Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
VIDAR
Ipaced the length of the Persian rug, my shoes digging into the weave. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the grainy footage of Addie being hauled into that car. Every time the image shifted—merging with the memory of twenty years ago.
I remembered the blood on my father’s shirt.
I remembered the way the man my father had called brother had smiled while his snipers took out the enforcers guarding our perimeter.
The cowardice of bringing bullets to an Alpha challenge instead of his own claws.
That's what the next generation would snicker about for years to come. What stuck in my maw was the betrayal.
I'd learned a valuable lesson that day as my brothers and I stood at our father's back as we took out the gunmen and my father decapitated the traitor: blood was the only currency that didn't devalue.
I stopped in front of Elias. The boy was staring at the screen. He wasn't blood. He was a Vane. He was the brother of the woman who had just slipped through my fingers. He was the one who had been whispering to her in the darkness of a private server.
"Was this part of your plan?" I rasped, the words catching in my throat like jagged glass. "You were going to help her leave me."
"Addie isn't yours." Elias stood up, shoulders back and chest puffing out, the glimmer of an alpha in his eyes. "She’s a person, not a—"
I didn't let him finish. The rage, cold and blinding, snapped my arm forward. My fist caught him square in the jaw. It wasn't my full strength—I would have snapped his neck—but it was enough to send him reeling back against the desk.
To my surprise, the boy didn't cower. He let out a choked sound of fury and lunged back at me, swinging a wild, desperate punch that caught me grazing the temple. I grabbed him by the throat, pinning him to the wall, my claws pricking the skin of his neck.
"Enough!"
My father stepped forward, his eyes fixed on Elias. He didn't look angry; he looked... impressed. Fenrir reached out and moved my hand away from the boy’s throat. Then, he did something that made my blood boil: he patted Elias on the shoulder.
"Good lad," Fenrir murmured. "You’ve got a spine after all. Now, get back to that machine and hack it or whatever you do. We're all on the same side. We all want to find our girl."
Elias wiped a smear of blood from his lip. He gave me one last defiant look and retreated to the terminal.
"What was that?" I hissed at my father. "He’s a Vane. He was helping her betray us. Have you forgotten what happens when you let an outsider into the den?"
Fenrir turned to me, his expression softening into something weary and ancient. He walked over and sat on the edge of the conference table. It wasn't out of hearing shot of Elias. Not with his wolf's hearing. But my father didn't see the boy as a threat.
"I haven't forgotten a single drop of blood, Vidar. Friends are the family you choose." He shrugged. "Sometimes you choose wrong. That is the risk of being alive."
"You always say blood is everything."
"You can't choose your family either. The Vane children didn't choose to be sired by a coward like Adolphus. Those Lupetto boys didn't choose a fossil like Dante. Do you know what children like that want more than anything?"
Fenrir reached up, his large, calloused hand patting my cheek with a rough affection that made me feel ten years old again.
"They want what you have," he said, his voice dropping to a gravelly low.
"They want a father who makes them tough but hugs them hard.
They want a mother who fills their bellies and will spank their asses if they do wrong.
They are starving for it, Vidar. Don't forget that when you’re looking at that boy—or your wife. "
I looked toward the far end of the room, where Elias was typing. Or pretending to type. His fingers had slowed, but his gaze remained on the screen. His face expressionless.
My face was a blaring sign of weariness. The sting of my father's words had hit harder than the boy's punch ever could.
"Addie ran because she didn't know she has a family now, one she can rely on." Fenrir leaned back, looking up at me. His words made me feel ten inches tall. "Now, are you going to stand here and sulk about an old wound, or are you going to go help your brothers bring your wife home?"
I took two steps back, and my phone rang. The caller ID showed my brother's name. I answered immediately.
"We have her."