Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
AVA
Leo didn't ask me to spend time with him. He ambushed me. I was in the kitchen, making tea I didn't really want just to have something to do with my hands, when a pair of arms wrapped around me from behind and lifted me clean off my feet.
"You're coming with me, Red," Leo announced, already carrying me toward the back door, his voice bright with mischief.
"Leo! Put me down!" I kicked uselessly at the air, my heart hammering from the surprise of it, my fingers gripping his forearms for balance.
"Nope." He shouldered open the door and carried me out onto the back porch, where the January air hit my face like a slap, his arms never loosening their grip.
"You've had your quality time with the others.
Now it's my turn, and I'm not wasting it on some boring conversation in a study or a workshop.
" He deposited me onto a worn wooden bench, then dropped down beside me, slinging an arm over my shoulders like we were old friends catching up.
Like he hadn't just kidnapped me from the kitchen.
"Leo, it's freezing out here," I protested, wrapping my arms around myself, my breath fogging in the cold air.
"I know." He grinned, hazel eyes dancing with amusement, and produced a thick wool blanket from somewhere behind the bench, draping it over both of us.
"That's why I came prepared. Now stop complaining and enjoy the view.
" I wanted to stay annoyed, but the view was stunning.
The porch overlooked a snow-covered valley, pine trees frosted white, mountains rising in the distance against a gray winter sky.
It was the kind of scenery that belonged on a postcard, pristine and untouched.
"Fine," I muttered, pulling the blanket tighter around myself, my annoyance fading despite my best efforts. "But if I get frostbite, I'm blaming you."
"Noted." He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a silver flask, unscrewing the cap and taking a long swig before offering it to me, his eyes glinting with mischief. "Whiskey. It'll warm you up."
I hesitated for a moment, then took the flask and drank. The liquor burned a path down my throat and settled warm in my stomach. He was right, it did help.
"So," Leo said, taking the flask back and tucking it away, his arm settling more firmly around my shoulders.
"The others got to bare their souls and do their whole tortured-Alpha routine. Caleb with his carvings and sad eyes. Ethan with his charts and data…don’t know what Mason is planning…
" He made a face, somewhere between amused and exasperated. "Very dramatic, all of them."
"And what's your routine?" I asked, glancing up at him, studying his profile against the gray sky.
At twenty-six, Leo was the most conventionally handsome of the four, all sharp cheekbones and a strong jaw, with artfully messy brown hair that looked like he'd just rolled out of bed.
His hazel eyes shifted color depending on the light, sometimes more green, sometimes more gold.
Right now they were a warm amber, catching the weak winter sun.
There was something underneath the pretty face.
Something harder. Something that only showed when he wasn't actively trying to charm you.
"My routine?" He turned to look at me, a crooked smile playing at his lips. "I'm the fun one, Red. No tortured backstory, no dramatic declarations. Just good times and bad decisions."
"Bullshit," I said flatly, surprising both of us.
His smile faltered for just a second, a crack in the armor, before snapping back into place. "Excuse me?" His eyebrow arched, but I caught the tension in his jaw.
"You heard me." I shifted on the bench to face him more fully, the blanket pulling tight between us, my eyes locked on his. "You're not the fun one. You're the one who uses fun as a shield so no one looks too closely at what's underneath."
Something flickered in his hazel eyes. Surprise, maybe. Or recognition.
"Been talking to Ethan?" he asked lightly, but there was an edge underneath the casual tone, his fingers drumming against his thigh. "He loves to psychoanalyze."
"I don't need Ethan to tell me what I can see for myself.
" I held his gaze, refusing to back down, my chin lifting slightly.
"You deflect with humor. You make everything a joke so no one asks the serious questions.
But I've seen the way you look when you think no one's watching, Leo.
That's not the face of someone who's just here for good times.
" He was quiet for a long moment, the playful mask slipping away to reveal something raw and blistered underneath.
Younger. More vulnerable than I'd ever seen him.
"You always did see too much," he said finally, his voice rough around the edges. "Even when you were a kid. It was annoying as hell."
"Tell me," I said softly, reaching out to touch his arm through the blanket. "The real story. Not the charming version you tell at parties." He laughed, but there was no humor in it. Just a hollow, bitter sound that made my chest ache.
"The real story." He looked away, out at the snow-covered valley, his jaw tight. "You want to know about how David Harper knocked up some waitress at a bar when he was twenty-six and didn't even know I existed until I was eight years old?"
I didn't say anything. Just waited, my hand still on his arm, a silent encouragement to continue.
"My mom was... she wasn't a bad person," Leo said, his voice distant, lost in memory.
"Just young and stupid and completely unprepared to be a mother.
She was twenty when she had me. Twenty years old, no money, no family support, no idea who my father even was beyond 'some rich guy she met at a bar. '"
He reached for the flask again, took another long drink. When he spoke again, his voice was rough.
"She did her best for a while. Worked double shifts, kept a roof over our heads. But she was barely more than a kid herself, and I was... difficult. Angry. Acting out. By the time I was seven, she was at the end of her rope."
"What happened?" I asked quietly, my fingers tightening on his arm.
"She tracked him down." A bitter smile twisted his lips. "Took her months of digging, but she finally figured out who my father was. David Harper. One of the most powerful men in the state. Father of the year material."
"She told him about you?" I asked, trying to imagine the scene, the courage it must have taken.
"Showed up at his office with me in tow and a paternity test in her purse.
" Leo shook his head, something between admiration and resentment flickering across his features.
"I'll give her credit — she had balls. Walked right past his security, plopped me down in a chair, and said 'This is your son. I can't do this anymore. Your turn.'"
I tried to imagine it. An eight-year-old Leo, angry and confused, sitting in some corporate office while his mother handed him over to a stranger.
"What did David do?" I asked, dreading the answer but needing to know.
"What do you think?" Leo's laugh was sharp, jagged, cutting through the cold air.
"He had the test run. When it came back positive, he wrote my mom a check, had his lawyers draw up custody papers, and that was that.
One day I was living in a two-bedroom apartment in a shitty part of town, the next I was in a mansion with brothers I'd never met and a father who looked at me like I was a problem to be solved. "
"Leo..." I breathed, my heart breaking for the boy he'd been, my hand tightening on his arm.
"Don't." He cut me off, his voice sharp, then softened as he saw my expression. "Don't feel sorry for me. I had it better than most. Private schools, fancy clothes, all the money I could ever want. Poor little rich boy, right?"
"Money doesn't make up for feeling like you don't belong," I said quietly, my thumb stroking absently over his sleeve. He went very still beside me. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper, raw and exposed.
"No. It doesn't." The silence stretched between us, heavy with unspoken things. I could feel the tension in his body, the effort it was taking him to keep the mask from crumbling completely.
"Mason was ten when I showed up," Leo continued eventually, his voice steadier now, like he'd found his footing again. "Just a kid himself, but already trying to be the responsible one. The golden child in training. He didn't know what to do with me — none of us knew what to do with each other."
"What about Ethan?" I asked, leaning into him slightly, offering warmth and presence.
"Ethan was nine. Quiet. Serious. Already had his nose buried in books half the time, trying to prove he was smart enough to matter.
" A hint of fondness crept into his voice despite the bitterness, his lips quirking slightly.
"We were both outsiders in our own ways — him with his Beta mom drama, me with my.
.. everything. But we didn't know how to connect back then.
Too young, too angry, too busy fighting for scraps of David's attention. "
"And Caleb?" I asked softly, remembering the gentle giant who'd shown me his carvings.
"Caleb came later." Leo's expression softened slightly, some of the tension easing from his shoulders.
"He didn't move in until I was fifteen. His mom got sick, couldn't take care of him anymore.
By then I'd already spent seven years trying to find my place in that family.
When Caleb showed up, I remembered what it felt like to be the new kid.
The one everyone looks at like they're not sure you belong. "
"So you looked out for him?" I asked, a new picture of Leo forming in my mind, not just the charming troublemaker, but someone who understood pain and tried to ease it in others.