Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-six
brYCE
“Did you ever think that maybe she’s going to realize the game’s up and run, rather than go after Tom?
” Matt asked, his voice low as he leaned in to where Bryce was grasping the arms of his seat, his right leg jiggling wildly in an attempt to dispel the tension that was gripping him as he willed the pilot to fly faster.
“Because if he knows, that means we must know, which means the whole thing’s been blown wide open.
There’s no way she can cover it up now. She’s got to know that. ”
“You’re willing to risk Tom’s life on maybe?” Bryce snarled.
Matt’s lips twisted. “You know I’m not, which is why I’m sitting next to you on an airplane, and Jesse’s charming the attendant out of more pretzels somewhere in the back.”
Even with urgency thick in the air, Jesse’s eyes had brightened on learning that flying meant free food. “Not what I’d call free,” Matt had muttered, because to get three seats at the last minute he’d had to buy first class.
“You know Riley’s going to be calling his office until he answers,” Matt continued, his tone firm and confident. “We’ll get the message to him.”
“If he’s even at work. And if we’re not too late.”
Terror flooded Bryce at the thought that, even now, Tom might be lying alone somewhere, bleeding out….
“Breathe, damn it.” Matt’s hand was on the nape of his neck, anchoring and chastising him at the same time. “You’ve always been the levelheaded one out of all of us. Don’t lose it now, not when Tom needs you.”
“He’s such a good guy, Matt, and I made him think he was nothing.” Tears welled in his eyes, but he didn’t care. “What if I don’t get to put that right? What if that’s the last thing he ever believes about himself?”
“What if you turn your brain to what we do when we get there?” Matt said.
“Bennett is calling the emergency meeting of the Council I asked for—he didn’t like it much, but the prospect of Jesse at his side persuaded him.
As soon as that starts, as soon as I tell the whole Council gathered together in one place what’s been going on, the entire thing’s going to bust wide open.
Even if Steadman’s got allies in this, there’s no way the whole Council can be involved, and the others will hold her to account.
They’ll send out a clean-up crew to pick up Jax and his men, and it will be over. ”
“’Cept for the reality shows they’ll ask you to go on once you’re famous,” Jesse said to Matt as he slid into his seat behind them. “I can see it now—no one’s going to vote you off the island cause you’ll just glare them into submission.”
“Screw you, Turner,” Matt said, though his glinting grin belied his words.
“Tempting though you’re makin’ it sound, I got pretzels coming,” Jesse said. “Maybe later.”
Bryce tuned them out and turned his mind to what he’d say and do when he found Tom. Because he would find him, and he’d be safe, and they’d make up—exactly how was a little fuzzy, but somehow he’d find the right words and Tom would forgive him—and then they’d never be parted again.
He always had been an optimist.
TOM
Tom frowned at his monitor. He couldn’t see a damn thing wrong with those figures. They were entirely in line with the research Steadman had commissioned three years back, which meant that her insistence they’d been manipulated was strange.
Just like the whole episode in her office earlier had been odd. He pushed his chair back and ran a hand through his hair, thinking. With the deadline she’d dumped on him, he hadn’t had time to do more than file the meeting under ‘think about later.’
Now, a part of his brain that was either paranoid or rather smarter than the rest of him was questioning both the work and its urgency.
He replayed their conversation word for word. He had said nothing that could have caused that reaction from her, unless she had suspected what he was about to say. Which meant…
His mind shied away from the conclusion.
It was impossible that Councilor Steadman, whose father was a legendary figure in the shifters’ rights movement, could ever do such a thing.
She was a ruthless operator, sure, used to getting her own way because her name opened doors that remained firmly closed to others.
But whatever her faults might be, he couldn’t believe she would ever countenance murder, let alone of an entire pack. Of two packs, one of them civilian.
She was passionate about shifter rights. She worked harder and for longer hours than any of the other councilors, and she wouldn’t back down from her fiercely held beliefs for anything. Shifters like Tristan worshipped her for that.
But what if… what if she thought she’d been protecting those principles by ordering the killings?
Maybe she’d believed that the discovery of an Argent would lead to the undoing of everything she’d been striving toward her whole career, integration between shifters and non-shifters. What if she’d wanted to get hold of Jesse in order to dispose of him?
He shook his head, unable to believe she’d ever contemplate anything like that. And she would never have ordered the slaying of a whole pack just because they were Argents and stood in the way of her agenda. Whoever had done that was a monster. It wasn’t her.
Turning his attention back to the screen in front of him, Tom found that the silence of the bookstacks, usually so welcome, suddenly felt oppressive.
Katie, who had the next office, had maternity leave, and Drew, in the office opposite, was on vacation.
The other two offices in their little section of the stacks were currently being used as storerooms, which meant they were pretty isolated.
Katie hated it. She swore she heard footsteps down here at night sometimes.
He didn’t know if he was imagining things or if Katie had been right all along, because he caught the suggestion of a noise in the silence. He held his breath and listened again, and there it was—a soft tread on the linoleum, like someone trying not to be heard.
His heart thudded once, hard. The sense of danger that had screamed at him in Steadman’s office was back, clawing at him.