls back a few inches. I know exactly what Billy’s thinking. They’re going to talk about Madi in private and bring her to Thaddeus without my consent since my wolf will never allow it.
“Nobody touches her. You will not go around me on this. Understood?”
It isn’t just my wolf making the demand, not that it’s always clear where my thoughts originate. No, I’m sure I would rather die than have Madi trotting around here as a mind-controlled zombie just so I don’t go mad.
No one answers at first. They all like the idea. I probably would, too, if it came down to losing one of them to human treachery.
“I said no!” I thunder.
My team remains silent.
“Perhaps you should consider marking her and then discarding her. That would alleviate the greatest risk of madness,” Nickel suggests.
“No.” This time it’s crystal clear who’s talking. Me–the proud, stubborn man who would rather hold a grudge and die than make any kind of peace with the woman who betrayed me. My wolf is totally on board with marking her. Now. Yesterday, in fact.
“I don’t wish to discuss Madi. I will draw blood on the next person who brings her up. I want to talk about the pack and the company.”
“We’re looking at complete and utter devastation,” Billy says. “There will be no Blackthroat pack. None of us are strong enough to hold it. No one will trust me over you. The only reason they trusted you at age eighteen is because your father made it clear that you were his successor and all the wolves who fell in behind him backed you. Only one or two families defected. This time they will all defect. The Adalwulfs will pick off the weaker factions.”
Concerned looks ping-pong around the table.
“Contingency plans for the company, then. Let’s get to work.”
* * *
Madi
I stay in bed for two days without eating or sleeping. On the afternoon of the third day after being fired, I finally start following the loops and turns my mind has been hashing through while I’ve been wallowing in bitterness and despair.
The thing my brain kept returning to was that meeting with Aiden. When I realize why, I sit up abruptly from bed. Shower. I need a shower.
I swing my legs over the side, stand up, and nearly pass out because I haven’t eaten in two days. I”m sure I look like a holy terror. I”m in an old worn T-shirt and panties, and my hair is a tangled mess from lying in the bed with the covers over my head.
“Hey, you’re up.” Aubrey comes into my room. Her voice is soaked with sympathy, which makes me want to dive back under the covers for another cry.
But no. I figured something out.
“I need food,” I manage to say.
“I’ve been telling you that.” Aubrey snatches up the store-bought smoothie she brought in for me earlier this morning from the bedside table and gives it a shake. “Here, drink this.”
I uncap it and suck down half the contents. “Thanks. Listen–” I pace into the living room of the apartment. “We have to do something.”
“Yeah. Let’s plot revenge on those entitled assholes.”
“No!” I wave an impatient hand. “Listen–I was framed.”
Aubrey looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Obviously.”
“No, I mean, I think I know how they did it.”
“How?”
“The janitor.” I punctuate the word with a jab to the sky with my index finger.
“Let’s get you some more food,” Aubrey says, like I’ve lost my mind.
Okay, maybe it does sound too hokey. Too Agatha Christie tidy. But I just remembered the thing that was bothering me.
“He was the only one who could’ve known when I was leaving the building the night Aiden tried to get me into his limo. He’s also one of the few people who has access to my computer. And he’s a wolf.”
“A what?”
Oops.
Too late I realize that I’ve said too much.
Even after Brick throwing me out, I still would never reveal his secret.
“I mean, he was probably working for the Adalwulfs.”
“Oh. Yeah, he could be. Is that all you have on him, though? That evidence is pretty circumstantial.”
I tap my lips. “There”s the private investigator Brick hired to find out if Eleanor Harrington was my grandmother. I could call him. Maybe he can find a record of a payment from the Adalwulfs to the janitor. Or something?”
Aubrey looks at me doubtfully. “Well,” –she shrugs– “I guess it’s worth a shot. But why are you doing this? Do you want your job back?”
I hate that my eyes fill with tears. I thought I was done crying over this. “No, I don’t want my job back. But I also can”t stand Brick thinking I would do this to him.”
I”m not obtuse enough to miss the parallel he was led to draw between his mother’s betrayal and what he believes is mine. He jumped to conclusions because of his past. That wound is so deep, and this whole fiasco just fed into it.
That’s the sick part. Aiden Adalwulf went for his deepest wound when he used me to get at Brick. I mean, he didn”t use me–I wasn’t a willing participant in his treachery–but he framed me for this whole thing. Used my computer. Staged a meeting with me in front of the building. Made the phone calls damning me.
What had Aubrey said to me back when I was in the Berkshires? Never date a man who hates his mother? She couldn”t have been more right. A man who hates his mother believes every woman is out to get him. Every female is going to be damned in his eyes.
Which makes me think…
Suddenly it all sharpens into focus.
Catherine Adalwulf’s insistence that she was innocent. Her desperate attempts to explain herself to Brick and repair the relationship. Could it be…?
Aiden knew how to play this game because it’s been played by his pack before.
Catherine Adalwulf has been a pawn in her pack’s feud against the Blackthroats. A pawn like me.
An even greater sense of resolve to get to the bottom of this mess comes over me. Enough wallowing. It’s time to get back in there and repair what’s broken. I have no intention of ever speaking to Brick again, but I can’t let the Adalwulfs win this round. No.
If I can clear up this farce they’ve laid out for Brick to believe, I will.
“I”m going to take a shower,” I say. I need to come back to the land of the living. I”m sure I stink, and I know I”m not very pretty to look at right now.
“Cool.” Aubrey heads into the kitchen. “I”ll make us lattes for when you get out.”
* * *
Brick
Moon Co has been on lockdown for almost a week dealing with the security breach.
The executive team is stationed on the top floor as we manage the crisis. Or possibly they’re just trying to manage me. My sanity is as much of a crisis as the fate of the pack and company right now.
Sully calls me after hours. I’m still in the office. I’ll probably sleep here again. “What is it?”
“I had an interesting phone call.”
“Don’t speak in riddles,” I snap. “Why are you calling?”
“Madison Evans.”
Dammit.
My wolf roars to life. He wants to kill Sully for even mentioning her name. As if Sully might be moving in on our mate. Courting her. Stealing her from us, which of course is absurd, since I’ve already cast her aside. “What about her?” I snarl.
“She contacted me. She has a theory about a security breach. She believes it was enacted by the janitor, Jerry. She noted he had the opportunity and means to infect her computer as well as to notify Adalwulf of her comings and goings, so he could time a meeting in front of her building.”
I go still. My fangs are already descending to rip Jerry to shreds.
“Have you looked into her theory?”
“I’m sitting in front of his place right now. I didn’t find any record of monetary rewards, but he has made phone calls to Aiden Adalwulf’s phone. I checked with Billy to get the time of her reported meeting with Adalwulf and guess what?”
I can’t form words. Only growls come from my throat.
Fortunately, Sully goes on without my reply. “One of the calls came twenty-five minutes before the timestamp on that video of the meeting.”
I hang up the phone to howl, ripping out of my clothes and spontaneously shifting.
Billy barges in my office.
I barely manage to shift back without attacking him. I know Billy is trying to protect me, but he may have jumped to a false conclusion about Madi.
And I stupidly believed him.
I need all the facts. I glower at him as I stuff my legs in a new pair of boxer briefs and suit pants. “Send me the video feed of Madi with Aiden and get Noah up here.”
He studies me, wary. “It’s nine at night–Noah probably isn’t in the building.”
“I don’t fucking care! Find him and get him in my office within the hour.” I blast Billy with enough alpha command to make his body sway.
“Yes, Alpha.”
He leaves the office, and I find an undershirt to pull on. Then I put my fist through the wall. I falsely accused Madi. Well, Billy did, and I believed him.
Just when I almost had it figured out–how to somehow keep her and still maintain the safety of my pack. Now I may lose both.
Forty minutes later, I hear the elevator ding, and I throw open my door to see Noah enter with Billy.
Nickel and Eagle emerge from the conference room.
Noah takes in the mess I’ve made of the office. Madi’s desk is lying on its side after I flung against the far wall, the contents scattered all around.
He appears alarmed, looking around and sniffing. For Madi?
My wolf wants to kill him.
“She’s not here.”
Noah inclines his head. “How can I help?”
“In my office,” I growl.
Noah enters, and apparently Nickel, Billy, and Eagle think that’s invitation enough for them to come in as well.
They take in my torn-to-shreds office. Ribbons of fabric are scattered about the room from the times I shifted while fully clothed. The walls have claw marks and several of the chairs are broken.
I stand behind my desk and point at my computer screen. I’m sure I look deranged.
I am deranged.
“Noah.”
The younger man watches my lips move.
I beckon him over to my side of the desk. “You read lips.”
He nods.
“Can you look at this video and tell me what they’re saying?”
Noah winces. “Videos are hard. Lip reading is only thirty percent accurate. Under normal circumstances my shifter senses and context clues improve that, but with a video, I may not get much.”
“I understand. You can only see one of their faces, but the lighting is decent because he’s under a streetlight. Will you try?”
“Of course.”
He presses play on the video, and we see Aiden Adalwulf in a long woolen coat on the sidewalk near Madi’s building. He watches it several times. “I think he said, How much does he pay you?”
Madi walks into the frame.
My wolf goes insane at the sight of her, and I nearly shift again.
Noah darts an alarmed look my way. Whether it’s because I seem dangerous and close to feral right now or whether he’s just putting two and two together about Madi being gone and the video of her speaking the rival alpha, I can’t guess.
Her back is to the camera, so Noah can’t see her lips to read them.
Noah watches it several more times. “He’s saying double–maybe that he’ll double it.”
He lets it play and rewinds to rewatch. “I think he’s asking if she’s fucking her boss.” He darts another look at me.
My upper lip lifts, and I let out a loud snarl. “He’s insulting her.”
Noah nods. “It seems so. Then he says something about a secret–did he tell you his secret?” He rewinds and reviews a few more times. “And then something like, he doesn’t plan on keeping you. I don’t know–the last part is tricky. He says that she’s smart or not smart. Not smart enough.”
The tendons in my neck harden, and I’m sure my eyes turn amber, but I manage to nod.
Good, I remind myself. This is good news. It’s proof it wasn’t Madi.
How could I have ever believed Madi would be working for Aiden? She’s loyal to the core. She may be defended, but she truly cares about me.
And I lumped her in the same category as my mother.
I couldn’t have fucked up more.
“Thank you, Noah.”
“Was it a help?”
I give a grim nod. “Yes. I’ve made a terrible mistake.” I shove my hands in my pockets. Some of my insanity has leaked away. I feel calmer than I have in days.
“But that’s actually the good news.”