Chapter 36 Hayes
Hayes
My father’s office always smells of stale cigar smoke and self-importance. Heavy. Suffocating. The walls are lined with all his speeches that went on too long and did absolutely nothing. You breathe it in and instantly feel smaller.
The oxygen’s already been claimed by generations of Whitlock-approved monologues, the air thick enough to chew. That grandfather clock in the corner ticks, counting down to my execution, and the leather chairs groans when I shift.
My collar feels too tight, my tie is nothing but a noose, and suddenly I’m sixteen again. Sitting here after practice, sweat still clinging to my hair while he dismantles me one choice at a time.
The blinds are drawn, letting in just enough light to paint the room in dull stripes of gray. His desk looms, a slab of oak that was carved out of a single tree just to prove a point about permanence. A museum piece for his ego.
He’s already in full swing when I turn my attention toward him, pulling it up from my lap. My head is bowed, like I’m a teenager waiting to be scolded. Of course, he already knows how he’s going to tear me down. My father doesn’t waste time on greetings when there’s a lecture to deliver.
“…and what I will not allow,” he’s saying, pounding one hand against the desk, “is another scandal. Do you hear me, Hayes? I will not have you undoing years of work because you can’t keep your impulses in check. You’re a Beta, for crying out loud. This shouldn’t be a thing.”
Every word rattles the picture frames on his credenza. Him with governors. Him with senators. Him shaking hands with people who probably couldn’t pick him out of a lineup now. A shrine to his imagined greatness.
All of it in his head.
It’s the first time I’ve ever realized that.
I keep my expression neutral. I’ve had years of practice. I lace my fingers together in my lap, straighten my tie. The perfect “obedient son” posture.
At least for now.
“I understand,” I say, smooth and polite.
But my jaw hurts from how hard I’m grinding it.
He narrows his eyes. He can smell the rebellion brewing under my skin.
“No, I don’t think you do. I’m hearing things, you know.
I think you forget that I always hear things.
” He leans forward, voice dropping into that dangerous, measured tone that used to make me flinch as a kid.
“Whispers. About you and that Lo Marsh. Again. Haven’t I already told you to keep away from that criminal?
Have I not made myself clear enough for your thick-headed Beta status? ”
He spits Lo’s name like it burned his tongue.
“And not just her.” He keeps going, relentless. “The firefighter. The joke of a carpenter. You’ve entangled yourself with all of them, haven’t you?”
Entangled.
As if it’s something dirty. Like I didn’t choose it.
But the word lights up in my chest, bright and defiant, because he doesn’t know what it means.
“Entangled” is Lo’s fingers threading through mine on the walk home.
Beck’s shoulder solid against my spine when the world is tilting.
Ford’s voice humming low in the garage, warm enough to thaw the ice in my veins.
If that’s entanglement, I’ll wear it as armor.
Once, that word would’ve landed as a blow. I would’ve flinched, scrambled to deny, to prove myself “responsible” enough to earn a nod of approval I’d never get.
But right now? All I feel is the slow rise of something I’ve spent years tamping down.
Defiance. Rage.
Because yeah, I’m entangled. With people who see me.
With people who make this suffocating town somewhere I could belong to it and not just manage.
With Lo, whose laugh makes the walls in my head crack open.
With Beck, whose steadiness is the only anchor I’ve ever had.
With Ford, who drags sunlight into places I thought were permanently closed.
And my father can’t stand it.
Because he doesn’t know what that’s like.
This is why I never told him about my pack in the first place. How can he understand something he’s never had himself?
He’s furious because I’ve stopped being his perfect little shadow and started being a person.
“Do you know what that looks like?” he presses, jabbing the air with a finger.
“Do you know what people are saying about me? About this office? About our family? You think that screams leadership? You think that makes you look stable? Responsible? You work for the mayor, Hayes. You’re an upstanding citizen who can go far if you actually try. ”
My father leans back in his chair, nostrils flaring, as if he’s delivered the final blow. As if the weight of his disappointment should be enough to fold me in half.
Once, it might have been.
But now, all I can think about is Lo’s eyes in the crowd when she stumbled back into this town. Stormy, unflinching. Alive, despite everything. I think about Beck, handing me coffee when he knows I’m drowning. I think about Ford, laughing like the world doesn’t get to own him anymore.
Scandal? No. That’s life. That’s choice.
That’s mine.
I straighten in my chair. My father notices immediately, his eyes narrowing. Preparing for a fight.
“You’re right,” I say finally. “It doesn’t look responsible.”
He smirks, already certain he’s won.
“It looks human,” I add.
The smirk vanishes. “What did you just say?”
“I said,” I repeat, sharper now, “it looks human. You should try it sometime.”
The silence hangs for all of two seconds before my father shoots to his feet, hands braced on the desk, about to launch across it.
“Don’t you dare take that tone with me, boy,” he snarls. “You think you’re clever? You think you’re some kind of rebel because you mouth off once in your life? You’re nothing without your job. Without me. Don’t you dare forget that.”
My pulse hammers, but I don’t flinch. Not this time. “Maybe I don’t want to be judged by my job anymore.”
His face reddens so fast I almost hear it, the tightening of his skin in shock. “Excuse me?”
“I said,” I bite out, louder now, “maybe I don’t want the life you chose for me.”
“You don’t get to decide that!” he explodes as he slams his fists into his desk, knocking over one of his precious pictures. “You’re my son. You carry my name. You don’t get to walk away because you’re chasing after some pathetic little fantasy with a disgraced Omega and her strays—”
It’s my turn to shoot to my feet. “Don’t you dare talk about them like that.”
The words snap out of me before I can stop them, sharp as glass. His eyes widen a fraction, shock that I interrupted him at all, but then the fury doubles.
“They’re nothing,” he spits. “Do you understand? Nothing. Parasites. Dead weight. They will drag you down until you’re nothing, too. You think the town respects you now? They don’t. They laugh at you. They see you slumming it, and they laugh.”
My nails dig crescents into my palms. “You don’t know a damn thing about them.”
“I know enough,” he sneers. “The whole town does. And you want to ruin your future for what? For them? For her?”
And that’s it. The dam cracks.
I move so fast that the chair topples behind me.
The slam of my hands into the other side of his desk as I mock his posture makes him flinch, and for once, I don’t care.
In fact, I take pride in it, in being able to rattle my father this way.
My voice shakes, not from fear but from the force of everything I’ve shoved down for years, finally ripping its way out.
“My future?” I say. My voice is deathly quiet. “You mean your future. Your reputation. Your image. Every choice I’ve ever made, you’ve twisted into something to benefit you. You never gave a damn what I wanted. Not once. And that stops today. I’m done pleasing a man that can’t be pleased.”
“Because what you want doesn’t matter!” he roars back. His face is red, veins standing out in his neck. “You are nothing without discipline, without duty, without this family name! Without me, you’re just another nobody in this town. Don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise.”
My chest is heaving now, adrenaline burning hot through every vein. I won’t let him get the better of me. I keep my voice even. “Good,” I say slowly, so that he can digest every letter. “Then I’d rather be a nobody. At least then it would be mine.”
He falters. Just for a breath. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him falter before. I relish it.
Then his fury surges again, louder, uglier. “You ungrateful little—”
“No.” I shake my head as I raise up and slide my hands down the front of my shirt. “I’m done.”
The word rings in the air, heavier than any speech he’s ever given.
“You wouldn’t dare,” he hisses.
“I’ll quit,” I tell him as my gaze finds his. “I’ll do it in a heartbeat because I’m done being your connection, your mouthpiece to this town. I’m not going to spend one more second living your life instead of mine.”
His face goes slack. Shock. Rage. Disbelief, all fighting for space. “You can’t just—”
“Watch me.”
I turn away from his desk, my heartbeat thundering as loud as a stadium of applause in my ears.
“You’ll regret this!” he barks behind me.
“Maybe,” I say without even looking back at him. “But at least it’ll be my mistake.”
Then I open his office door and walk out, leaving the smell of stale whiskey and self-importance behind me for good.
My father’s voice is still ringing in my skull when the door crashes closed behind me. The hall outside feels cooler, lighter. Oxygen has finally seeped back into my lungs.
My legs carry me before I’ve even decided where I’m going. Past the portraits of past mayors, past the framed proclamations about “community values” that never felt like mine. My heartbeat’s still thunder in my ears, every step a drumbeat counting down to something inevitable.
Peter Holloway’s office.
The mayor of Honeysuckle Grove.
I don’t knock. I just push the door open, breath still ragged, tie askew from my father’s explosion.
Peter looks up from a stack of papers. His eyebrows lift, not in anger, but in concern. He’s got that expression, half calm, half bracing, for whatever disaster just walked in. He sets his pen down.
“Hayes,” he says carefully. “What’s happened?”
My tie’s crooked, collar askew. I barely even notice. Or maybe I just no longer care. My palms still tremble, little aftershocks of what just happened, but when Peter looks at me, there’s no judgment in his eyes.
I close the door behind me. “I’m resigning.”
The words hit the room hard.
Peter leans back in his chair, studying me. Not with my father’s suspicion or fury, but with something quieter. Sadder.
“You’re sure,” he says finally. Not a question so much as an opening.
“Yes.” My throat feels scraped raw, but I keep going. “I should’ve done it months ago. Maybe years. I’ve been pretending this job, this path, was mine. But it’s not. It never was.”
Peter’s silent for a beat. Then he exhales, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “I can’t say I didn’t see this coming.”
That throws me for a second. “You… what?”
His mouth quirks in a tired sort of smile.
“You’ve been carrying yourself like a man on borrowed time for a while now.
Bending to the whims of your father. You think I can’t hear the way he speaks to you in his office?
We’re only two doors down from each other.
Don’t get me wrong, you’ve done good work.
Got sharp instincts. But your heart wasn’t here.
Not really. And I’d be a fool to pretend I didn’t notice.
I mean, I want to keep you around, obviously.
But I also won’t hold you back from what you want to do with your life, no matter what. ”
The lump in my throat tightens. “I don’t want to let you down.”
That draws a wince out of him. He stands, rounds the desk, and rests a hand on my shoulder. Solid. Kind. Nothing like my father’s crushing grip. “Hayes. You never could.”
The words nearly undo me.
Peter’s gaze is steady, searching. “I’m disappointed, yes. I had hopes for you here. But I’m not angry. You’ve given this town a lot. More than most people know. If you’ve found something else that matters more? That’s not failure. That’s living.”
For a second, my vision blurs. I blink hard, drag in a breath, and nod. “Thank you. Really.”
Peter squeezes my shoulder once, then lets go. “So, what’s next?”
And here’s the thing: I don’t know. Not in the tidy, bullet-point way he probably expects. But I know it won’t be dictated by cigar smoke and oak desks any longer.
I know it’ll be mine.
I straighten my tie, more out of habit than anything else, and meet his eyes. “Whatever it is, it won’t be in this office.”
Peter studies me for another moment, then nods. “Fair enough. Just don’t disappear, Whitlock. This town still needs you, even if it’s not in a suit and tie.”
“I won’t,” I promise.
And this time, it feels true.
I shake his hand, firm, final, and walk out.
The hallway stretches ahead, bright with late afternoon sun filtering through the windows. I’m no longer trapped inside these walls. I’m free.
But then, I feel Lo rising up within me. That strangled panic that I’ve tried so hard to get used to. Her essence in my soul and in my chest is a raging ocean of water, ebbing and flowing. Only this time, it’s a waterspout of anxiety, churning and twirling and twisting.
Something’s wrong.
I dig my phone out of my pocket, ready to call her and ask what’s going on. Ready to text the pack and tell everyone what I’ve just done. But a text from Beck stops me in my tracks.
Beck: Lo has received threats from Dylan again. Picture evidence of the fact that he set the fire at the townhouse. I’m taking her to your place.
Shit.
All the heat burns out of me.
I need to get home. I need to get to my pack.
I need to get to my Omega.