Fated to the Alpha Bear (Bear Protector #2)

Chapter 1 – EMMA

EMMA

“You owe them how much?”

I stare at my brother, Jake, across the table, waiting for the punchline. Because this has to be a joke, a really stupid one that he’s going to regret later.

He doesn’t laugh.

“That’s not a loan, Jake. That’s a truck. Or a down payment on a house.” But he has neither. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be crashing on my sofa. “What the hell did you spend it on?”

My brother won’t look at me. Just keeps tearing his napkin into smaller and smaller pieces, his thick fingers moving rhythmically as he stares at his hands, white fragments littering his plate like snow.

I stand, reaching over to snatch the remaining napkin from his fingers.

“Hey!”

I ball up the shredded remains and toss them onto the floor. “Where’s the money, Jake?”

Jake clears his throat and shifts in his seat, still refusing to meet my eye. “Gone.”

Oh my god, it’s true. He lost it all. I sink back into my seat and bury my face in my hands. This cannot be happening.

“I just need a small loan to buy me some time.” His voice is thick, heat creeping up his neck and turning his ears pink. He’s always hated asking for help. This must be killing him.

Good. He deserves to suffer for doing something so idiotic.

“A small loan?” I repeat, still struggling to fully comprehend the magnitude of what he’s telling me. “I make fifty thousand a year. Do you think I’ve been robbing banks on the side or something? That I live in this shithole for the fun of it?”

From speaking with his friends, I knew his gambling was becoming an issue, just not this bad.

“I’ve got it under control, Em.” He insists, trying a small smile to test the waters and see if he can charm his way out of this interrogation. “You know me, I always land on my feet. You don’t need to worry. I’ll pay you back soon.”

“With what?” I want to scream. Grab his face in my hands and shake some sense into him. “And what about your friends, the credit cards, the overdraft? How are you going to pay all that back?

He didn’t know that I knew about that. He stares at me, lost.

“Don’t look at me with those puppy-dog eyes.

They might work on your bookie, but they won’t work on me.

” I hiss, closing my eyes to calm my rising anxiety.

My mind spins, trying to find a way out of this mess for him, but I come up empty.

“Eighty thousand. I mean, Jake, that’s.. . that’s a ludicrous amount of money.”

“I told you, I’ll fix it.” Defensiveness creeps into his tone as he looks over his shoulder toward the front door, planning a rapid escape from this uncomfortable conversation.

He’s not going anywhere until we figure this out. Jake’s clearly delusional, but burying his head in the sand isn’t going to help.

“You can sell Mom’s jewelry. That’s probably worth a few thousand.” The words taste bitter but I push through. Now isn’t the time to be sentimental. “And Mike’s engagement ring. Lord knows, I’m never wearing that again.”

“Em, I can’t take that.” Jake’s reluctance to accept my help is grating. He came here for money. Pretending otherwise is pointless.

“You can, and you will.” I hold up a hand, counting off on my fingers. “I have about ten thousand in savings. Three years of double shifts and missed vacations, but sure, let’s forget all about that.”

Jake’s face crumples further with each item I list.

“My car might be worth two thousand if you can find a buyer who doesn’t mind the weird noise it makes when I turn left.”

Jake laughs, but his smile fades immediately when I stare at him deadpan. It wasn’t a joke.

“I can pick up extra shifts. Move to a cheaper apartment. And give you a few hundred a month.”

The silence that follows is deafening.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“I know.”

And I do. Knowing doesn’t make it hurt less to sacrifice my future plans. But he’s my brother. I love him. I’ll do whatever I can to get him out of this mess.

“But Jesus, Jake. What were you thinking?”

A beat. A long, quiet beat. “I wasn’t. That was the whole point. It helped me forget.”

Closing my eyes, I breathe in deeply.

His service has come at a cost. A massive one, it turns out.

“Guess I should have become an alcoholic like everyone else,” he says dryly, and I can’t help but laugh.

“Yeah, you couldn’t just ruin your life like a normal person? With cheap booze and bad women?”

“Go big or go home, right?” he says, one side of his mouth curling up into a sad smile, because we both know there is nothing funny about this. He’s in serious trouble.

“Will that be enough?” I ask.

The roast dinner I cooked has gone untouched, gravy congealing on our plates, turning my stomach. Neither of us moves to clear the dishes, the enormity of this situation keeping us pinned to our seats.

“It’ll have to be.” He shrugs, not exactly filling me with confidence. “And it’s more than I deserve.” Jake’s eyes land on the window again as he rocks back, staring out at the car park below. “I’ll move out tonight. I… don’t think it’s a good idea that I stay here, for your sake.”

We lock eyes, the unspoken part of that sentence hanging between us. He’s in real danger.

Tears spring to my eyes. There’ll be no talking Jake out of leaving. Not if he really thinks something might happen to me.

“But where are you going to go?”

Damn him. He’s all I’ve got, and now this. I thought once he left the service, I could stop worrying about him.

He waves away my concern with false bravado. “Chase is giving me a job. I’ll get free accommodations along with it.”

The bald-faced lie feels like a slap in the face.

“Don’t fucking bullshit me, Jake. Not when you’re asking me to empty my bank account to get you out of this shitshow.”

My voice rises hysterically, and I slam my palm down, hard, on the table, rattling the cutlery and glassware. I don’t think Jake has ever heard me so angry.

He leans back in his chair, eyes wide, stunned at my sudden outburst.

“How did you find out? About the gambling,” he asks quietly.

“I called some of your friends, invited them over for dinner and a few beers for your birthday. You’ve seemed a bit down lately, and I thought you needed some fun.” I chuckle darkly. “But maybe that’s the problem; you’ve been having too much fun.”

I push my plate aside and rest my arms on the scarred wood, staring at the tiny, raised line on the inside of my elbow, earned when he knocked me out of the tree we were building a fort in. I still give him shit over it. I guess I have new ammunition now.

“What did they tell you?” Jake’s expression is blank, and his tone is flat.

He already knows.

“They told me the truth. Which is that most of them don’t want to talk to you ever again, let alone have a beer with you.”

Jake presses his lips together but doesn’t look surprised.

“Said you borrowed money and then ghosted them.”

It’s hard to believe that was my brother they were talking about. He was always the good guy, mister popular, loved by all. At first, it was hard to believe they were serious, but when you hear the same sorry tale repeated over and over, it’s hard to keep denying it.

“Some said they even set up job interviews for you, but then you never showed up . Even Chase, who loves you like a brother, is done with you until you get some help.”

Jake’s hands still. “He said that?”

I nod, recalling the painful conversation that opened my eyes to just how bad things had become for my only sibling.

“He said this should be an intervention, not a party.” I slump back in my chair. “I said no, but I didn’t have any idea it was this bad, either. Now I’m thinking I chose wrong.”

I turn my hands palms up, exasperated with his emotionless expression that’s now testing my patience. “I don’t know what to do.”

Shaking his head, he reaches for his beer and takes a long swig, eyes travelling to the window once more. “You don’t need to do anything. This is my mess. I’ll sort it out.”

A glance at his watch. Toes tapping under the table. Knee bouncing.

He’s thirty years old but looks tired. He’s still built like the soldier he used to be, but there are shadows under his eyes that weren’t there before.

“So, if I give you some money and buy you some time, how do you pay back the rest?” I stand, needing to move, to do something with the nervous energy crawling under my skin.

The kitchen is barely ten steps across, but I pace it anyway.

“I have a feeling he’s not going to let you pay it back over five years. ”

Jake’s head drops, chin nearly touching his chest. When he speaks, his voice is barely above a whisper. “No.”

“Then, what?” Even though I already know what he’s about to tell me, I need to hear him say it. He deserves to suffer at least that much for feeding me his bullshit.

“I’ll probably have to… work it off if I can’t come up with it another way.” He still won’t look at me, addressing his confession to the table.

Work it off.

I presume he’s not talking about washing dishes.

“Jake… you can’t…” Disappointment claws at my throat as I fight back tears. This isn’t my brother. I don’t even recognise this version sitting in front of me.

Is he really going to become a criminal? He’s the only family I have. I only just got him back from the army. I can’t lose him again.

“I don’t have a choice.” He insists.

“You could go to the police. You could…”

“And tell them what? That I owe money to a loan shark for my illegal gambling addiction? They’ll laugh me out of the station, and Kozlov will kill me.

” He finally meets my eyes, and the defeat there makes my chest ache.

“Emma, these people don’t play by normal rules. The police can’t help me. No one can.”

“So, now you’re going to become one of them?”

His silence stretches too long. Not the good kind.

“Maybe if we go to them together and explain…”

Jake comes around the table and grips my arms. “No.” Even with his shoes off, he towers over me. “You don’t understand who these people are. You are not to go anywhere near them. Do you hear me, Em?”

I nod, stunned by the terror in his eyes. Who even are these people?

When Jake relaxes his grip, I hurry to my room, grab the jewelry I’ll happily sacrifice to keep my brother alive, and then drop the items into a pouch, holding it out for him to come and take.

Jake shakes his head, his body language screaming of self-loathing and shame.

“Take it. Mom would want you to, if it keeps all of your fingers attached to your hands.”

It was meant to be a joke, but it doesn’t land that way, both of us knowing that outcome is a distinct possibility if these are the kind of people he thinks they are.

“I should go,” he mutters, backing away.

“Stay. Please.” My voice cracks, and it feels like if he walks out that door, I’ll never see him again. At least, not alive anyway. “We can go and get the money out together when the bank opens.”

He reaches for the deadbolt, his hand pausing on the lock, body language defeated. “Thanks, Em. But I just… I can’t drag you down with me. I’ll call you in the morning.”

The way he says it makes my skin prickle, my senses tingling. He doesn’t think he’s coming back either.

“Wait.”

Footsteps outside make both of us pause. Jake waves a hand, gesturing for me to stand behind him just as a loud thud fills the room.

The door doesn’t burst open so much as it explodes inward, the deadbolt splintering the frame as if it’s made of paper instead of reinforced steel.

Three men file through the doorway. Two flank the entrance while the third sweeps the apartment with cold efficiency. They’re not hurrying, not worried about noise or neighbours, or someone calling the cops. That tells me more about who we’re dealing with than anything Jake’s said tonight.

“What the…?” I start to speak, but when I glance at Jake, he gives me a sharp look and shakes his head, warning me to stay quiet.

He knows these men, and he isn’t surprised to see them.

Walking in once his men give the all-clear is a fourth man. Clearly the boss, he’s average height, with salt and pepper hair, and an expensive suit that would look classy, except that it’s paired with a giant, gaudy watch, deep sunbed tan, and far too much aftershave.

After taking in my now-destroyed modest apartment with barely concealed disdain, he returns his cool gaze to us, but as his emotionless blue eyes sweep over me, dread slithers down my spine.

This is not a man who’s going to agree to a payment plan.

“Kozlov,” Jake says quietly in greeting, eyes darting between the main man and his goons who’ve now positioned themselves like bouncers inside my front door.

Kozlov tilts his head and gives my brother a chilling smile, terrifying enough to make me grab onto the back of Jake’s shirt as a shiver passes through me.

“So, this is where you’ve been hiding.”