45. Shale
Chapter forty-five
Shale
S hale Aged 24
I’ve never been more scared than I am right now. Her house is open, the storm is long gone, but so is she. For hours, we’d tried to get back, when we finally could, we came straight here.
One day. Twenty-four hours since the storm rolled through.
Where is she?
Beau jogs around the house. “Nat’s not home either.”
“Fucking damnit!” I shout.
Keagan comes out of the house and marches down the yard. Where the water would have run. I frown until my mind clears with clarity. No, she wouldn’t have gone there, no!
I jog after him, pushing in as he stops, waiting for his eyes to adjust. The ground is wet still, and there on the mattress in a tight ball is our omega.
“Aspyn,” I breathe in relief, in horror, in I don’t know what.
Beau lunges forward and snatches her up. “She’s freezing. We need a doctor and a warm shower.”
I race back to the house, turning on the water in the shower. Beau passes her to me, and I stand in there fully clothed, not giving a fuck as I cradle her tiny form to my chest.
The urge to bond her just so I can keep her safe drives at me, but we discussed this. We can’t force her, we can’t take her choice away.
I lean down and press my lips to her temple. “I love you.”
She doesn’t hear me, she never does.
Aspyn needs to heal. Her soul wounds are too big to let her see us. But we are the buffer between her and the world, the rescue that will always come, the people she can lean on.
My hope is one day she can look at us and see us. See me.
Her eyes flutter open, and she looks up at me. Tears fill her eyes. I would never tell her how much she breaks my heart.
“Shale?”
“I’m here, and you’re safe. It’s over.”
Beau and Keagan trip over themselves, coming into the bathroom, touching her arms and hands, stroking her hair, needing the reassurance that she’s okay. She’s alive.
We get her clean and dry and hold her while the doctor checks her over and prescribes some vitamins, bed rest, hot tea, and soup and says he’ll be back tomorrow.
We stay when she falls asleep.
Watching over her. Always.
P resent Day
“It’s almost been two weeks, Shale. I’m done waiting.”
I turn my head and find Beau standing there in the shadows. I consider his words carefully and let my smile out.
“Yes, we’re done.”
I walk slowly in front of the board members. They are sitting, but, this time, it’s different.
We’ve got our masks on, and they are tied to chairs in a building that’s going to be demolished soon. They are all in blindfolds and can’t see anything, but that’s all part of the fun.
Keagan paces around and through them, brushing his fingertips on shoulders and keeping them on edge.
“Now, I want information, and I’m going to keep breaking bones until I get it.”
“We don’t know anything.” The man who shouts has messy orange hair and cried like a little girl on the way here.
“Break a bone,” I say coldly.
Beau swings a bat down on Peter Walley’s hand. He howls not at all the way a little girl would.
I don’t think they believed I was serious, but they do now.
“Now start talking,” I say calmly and twirl my own bat around, letting it whoosh in the air.
The person nearest to me flinches.
“Let us go!”
I wait, but they continue to wail. Clearly, they don’t understand what’s going to happen here.
“Two more.”
Beau and Keagan move around, picking two more people and swinging the bats down on their hands.
The screams go on for a long time, but, eventually, they die down.
“The next person I choose won’t get a broken bone. I’m just going to cut something off.”
I wait.
“SPEAK!” I roar.
They cower, they flinch, they sob and gasp, but then someone clears their throat.
And they start talking, and they tell me everything.
I stand in the crowd of reporters outside Alpha Labels. Phones start going off, one after another. I don’t move or stop smiling.
The woman beside me breaks free of the group and throws up violently.
She got shown a video of her child bullying another student, while she’s too busy fucking the parent of her daughter’s best friend. She has an hour before it goes viral. It will ruin her.
The man beside me sways wildly. He embezzled funds for his gambling habit.
The problem with being a reporter is you need to be squeaky, and everyone has secrets. They don’t want the world to find out about them, but no one can bury them deep enough, and we have not been idle these last few weeks.
I open my phone and start scrolling. In minutes, I’ve got the first retraction and apology.
Simon Dates raped a girl in college. She was more than willing to throw him under the bus for her story. I send him the article that will go live in five minutes.
He runs.
More and more appear.
Got them.
Now, they’ll do exactly as I say.
A t the next board meeting at Alpha Labels, Kelly stands there while several bruised and bandaged board members keep their eyes down.
“All in favour of the changes Kelly has outlined?” Charles asks with a frown.
As one, the board room lifts their hand and gives the Raines family complete control again.
“Congratulations, Bailey, when you are trained, you will be the next CEO of Raines Entertainment,” Charles says with a smile, but he’s confused and wants to ask, I can see it written all over him.
I walk past and wink at him.
He goes pale but nods his head. He doesn’t ask, and that’s probably wise of him.
W e break into the seven properties of Typhor Raines and, in the last one, we find the housekeeper lying on the floor in her own blood and piss. I thought we might have to rough her up, but she’s terrified and already beaten up bad enough that she needs a hospital.
“You just missed him,” she murmurs. “A couple days.”
“What?” Beau hisses.
I catch her as her strength gives out and hold her close to me. She must be in her sixties and clearly has a couple of broken bones and some serious damage.
“He left. Found her. I tried to stop him, threw the memo in the bin. He found it.” She coughs weakly. “I couldn’t protect Ryn, but I thought I could help this one.”
“He found her?” Keagan leans over my shoulder. “Are you saying he found Aspyn?”
I go cold. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that she was talking about my omega.
She nods. “He’s found her. The island. He owns it.”
I feel sick. I carefully lay her down on the ground.
“We have to go,” I murmur.
The blue and red lights of the ambulance are flashing.
“Go. He’s evil. Truly evil. Don’t let him live.”
I cradle her cheek. She’s been lying here for a couple of days. I don’t think she’s going to make it.
“Thank you.”
“My granddaughter-”
“Will be taken care of for the rest of her days,” Beau says, his voice thick with emotion.
I wonder if he’s seeing his gran here.
She exhales and doesn’t breathe again.
“FUCK!”
“We gotta go, Shale.”
We fly through the house, disappearing into the dark, just in time.
I storm into the Boothe house and yank on the bonds.
The pack gathers around me. Keagan and Beau behind me, seething with deadly intent. Kelly and Ezy appear at the top of the stairs carrying bags with them.
I’m surprised, though it occurs to me I shouldn’t be.
“We’re ready,” Kelly says softly. “There’s a jet waiting.”
Ezy walks down the stairs. He and Keagan disappeared two nights ago and came back covered in blood. Since then, Ezy’s confidence has returned, and he’s been calm but with a deadly edge.
He’s more like us now.
Holt will not be gracing the living with his presence ever again. I don’t think anyone will mourn him.
I take my bag from him and follow him out of the house.
It takes too long to get to the jet. I probe the bonds, searching and searching over and over. Even when we change to a seaplane, I keep searching for them until I feel it.
Her fear and grief.
“Close the bonds!” I snap.
The pack obeys me instantly, without question. My head throbs with panic as I try to work out what I felt.
Whatever it was, I can’t distract her. She’s going to have to hang on until we get there.
“Get ready for war.”
The temperature of the plane plummets. We’re almost there. Just hold on, we’re almost there.
If anything happens to her, not even a tsunami would do as much damage to this island as I will do.
My phone beeps. I glance down, opening the message from Mitch.
Where are you? Gael was arrested weeks ago, and Aspyn is in trouble. Trying to escape the island. Oh, fuck, please, just get here. We need the Daane!
My blood runs cold, my hand trembles. I pass my phone to Beau and go to the front of the plane to tell the pilot to hurry.