Chapter 15 #2
Cliff cuffed him while Sloane secured the room.
When she was done, she touched her ear. “All clear. Thanks for the assist, Lizzie.” When her gaze landed on Eli, her face went slack and her lips trembled.
“Oh God …” She rushed to him and pulled him to his feet, her arms wrapping him so tight, he lost circulation.
When she finally released him, she slapped him on the chest and cried, “You idiot! What the fuck were you thinking?”
He couldn’t answer. The adrenaline was draining from his body, replaced by pure relief that he was still alive. Seeing Sloane after all these months only compounded his shock. When he did manage to speak, the only thing he would say was, “How?”
Sloane jerked her head toward the corner of the room. Garret stood by the window, breathing hard. His knuckles were split open and blood ran down his forearms, though none of it appeared to be his. He lifted his head and his bright blue eyes found Eli’s.
“He came to us,” Sloane said. “Through Olivia.”
The sound of her name in his ears made his inner wolf perk up. He, on the other hand, had a very different reaction. Garret went to Olivia. “What did you do to her?” he growled at Garret.
“She’s fine,” Sloane assured him. “He found her on the street and told her everything. O’Grady’s plan, the ambush, where you’d be.” Sloane paused. “She called us right away.”
Eli looked at Garret. The hard, brutal face was the same, but there was an exhaustion behind that more than physical.
“Why did you go to her?” Eli said.
“She’s your mate.” Garret’s voice was rough. “I couldn’t take on O’Grady’s men alone. And you wouldn’t have listened to me.”
“You’re right about that.”
“I know.” Garret exhaled. “That and other things I should have known sooner.”
Killian stepped forward. “We need to talk. All of us.”
They moved outside away from the unconscious bodies and the wreckage of the office. The dock was empty, the water black and still. Cliff stayed inside to watch O’Grady and the others. Garret leaned against a shipping container, arms folded. The rest of them formed a loose semicircle.
“Now,” Killian began, “Let’s—”
“Eli!”
Eli thought he was hallucinating. But no, that was definitely Olivia’s voice.
His heart slammed into his chest as he saw her leaping from the back of the white van parked by the containers and running toward him.
She stopped a few feet away, her violet eyes wide, her jaw nearly to the floor.
Eli guessed the very same expression was on his face.
Olivia was here.
It had been three months—ninety-four days, to be exact—since he last saw her.
Since that night everything had blown up and the sob he’d heard as he walked away buried itself in his heart, torturing him like a stuck thorn he couldn’t pull out.
He had played it in his head every day, wondering how he could have prevented it and what he would say to her in this moment.
He scrambled for the words, found a few, then promptly lost them when his gaze dropped down to the obvious bump in her belly.
The only thing he could think of was how she had grown even more beautiful.
“For God’s sake, Livy!” Killian cursed. “I said you could come if you stayed in the—” He scrubbed a hand down his face.
“You know what? That was on me for believing you.” He let out a long, drawn out sigh, then replaced his exasperation with a serious, no-nonsense mask of professionalism.
“McCall. Okay, you were right. Now tell us everything, from the beginning.”
Garret looked at Eli. “This is for you, not them. But they should hear it too. I found out you were alive from the pre-trial documents. The High Council listed you as a witness. Eli Blake, Lone Wolf Investigations and Security.” He let out a breath.
“I knew you’d changed your name. Her father’s name. ”
It was the first time Garret ever acknowledged Marlene’s existence. “Get to the point,” Eli said.
“In the facility, I had contacts. Russians, mostly. They ran information between the Lycan prisoners and the outside.”
“Wait, Russians run information in Lycan prisons?” Jacob asked, baffled.
“They run information in all prisons. And where the hell do you think the main Siberian facility is located, kid?” Garret continued.
“Then word came back that O’Grady’s death didn’t add up.
Russians swore it wasn’t their work, and it definitely didn’t seem like the Italians.
So I started asking questions.” He rubbed at his jaw with his fingers.
“I figured out he’d faked it. And I knew if he was alive and hiding, he was planning something.
O’Grady always wanted to run things, and with Ronan gone, there was nothing stopping him.
Then I heard that Eli was in Boston and that everyone was floating his name to be the next Alpha, which painted a target on his back. ”
“So you broke out,” Sloane said.
“I broke out. I went to the Lone Wolf office first, hoping to find some information in the personnel files, anything that would tell me where he was. I couldn’t get past the lobby security systems, so I set a fire to trip the exit doors.” He shrugged. “Not my best work.”
“You could have called,” Jacob pointed out. “A phone. Simple.”
“And say what? ‘Hi, this is the convicted felon you’re about to testify against, I’d like to help’?” Garret shook his head. “No one would have believed me. I had to find him myself.”
“Then what?” Killian pressed.
“I went back to Boston, heard about the incident at the diner and I knew my instinct had been right. So I stayed. O’Grady didn’t know I was out.
I watched, listened. Overheard him talking to Mickey and Danny hiring some Lone Wolves and sending them out to Kentucky to kill Eli.
Apparently, they had a tracker on your car the whole time.
” He looked at Eli. “I followed them. Arrived at that bar just in time.”
Bo’s words from that night came back. Who pulled those men off you? And now with the scent … it all clicked into place.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” Eli asked.
“Would you have let me help?”
Eli didn’t say a word because the answer was hell, no.
“Didn’t think you’d come after me, though.
You’re like a damned bloodhound.” Garret snorted.
“Chasing me up and down the eastern seaboard for weeks. When I finally shook your tail in Vermont, I headed back to Boston. Figured O’Grady wasn’t done with you.
Found out about this next plan to lure you in.
I knew I couldn’t take them alone. Six men, plus O’Grady.
I needed backup.” He paused. “So I found your mate.”
“You approached a pregnant woman on the street,” Killian said, his tone dangerously even.
“Dad,” Olivia put a hand on her father’s arm. “It’s fine.”
“I dropped a pouch near her feet. Old trick. I told her who I was, what was happening, and where Eli would be. I told her to call whoever she needed to call.” He met Killian’s glare. “I didn’t touch her. I wouldn’t.”
Eli stared at his father. The man who’d beaten him and turned him into an enforcer for a criminal empire. But there was something else that didn’t seem right. He’d been thinking about it since his run-in with Margaux Featherstone.
“You knew,” Eli said. “What she was. What I am.”
“I knew.”
“And you never told Ronan about us. And you stayed away.”
“If Ronan found out what you could do, what do you think he would have done?” Garret met his gaze. “He would have turned you into something terrible. He would have turned you into me.”
His words, and the knowledge that Garret knew his secret the entire time, weighed down on Eli like a heavy stone.
Garret continued. “I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
“But everything else—”
“My father raised me with his fists,” he said, already anticipating the question. “His father did the same to him.” Garret’s hands, folded across his chest, started to tremble. “I didn’t know another way. That’s not an excuse. It’s just what happened.”
“You’re right. It’s not an excuse.”
“No, it’s not.” Garret’s gaze dropped to Olivia’s midsection, then moved past her, as if looking at someone who wasn’t there.
“Marlene tried to teach me. She was patient with me, more than I deserved. I loved her. I loved her and I failed her, and then I failed you.” The expression on Garret’s face was one Eli had never seen before.
The hardness was gone, as was the posture, leaving only raw emotion.
“Break the cycle, Eli. Be better than me. Don’t fail them, and don’t fail yourself. ”
Eli’s throat closed. Behind him, no one said a word or moved, not even Olivia. He closed his eyes as a breeze blew by, carrying the sweet scent of sugary cinnamon pastry. That was enough.
When he opened his eyes, his voice was rough. “What happens now?”
“I’m turning myself in,” Garret said. “The High Council, Siberia, whatever they want. I’m done running. I only broke out to protect you.”
“We’ll escort you to the council,” Killian said. “Jacob, take him into the warehouse with the others and help Cliff keep an eye on everyone. Sloane, call it in.” Sloane pulled out her phone and stepped away to make the call.
Garret pushed off the shipping container and held his wrists out to Jacob, who secured them with Lycan-grade restraints. The older man didn’t resist, didn’t even flinch. He just stood there as the cuffs clicked into place, sealing his fate.
“For what it’s worth,” Garret said, “Marlene would have been proud of you. She would have been so damn proud.”
Eli watched them lead his father to the warehouse. Garret didn’t even look back.