15. Learning To Trust #2
His praise was sharper than Blake’s, less about what I’d done and more about what it cost me to do it.
He watched me from across the kitchen, glass of scotch in hand, not smiling but also not looking away.
I could feel his gaze prying into all the soft, self-doubting places inside me, and when the others finally peeled away for the night, he stood near the window, backlit by the porch light and waiting for me to make the first move.
I remember the way my hands shook as I approached, the push-pull of anxiety and anticipation.
He didn’t say hello. Just nodded at the paperwork I’d already begun to organize on the counter.
"Blake’s right—you’re exactly what we need," he murmured, his tone warm but edged.
"Not just pretty, not just accommodating. You see the holes in the foundation."
He sipped his drink, considering, then added, "It’s rare, you know. For someone like you to be both ornamental and essential."
I wanted to tell him to fuck off. To say I'd never asked to be ornamental, that my usefulness wasn't a surprise to me and shouldn't be to anyone else. But instead I just flushed, hoping the anger masked the elation underneath. I’d been so starved for validation that even a backhanded compliment felt like a benediction.
Liam, the Iron Ridge Second, never wasted time with fluffy motivational speeches or empty praise.
His brand of validation cut straight to the vulnerable marrow, as if he delighted in finding the places you’d spent your whole life protecting and then lighting them up with a single, surgical compliment.
That first week, after I’d wrestled their fucked-up balance sheets into submission and mapped out bailout scenarios that didn’t involve mortgaging the whole ranch to special-interest packs, Liam stood in the kitchen at midnight waiting for me to finish tallying receipts.
He didn’t even bother with a greeting—just tossed back a swallow of bourbon, watched me from across the room, and said, “Your mind’s wasted on backwater outfits like this, you know.
You could be running circles around the city packs.
They wouldn’t see you coming until you had their assets by the throat. ”
He left the words hanging there, as if they ought to shame me, but I just tucked them away with the rest of his offhand assessments—small, jagged tokens I carried like a gambler’s lucky chip.
I knew what he meant, and he wasn’t wrong: I could have done better.
But I’d chosen Iron Ridge.
Chosen this pack that was halfway to ruin, chose to tie my fate to theirs because I liked underdogs and because, if I was being honest, I was scared of what I might become if I ever went back to the city.
Here, incompetence at least had the decency to show its face. In the city, the masks were prettier and the knives sharper.
Still, Liam’s approval tasted sweet, even when laced with condescension.
The venom in it only made me crave more. I craved it the way I always craved a challenge, the way some Omegas craved lullabies or a strong arm slung over their shoulder.
Every time he acknowledged me in front of the others—tossing me a dry “good catch” when I flagged a risky supplier, or a “your numbers check out” when I forecasted profit curves better than their fancy consultants—it was like getting a gold star from a teacher I’d always wanted to impress.
Sometimes, when the rest of the house was asleep, I’d catch him out on the porch, quietly rolling a cigarette or just leaning against the banister, eyes on the distant ridgeline.
He never invited conversation, but he also never sent me away.
I’d stand beside him, both of us silent, our breath fogging in the mountain cold, and if he said anything at all it was always something that sliced to the core—“You’re working too hard,” or “You bleed for these people more than they’d ever bleed for you. ”
It should have hurt.
Instead it felt like permission, like a dare to keep proving him wrong. Or right. I’m still not sure which I wanted more.
The next morning after my first successful audit, he’d left a mug of black coffee on my desk, no note, but the message clear: You earned this.
When I’d shown up to the breakfast table, Jude and Hayden were already ribbing Blake about “outsmarting the whole damn county” by signing me, and Hayden, never one to miss a chance for theatrics, had actually stood and tried to start a slow clap.
I’d wanted to disappear. Liam just raised an eyebrow, and I knew the performance was for me as much as for anyone else. I’d belonged, at least for the morning.
Over the months, Liam’s mentorship turned from sharp-edged to something almost fatherly, in a feral, pack-specific way.
He’d critique my strategies with the intensity of a chess master, always pushing me to anticipate the next three moves, always reminding me that the wolves outside were hungrier than the ones at home.
“Don’t think because you’re ours, you’re safe,” he said once, late in my first year.
“Everyone’s waiting for you to slip up. Don’t give them the satisfaction. ”
I never did slip, not when they were watching.
Instead, I became exactly what they needed, and sometimes—alone in the dark with my own thoughts—I wondered if I’d ever stop needing to be needed.
Hayden was the one who first decided I should be paraded.
At the time, it felt almost like an inside joke between just the two of us—how he'd catch my eye across a crowded pack-hall, waggle his brows, and then announce with theatrical flourish that "the brains behind Iron Ridge has arrived.
" But as months wore on, he seemed to enjoy the escalation, each public display a little bolder, a little more performative, until I became something of a legend in the insular, petty circles of regional pack society.
At every quarterly council or livestock co-op negotiation, Hayden would arrive with a hand at the small of my back, making sure everyone saw it: I was not just his packmate, not just an Omega, but the one who saved them all from oblivion.
He told everyone I was their secret weapon.
Sometimes he’d use that exact phrase, sometimes he’d riff on it—“our insurance policy,” “our walking bailout,” “the best thing to happen to Iron Ridge since indoor plumbing.” There was pride in it, of course, but also a layer of possessiveness that sometimes made my skin crawl.
To him, it was a friendly boast. To others, I started to feel like a novelty, a sort of rare breed only Iron Ridge could have produced.
Once, at a summit in Bozeman, he’d tipped back a shot of bourbon and declared, “Willa James: the only Omega I know who can bankrupt you with a spreadsheet and bury you under the paperwork.” The whole table laughed, and I forced a smile, even as my cheeks burned.
When I tried to brush him off, to point out I was only doing what any competent adult—or decently-trained finance grad—would have done, Hayden would just shake his head and repeat his favorite refrain: “Not just a pretty face,” he’d say, as if I were a show dog who’d learned to do arithmetic, “Our Willa’s got a brain that could rival any Alpha’s.
Fixed our finances in three months flat.
” Sometimes I caught him looking at me sideways, as if he expected me to be insulted by the compliment, but mostly I just let it wash over.
In his way, Hayden meant it as the highest form of praise: to be the secret weapon was to be indispensable.
In the world we inherited, that was as good as indestructible.
For Hayden, being seen was everything. He lived for pack-wide poker nights, bonfire parties, county fairs where he could wear his best boots and get recognized by people in three counties.
He’d pull me up on makeshift stages to help call raffle numbers or hand out blue ribbons, always leaning in close enough to let the rumors start themselves.
“Just giving the people what they want,” he’d joke to me, though he never quite said what, precisely, he thought that was.
I think a part of him liked the idea of being the first to find value in me, as if my success was in some way a testament to his own good instincts.
Like an Alpha in all but the title, collecting broken things and making them shine.
Under Hayden’s influence, I became the kind of person other packs whispered about.
There were rumors I’d been imported from the city like some kind of luxury good, that I’d masterminded mergers back East, that my last pack had been driven to ruin by my ambition.
Hayden loved these stories and never bothered correcting them.
“Let them think you’re a shark,” he’d say with a wink.
“Better than them thinking you’re prey.” In public, he played up the myth, but behind closed doors, he’d sometimes break the act—just for a minute—long enough to admit he was glad I’d stuck around.
That he liked having someone on his level to talk schemes with, someone who didn’t wilt when he upped the stakes.
It wasn’t always so simple, of course. There were times I caught the disapproval in Hayden’s eyes when I overstepped, when my ideas threatened to eclipse his own.
Those moments always passed quickly, replaced by a louder, brasher version of his usual praise, but I could feel the undertow beneath.
If Iron Ridge was his kingdom, I was the queen he’d only meant to install as a figurehead—and sometimes, even to my own surprise, I wanted the throne for myself.
Hayden seemed to sense it too. Once, after a brutal round of budget cuts, he’d cornered me in the kitchen and said, “Careful, Willa. You’re starting to sound like a real Alpha.
” His tone was light, but his eyes were not.
For a heartbeat, I wondered if he’d ever really meant to share power at all.