Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Peyton
This was far from Peyton’s first train ride, but it was his first on a train through Norway. He resented not being able to sit back and enjoy the gorgeous scenery flowing past outside, but instead had to focus on all this bullshit.
Maybe I should bring Gillian here once all this is over. She’d love it.
He felt beyond guilty about upsetting her, and she still wasn’t responding to his texts or picking up the phone when he called.
He knew she was listening to his voicemails—or likely deleting them without listening to them—because it kept accepting messages when the ones he’d already left should have filled up her mailbox.
Meanwhile, Ken was his eyes and ears on the ground and kept Peyton updated.
Gillian wasn’t openly ranting about the situation, but Ken recognized she was not happy.
I owe her a fuckton of apologies and pampering when we’re through this shit.
Not to mention, he resented having to miss this time with their baby. He’d hoped he could take a few weeks off and just be a dad and husband the way Trent had for his previous pups.
At this point, if he were the one who managed to lay hands on Faegan first, he would make sure the man suffered even more while he died.
No quick and easy death for that fucker.
Especially not after all of this. As a Prime, he wouldn’t even have to do it with his hands—he could mentally torture him to the point the man begged for death.
Even better, if there were clueless human witnesses around making a bare-handed decapitation impossible, Peyton could order Faegan to kill himself in a very painful way, and it would look like a suicide to anyone else.
He ordered someone to do that once, years ago.
The man, a clueless human, had raped the eleven-year-old daughter of one of their packmates.
Peyton tracked him down at work in Spokane.
He was a rich, smarmy fucker, the failson of a banker who was used to his daddy’s money buying him out of trouble, and it wasn’t his first assault.
But it would most definitely be his last.
Peyton had ordered the man to email a suicide note confessing all his crimes to the local newspaper and law enforcement. Then he made the man climb onto the roof of a five-story building. Peyton stood on the sidewalk below and watched as he threw himself off the roof—
And onto a wrought-iron fence below, impaling himself on it.
Peyton had rushed over as one of the “concerned bystanders” and verified the man was, in fact, dead.
If he hadn’t been, Peyton would have silently ordered him to thrash around on the multiple pieces of iron now impaling him until he finished the job.
Peyton hadn’t enjoyed doing it, derived no satisfaction from it, especially given the circumstances, but at least the mother’s grimly satisfied acknowledgment helped ease Peyton’s conscience in the matter.
And the girl, now twenty-two, had been in therapy for years to deal with the trauma and just graduated from college with a degree in communications.
Peyton would have let him off with a simpler, cleaner death if it hadn’t been for the fact that the man had committed over twenty-five rapes of young girls in his life, most of them ones no one else knew about, a confession Peyton obtained from him before deciding to go that route.
And the man had admitted he would have kept raping girls as long as he could get away with it.
As far as Peyton was concerned, he saved the state of Washington the price of a trial and life-long incarceration. Plus, the victims wouldn’t have to endure the additional trauma of testifying.
They were an hour north of Trondheim when one of Trevor’s men returned to the car where Peyton and Trevor were seated and gave the all-clear. The two of them stood and made their way to another car, where they’d booked a private compartment.
It was close quarters with all nine of them crammed inside, but they made it work.
There were even more of them scattered throughout the entire length of the train, Trevor’s men and men of some of the people now gathered, but they were keeping watch for any sign of interference or unwarranted interest from people that shouldn’t be taking notice of them.
One of Trevor’s men, Wilford, a Brit who worked for an oil company and lived in Oslo, pulled up detailed satellite images of the target region on his tablet.
“I spoke to my contact this morning, Fredrik Haugen. He pinpointed the location where the man is staying. Right here.” He zoomed in.
“It’s not on a main hiking trail, but it’s in a sheltered spot with water close by.
He’s under a rock overhang. Even if we send up drones, I’m not sure we can spot him without thermal imaging capabilities. ”
“When was the last time Fredrik saw him?” Peyton asked.
Wilford calculated the time. “Forty-eight hours ago.”
“But we aren’t sure it’s Faegan?” Peyton asked.
“The description he gave matches,” Wilford said. “And although he didn’t see him up close, or for long, I texted him a picture and he said it certainly looked like him.”
“No shifters we could send in there sooner?” Peyton asked. “How do we know he’ll even be there?”
“The only shifter in that family is Geir, the father. He’s an officer in the Forsvaret and currently away, stationed on deployment,” Wilford said.
“Navy, I believe. The rest of the household are all humans or non-shifters—the mate, Vera, is human. The children are non-shifters—Fredrik, the son, who’s twenty, and Katarina, the fourteen-year-old daughter.
Fredrik said he was out looking for mushrooms with their dog.
He didn’t realize the man might be Faegan at first. He saw him from a distance, but the man didn’t seem to notice him.
Then he realized it was a shifter from a scent he picked up.
Something about the situation didn’t feel right to him, and he was unarmed, so he scarpered.
On his way home, he remembered the alerts about Faegan and called me.
He added that it appeared the man had settled in and been there for several days, at least. He hasn’t told his mother or sister about it because he doesn’t want them worrying. ”
“What about his father?” Trevor asked.
“He’s currently on deployment and out of phone contact.”
“Guns?” Peyton asked.
“For us, or do you mean is Faegan armed?” Wilford asked.
“Yes,” Peyton grimly said, making everyone smile.
“Presuming our quarry is Faegan, we have no idea if he’s armed,” Wilford continued.
“Typically, in Norway, it’s required that people store firearms in locked gun safes separate from ammunition.
But in rural homes, that might not be adhered to quite as strictly.
Especially if they’re raising livestock and out in the woods frequently.
So it’s conceivable Faegan has acquired a firearm.
I would be shocked if he didn’t at least have a knife or a hatchet. Fredrik said he can get us ten guns…”
Peyton tried not to zone out during the discussion, but he’d slept like crap the night before—now two nights in a row with little sleep—and he felt exhausted.
Once the man finished, they all turned to Peyton, who had apparently become the de facto leader in everyone’s mind, even to the shifters who weren’t officially part of the Targhee pack, extended or otherwise.
“Okay. Non-Primes and non-shifters should have guns,” Peyton said. “Spread them out as best we can if all we can get is ten. I’ll forego taking one since I’m a Prime…”
When they took a break a few hours later to head to the dining car, Peyton and Trevor hung back for a moment while the others went on ahead.
“Well?” Trevor asked.
“I sensed no deception in any of them, if that’s your question. And I shook all of their hands.”
Trevor looked relieved. “That was my question. I mean, I know we can trust them, but…” The man looked devastatingly haunted and didn’t finish his comment.
He didn’t have to. “I know,” Peyton said.
“Trust is a rare commodity these days. I know my loss was years ago, but among all of us gathered here today, I’m one of the few who can truly say I have a sense of what you’re going through.
It sucks losing loved ones to violence and feeling helpless to bring the person to justice. ”
Another grim nod from Trevor. “I was just thinking that a short while ago. Certainly, all of them have lost a loved one at some point. But you and I both lost them suddenly, violently, with a feeling of security shattered and desperately needing to protect others in the long term. Dewi, in your case, and Tamsin and her baby in mine.”
While Trevor and Elizabeth talked to Tamsin nearly daily via video calls, Peyton had shown the man a bunch of pictures of her and the baby the night before, while at the hotel.
Trevor sighed. “I’m beginning to wonder if, once we’re through all of this, I shouldn’t relinquish local control of our pack to someone younger and move myself and Elizabeth to the States.”
That surprised Peyton. “You know you’re welcome to visit anytime, right? Don’t make a rash decision.”
Also running through Peyton’s mind was the thought that he didn’t want to have to deal with someone new.
Someone who might want to back out of the merger agreement.
“It’s not a rash decision,” Trevor said.
“I’ve contemplated this even before…everything.
Don’t worry—I would make sure if I decided that to have you select my successor.
I always thought it would be Rupert, or perhaps even Maisie.
They’d talked about one day becoming Pack co-Alphas.
They were so close. And although they were my youngest, they were my only Alpha children.
None of my other living children has any interest in leading the pack.
” He sadly smiled. “Maybe Rupert would have found a nice man to settle down with.”
Peyton tried to mask his surprise. “Rupert was gay?”
“Oh, yes. He tried to hide it from us even though we already suspected. Once Maisie came out, and he realized it didn’t matter to us, he finally admitted it. As horrible as this might sound to anyone else besides you, I’m glad now he didn’t have a mate.”
“Why?”
The older wolf blinked back tears as his voice broke.
“Because it’s been devastating to us, feeling helpless to protect or console or support Tamsin in person.
That would have been multiplied had we also needed to whisk Rupert’s mate to safety.
My wife locks herself away and cries after every call with Tamsin.
I’ve suggested to her that we speak with you about moving her to the States.
But then she panics, worried that, somehow, someone might follow her and put Tamsin and the baby at risk. ”
“Once we get through this trip,” Peyton said, “regardless of how it ends, let’s put our heads together and bring her to the States.
We have contacts everywhere in the world.
We can send her to several different countries, route her through any number of airports.
Once she’s on US soil, we can easily move her by private plane or car to reunite her and Tamsin. It’s doable.”
“She won’t,” Rupert said, meeting Peyton’s gaze.
“Don’t you think I already suggested that?
Many times? She doesn’t know all the details of this larger situation we’re facing, but she does understand there are more worrisome issues at play than simply hunting Faegan.
Until we resolve this—all of this—she adamantly refuses to go anywhere near Tamsin and the baby.
I have no doubts that had Tamsin also perished, my wife would have taken her life, either actively or by losing the will to live and letting nature take its course.
Our other children are grown and fledged from the nest years ago.
Tamsin and Maisie Rue are the only things anchoring her to this world.
Should anything ever happen to them, I would certainly lose her as well. I don’t think I could bear that.”
Peyton gripped Trevor’s shoulder. “Nothing will happen to them. Not unless it kills me first.”
Trevor sadly smiled. “Ah, youth and its confidence. That is an oath I will not hold you to because, as we’ve both painfully learned, some fates cannot be avoided no matter how strongly we fight or prepare to ward them off.”