Chapter 35
Byron was still reeling from the news that Danielle had killed a man.
Jude had told them behind closed doors what had actually happened.
Even though it was self-defense and the killing was justified, he would have never expected Danielle to be capable of such an act.
He’d always thought she was shy and weak, only to realize now that she’d hidden her strength from all of them for the sake of a quiet, peaceful existence.
He understood so much more now. Danielle didn’t seek out conflict and danger.
She only reacted to it when she or the ones she loved were in danger.
In this moment, he realized that she was the perfect mate for an alpha: a woman with quiet strength and absolute loyalty who put the well-being of her family above all else.
He wished he’d known that about her when she’d first joined their pack.
Their relationship would have been different.
She could have been his confidant more than Eve ever was.
After Jude had left the living room to check in on Danielle and Charlotte, Byron was left with Parker, Mason, Austin, and Francisco. They spoke freely in front of him, not concerned that he wasn’t a member of their team. He felt included, and he liked that feeling.
He caught Austin’s look on him and approached.
“Did you know before today?” Byron asked.
Austin shook his head. “Jude doesn’t share private things like that.” He shrugged. “Unless he’s forced to.”
“I get it.”
“You do know that what you heard today has to remain between Jude’s team and you. You can’t tell anyone in your family.”
“I know that. And I have no intention of divulging this to them.”
It would only give those in his family who still didn’t approve of Jude mating with Danielle more fodder to undermine his leadership.
“What Danielle did was justified,” Byron added.
“Agreed,” Austin said. “Unfortunately, it has given the Leons a bargaining chip.”
“It feels more like blackmail than a negotiation.”
“’Cause it is,” Mason interjected. “And they’re not giving us much time to come up with a solution.”
“At least they gave us some time, rather than demanding we hand over Charlotte immediately,” Austin replied.
A soft chime came from Mason’s pocket. He pulled out his cell phone and looked at the display.
“Wendell is back with Uncle James.” He typed a short message. “Oh, and I texted Ransom already; he’s on his way back too.” He shoved his cell phone back into his pocket.
“Dad’s gonna be pissed about what happened,” Austin guessed. “I’m not looking forward to filling him in.”
“Don’t,” Mason suggested. “Jude wants to do that himself anyway. We’ll just send him upstairs.”
“Do you think your father will still insist on Charlotte joining the Leons?” Byron asked. “I mean, he must see now that they can’t be trusted.”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Austin said.
He didn’t get a chance to reply because the door opened, and Wendell entered with James Beaumont. The conversations stopped in an instant.
James looked at the assembled, suspicion spreading over his face. “What’s going on?”
“Jude is gonna fill you in,” Austin said. “He’s upstairs in the master suite.”
With another skeptical look, he turned on his heel and left the room. Wendell shut the door behind him, then looked around.
“That bad, huh?” Wendell asked.
When Austin started filling Wendell in on the events of this morning, Byron felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out and stepped away before answering it.
“Hey, Byron, I’ve got something,” Tim, the bounty hunter who was digging into Steve Leon’s background, said.
“Shoot!”
“It’s about the car accident I mentioned the other day. It’s a lot more than that. It was premeditated.”
As Tim continued explaining what he’d found out, Byron felt all the blood leave his body.
“Fuck!”
He headed toward the door and ripped it open.
“Hang on, Tim. Jude needs to hear this from you. He’s upstairs.”
As he left the living room and entered the foyer, the front door opened, and Flora entered with a couple of shopping bags. When she spotted him, she set her bags on the floor.
“Oh, good, you’re here. Heath and I need help with the groceries. Go to the car and—”
“I don’t have time,” he interrupted and hurried to the stairs.
“You’re not doing anything right now,” Flora said.
“I’m on the phone!”
He didn’t care that his words had come out a little harsher than he’d planned. In any case, he didn’t have time for something as trivial as bringing groceries into the house and stacking them in the pantry.
Flora let out an annoyed grunt, but he didn’t care.
He didn’t stop and headed up the stairs, taking two steps at a time.
He was impatient for Jude to hear what the bounty hunter had found, though he dreaded how Danielle would react.
It would be a difficult revelation to swallow and open up old wounds.
He wished he could tell Jude in private so he could prepare Danielle for what she was about to hear, but he couldn’t waste time.
At the master suite, he knocked loudly so his knock would drown out the voices in the room. He couldn’t hear what exactly they were talking about, but he recognized that it was a heated discussion. He knocked a second time, then simply opened the door and entered.
The first person who saw him was James. He narrowed his eyes.
“You? Get out, this is a private conversation.”
Alerted by James’s rude words, everybody in the room looked at him. He made eye contact with Jude.
“This is important. You’ll wanna hear this.” He lifted his phone.
Jude gave a nod and motioned him to come closer. Byron shut the door behind him to make sure the conversation remained private and tapped on his phone.
“Tim, I’m switching you to a video call.”
A moment later, he turned the phone so that Jude could see Tim on the other end of the line. “Tim, tell Jude what you just told me.”
“Hey, Jude. I’m still down here in San Bernardino looking into the Leon pack. And boy, do they have skeletons in the closet.”
“Go on.”
Byron noticed how everyone in the room was staring at the phone in anticipation.
He avoided looking at Charlotte, who stood next to her mother, her face tense, her eyes filled with worry.
He hated seeing her like this and yearned to take her into his arms to soothe the pain she was in.
But he’d lost that right—at least for now.
However, Jude had given him hope that he could win Charlotte back. But right now wasn’t the time.
“About six and a half years ago, there was a car accident in which Diane Powell was killed.”
A gasp came from Danielle, and she moved closer to the phone. Jude put his arm around her to comfort her.
“That was my mother,” Danielle said into the phone.
“I’m sorry to open up old wounds, but it wasn’t an accident. It was classified as a hit and run, but I found something in the police files that showed that this was deliberate.”
Byron noticed Danielle’s lower lip quiver and her eyes widen in shock.
“The car that hit your mother’s was a stolen truck, which was later found burned out.
Most likely to destroy any DNA evidence.
However, in the police file, there was video footage from a gas station where the truck stopped briefly after the hit-and-run.
But it was later deleted. I managed to have one of my tech guys backtrack and find the video.
When I watched it, I realized that the police may have deleted it because they were either pressured or paid off.
In any case, the driver got out of the car and filled up a couple of cannisters with gas, which he then used to set the truck on fire a few miles away in a deserted area. ”
He could see that both Jude and Danielle held their breaths.
“The driver was Steve Leon. There’s no doubt about it.”
For a moment, dead silence descended onto the room. Without a word, Jude folded Danielle into his arms and let her cry at his chest.
Byron turned the cellphone back and looked at Tim. “Thanks, buddy.”
“I’ll email you all the evidence I collected,” Tim replied.
Byron nodded and disconnected the call. Danielle lifted her face from Jude’s chest and wiped tears from her eyes, then faced the rest of the assembled.
“Steve murdered her so I would be without protection so they could force me into mating with him.” She sniffled. “I want him dead.”
“We’ll take care of him, baby,” Jude assured him, then looked at James. “We’ll be justified in killing him. A life for a life.”
“Agreed,” James said to everybody’s surprise. “But just him.”
Danielle turned to her father-in-law. “No. They all planned this together. Steve was just the one who executed their plan. His father and uncle are behind this. They have to die too.”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“Let’s go see the others downstairs and talk about strategy,” Jude suggested.
Byron held up a hand to stop him. “Flora just got back from Costco. She’s likely to overhear you talking in the living room. The vents in this old house can act like megaphones, particularly from the living and dining rooms. Sound carries.”
“Thanks for the warning. In that case, Charlotte,” Jude said, “could you please get Austin and the rest of the team to come up here?”
“Sure.” Charlotte walked to the door and left.
Once the door closed behind her, Byron knew he had to take this opportunity to offer something he didn’t want Charlotte to hear.
“I’ll do it.”
“Do what?” Jude asked.
“Kill the Leons. Publicly, so that there won’t be any ties to you and your family. So that Charlotte is free. I don’t care if they come after me, but they won’t have any reason to come after the Beaumont Family and the Werewolf Alliance.”
“That’s a stupid idea!” Danielle said firmly, before Jude could even open his mouth.
“Apart from it being a suicide mission, it won’t stop the Leons from starting a war against all of us, even if we try to make it look like you’re acting as a lone wolf.
I know them. They are vindictive. They will retaliate against everybody who’s even remotely connected to you. ”
“But—”
Jude cut him off. “Danielle is right. As much as I appreciate your offer, we have to do it another way that doesn’t lead back to us, or we’ll find ourselves in the middle of a bloody war.”
He hated to admit that Jude and Danielle were right.
Still, he felt impotent. He wanted to save both his half-sister and Charlotte, the woman he loved with every fiber of his being.
Knowing they only had a few hours before they had to act drove him crazy.
He felt like punching somebody or something, but it was evident that no amount of brawn would get them out of this situation. It was brain that was needed.