Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
Emily
The cottage door doesn’t close before Jared starts up again.
“He had no right.” His boots are loud as he kicks them off in the entryway.
He paces from the door to the living room and back, his hands opening and closing at his sides. “No legal right, no moral right, nothing. I’m going to find him.”
“He’s not hiding.” Leif moves past him toward the kitchen, possessive anger hardening his features in a way that doesn’t belong to the man I know. “He said it himself, didn’t he? That he wasn’t done with Emily?”
I don’t join their conversation as my feet carry me down the hallway, past boxes labeled kitchen, bedroom, or office in black marker.
The closet door sticks when I pull it open. Inside, the rod is empty, the shelf above it stripped down to only one remaining item. The gray metal fireproof box sits where I left it when I packed everything else away.
It’s heavy as I lift it down and carry it back to the dining table, where I set it down along with the Petition for Expulsion.
The black latch cracks when I pop it, and the sound cuts through whatever Grady is saying to Jared near the window.
As I sort through the documents inside, he leaves the young Alpha to come join me and pulls out the chair beside me. “What are you searching for?”
“Proof.”
I lift out a folder labeled House, setting it aside before reaching for another marked Pack Registration in my own handwriting.
“When Auren took over the paperwork, I stopped dealing with the Registration Office.” I flip open the folder. “He said it made more sense for him to handle all the administrative work, since I was so busy, and he was the head of the pack, anyway.”
Jared snorts from across the room. “Convenient.”
“At the time, I thought so, too. But I took it as a sign that he…” My hands shake, and I force them back to steady. “I thought it was a sign he was serious about our pack, and he had administrative experience. He handled billing for the side jobs I took on, too.”
I don’t even want to find out how much he stole from those. I’ll save that for after this current problem is resolved.
Inside the folder, everything is exactly where I remember leaving it. Carbon copies of checks. Registration forms. Sponsorship forms. Receipts. Copies of correspondence I’d almost forgotten I’d kept.
“I never handed money to the county.” I set the first stack on the table. “I wrote checks to Auren. He was supposed to submit the paperwork and the filing fees.”
Grady picks up the first carbon copy.
Pay to the Order of: Auren Dovelle.
Memo: Expulsion from the Lavender Pack Filing Fee.
“You kept the check copies?”
“My first boss always insisted on keeping copies of everything.” I smile despite myself. “He said you never know when clients will demand proof of how their money was spent years down the line.”
Another stack follows.
“This one’s for buying him out of the house.”
The amount still turns my stomach. Years of savings and working side jobs. Every spare dollar I’d managed to put away, and still, I needed a second mortgage.
“And these are…” I pull out two more carbon copies clipped together. “The sponsorship fees for Mark and Jacob that I paid.”
From his spot at the counter, Leif raises an eyebrow. “The two Alphas Auren cheated on you with?”
My shoulders slump. “It wasn’t cheating. I knew he was bringing them home. I made them breakfast, for fuck’s sake.”
“It was cheating,” Jared grits out. “He had you so beat down that there’s no way you would have objected. Anything to make him happy.”
“It was cheating,” I agree, because even though I had allowed it, I had objected.
At the beginning.
“But it made sense at the time, when Auren said I was too busy to help run the pack, and that he needed more Alpha support.” I shake my head. “I paid the sponsorship fees because he insisted Mark and Jacob were necessary for the health of our pack.”
Grady turns over one of the pages beneath the checks. “These look official.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know how he did it.”
I slip the receipt free. It sports a county seal embossed in the corner, a receipt number, and a clerk’s signature. Everything about it appears legitimate.
“He gave me one every time he filed something.”
“Except he never filed any of it.” Jared’s jaw tightens. “The snake was probably sleeping with someone at the registrar’s office, too.”
I flinch. “Probably.”
The color drains from him, and he hurries over. “Em, I’m sorry. I’m just so angry right now.” He nuzzles my cheek. “None of this is your fault. He had years to manipulate you, and pheromones on his side, and he’s objectively very pretty in a breakable kind of way.”
“It’s okay.” I reach up to run my fingers through Jared’s hair. “I was young and an easy target, desperate for a pack.”
“You’ll have a pack.” He peppers kisses over my neck and temples. “The right one. Grady and Dom are going to see it through. Right?”
“Right.” Dominic goes through everything. “But the checks aren’t enough.”
Jared and I separate, and dismay settles over me at the sight of all my evidence, but Jared’s the one who asks the question on both our minds.
“Why not?”
“Because all they prove is that you paid him.” Grady turns to Leif. “Go hook the printer back up. We need to print the bank records showing every one of these checks cleared and that Auren deposited them.”
I look down at the neat stacks covering the table. “If the Registration Office says they never received the filings…” I tap the forged receipts with one finger. “…then Auren didn’t just lie to me.”
Dominic gives a chilling smile. “He stole the filing fees and forged government receipts. That’s illegal. He’s not getting away with this.”
As I work on printing out everything Grady and Dominic say I need, a knock sounds on the front door. Everyone freezes for a heartbeat as we all have the same thought. But surely Auren wouldn’t show up now.
Jared starts to stomp toward the entry before Leif pulls him back and goes to answer the door instead.
Blake sweeps into the cottage, two foil-covered trays balanced on his forearms, his brown hair loose around his shoulders. “Food has arrived.”
Holden follows with a handled bag that releases the scent of roasted garlic and sourdough bread. “If our new pack members won’t come to the feast, then the feast will come to them.”
Chloe waddles in on Nathaniel’s arm, a cake box balanced on her forearm. She sets the box down on the table, takes in the paperwork, and moves to the far end without being asked.
Quinn darts past everyone’s legs, a streak of brown hair and a yellow dress, and Sprinkles follows at her heels, his massive paws skidding on the hardwood. The dog heads straight for the table, his nose stretching toward the papers.
Blake catches him by the collar, which bears a yellow bow tie. “Not now, buddy. Back.”
Kyle comes in last, carrying a box of wine. “Hey, heard you might need some reinforcements.”
Jared closes the door. “What are you guys doing here?”
“Dominic let us know what happened.” Chloe eases herself into a chair. “We figured you wouldn’t be in the right mindset to feed yourself, and since Holden had already put together this feast, we just packed it up and brought it over.”
Emily’s brow furrows. “What about the Homestead?”
“Can’t get on the island if there’s no boat to take them there.” Kyle carries the box of wine into the kitchen and whistles. “Good thing we brought paper plates and cups. You guys really are ready to move tomorrow.”
“We’ve been motivated.” Jared joins his cousin, and their quiet murmurs drift out as Jared catches him up on what happened.
Nathaniel goes around, gathering coats to pile on the hooks by the door while Blake and Holden unpack the food and load up plates.
Leif brings me, Dominic, and Grady white paper cups of wine and water for Chloe as I keep working, the sound of the printer whirring from where Leif set it up on the sideboard behind me.
Grady sips his wine as he picks up my settlement agreement for leaving the Lavender Pack. “The buyout for his half of the cottage was written into the expulsion agreement, right?”
“Yeah.” I rub my temples. “At least I know for a fact that his name isn’t on my loans. We won’t have a problem selling this place and paying off the mortgages.”
Dominic takes the papers from Grady and scans the relevant clause. “The settlement was structured around your removal from the pack. He accepted payment for a legal outcome he never delivered.”
My chin comes up. “What’s that mean for me?”
“Let’s have the pack lawyers review everything first,” he pulls out his phone. “I don’t want to give you any false hope.”
Dominic steps away from the table, already tapping through his contacts.
Holden sets a plate in front of me that holds a lobster roll, chowder in a paper bowl, and two pieces of smoked salmon arranged as neatly as if we were sitting at the Homestead instead of surrounded by moving boxes.
“Eat,” he says. “No reason to risk a hangover by drinking on an empty stomach when you’re moving first thing in the morning. Our hill is no joke.”
I stare at the food Jared spent all morning predicting, and guilt settles beneath my ribs. “This was supposed to be a welcome celebration.”
“It still is,” Nathaniel says.
Jared abandons Kyle in the kitchen and drops into the chair opposite me, his feet finding mine under the table. “Don’t let Auren ruin this for us, Em. We joined the Wrights today.”
“Technically, you and Grady joined them.”
His features harden. “Don’t.”
Leif comes up behind me to massage my shoulders. “Auren managed to delay the paperwork. That’s all.”
Around us, Blake is keeping Sprinkles away from the food while Holden is passing out more plates, Chloe is already trying to open the cake box, and Nathaniel is keeping his pregnant mate at bay.
I look around the crowded cottage, at people sitting on boxes where they can’t fit at the table, eating a meal prepared with care.
Even Dominic, who paces near the front window while on the phone, holds a cup of wine.
Today may not have gone the way we hoped, but it still brought us to the same place. Together.
The county registry still says I belong to Auren, but I know better.
Auren can’t take my pack from me this time.