22. Aleks
Aleks
Given the rush to get things together and get moving, it wasn’t hard for me to make sure we were all with the party that headed out for San Francisco.
I told Leo and Mama to get in the second of the two trucks, since that way Grant wouldn’t see them and realize I’d brought everyone I cared about with me.
Either way, I figured we weren’t going back to the same old pack in Idaho.
Maybe we’d go back with no alpha and fewer goons because they all got themselves killed tangling with a pack that was bigger and badder than them, or maybe, if things went badly, Mama, Leo, Viktor and I would find Cash and Evie, and we’d all just . . . go.
I didn’t know what the hell we would do with no forest and no money, but at this point, going back to the old way didn’t seem like a real option.
Tommy was going around looking like a dead man, and no one looked at him or spoke to him.
Fuck, Grant told him he was staying with the pack instead of going with, and he didn’t even argue.
What kind of man just let his family go off alone and didn’t fight for them?
It was like he was already thinking of them as dead.
Marcus drove, which I didn’t love, but I also didn’t want to be distracted having to focus on driving, and especially didn’t want someone like him behind me. Given the suspicious way he glanced at me in the rearview mirror, he felt similarly about having me behind him.
Smart man. Given an opportunity, I’d rake my claws across his throat and not feel a moment’s sorrow for the loss of life, let alone me being the one to do it.
I didn’t relish the notion of murder, but I figured that some people just needed killing, and anyone who wanted to hurt little girls to get off counted in that group.
Viktor sat next to me, though he was far too big a man to be sitting in the middle, and Grant sat against the opposite window from me, disinterested in what was going on around him.
Admittedly, there were two goons in the front seats of the truck, and a whole group of them sitting in the truck bed, so it wasn’t like Viktor and I could make quick work of a pack leadership change just by ending Grant right there, but . . .
For the first time in my life, it was truly tempting.
Why was I worried about timing and honor and loyalty, when Grant was rushing off to attack a pack who’d done him no wrong, because a witch told him to? And all because she wanted the alpha’s mate, like he wasn’t a person, but a thing to be traded around. Like he didn’t get a say.
I knew there were people like Tommy, who would accept those in power doing anything, taking anything from them, so long as they weren’t injured. But I found myself hoping that this Dakota wasn’t like that. That he’d fight tooth and nail for his people and his life.
Like I would.
Grant was typing away on his phone for a while, then gave a little smirk and pressed it to his ear.
When a man answered on the other end, Marcus’s gaze flickered in the rearview mirror in front of me.
He was confused. He clearly recognized the voice that answered the other end, but hadn’t expected it.
“You don’t call, you don’t write,” the male voice on the line said, and his tone sounded friendly. Almost jovial.
Grant gave a snort. “Like your alpha would approve of that.”
“But suddenly you don’t care about what my alpha approves of,” the man said. He wasn’t asking, which made sense, because why would Grant contact a rival’s beta unless he meant to go to war?
“You want that company Fyse has built all for yourself?”
There was a long pause, and the only sound was the wolf on the other end of the line steadying his breathing. I wondered if anyone else in the truck could hear it. I knew my ears were better than average, and Grant’s were for shit, so I was sure he didn’t know how thoroughly he’d shocked the man.
“What are you asking for?” the guy finally answered, and his voice was smooth, calm, no sign he’d been practically gulping air a moment before.
Viktor’s eyes narrowed and one brow lifted ever so slightly, so I knew he’d heard it too. No one else in the truck gave any response. The goons in the front were pretending they weren’t even listening to the call, after Marcus had gotten over his shock at the man’s voice.
“I want the witchwolf and five million. You keep everything else. The unruly children, the company, the money, all of it.”
It was my turn to almost blink in shock. Grant was usually so damned clever in his negotiations, but putting it all on the table like that? That was strange. Maybe I’d been overestimating Grant all these years.
When I glanced back at Viktor, there was no expression on his face, but there was a sparkle in his eye that I recognized.
We had both been through a lot in our years apart, but in the years we’d been back together, things had slowly fallen back in line with childhood.
He knew me. I knew him. We could communicate with a glance, a microexpression, and sometimes, nothing at all.
He’s never been as impressive as you thought he was, this look told me. You’ve been naive, and you should have ended him years ago.
Well, maybe that last bit was more my own voice, berating myself for being so damned slow.
Grant wasn’t so skilled or impressive that he could beat me in a fair fight.
He didn’t do anything good for the pack, so his loss wouldn’t hurt anyone decent that I cared about.
Finally and maybe most importantly, being my uncle had never stopped him from selling my ass to witches for their magical rites, so why should it stop me from killing him?
Especially now, like this, while he was negotiating with a traitor in the Crescent pack for them to betray their own. And for what? To become alpha.
“We can do the trade off in a bus station locker. I’ll come to the pack house and leave the key for you. Then you handle Jax, and make sure his cute little boy is at the challenge. I’ll handle everything else.”
“And all you want is five million,” the man’s voice said. He sounded incredulous, as though five million dollars was nothing. Just how fucking rich were these city wolves?
“Five million and the witchwolf,” Grant said, stressing the last.
Suddenly, all the showers in the world couldn’t make me feel clean. My alpha was the lackey of a witch, doing her bidding. Attacking other wolves on her order. Nothing was right in the whole fucking world.