24. Henri
Chapter 24
Henri
I’m totally getting fired. There’s a new meeting on my agenda with Cade before the recap meeting we originally had scheduled. Nothing good will come from this.
Last night I could barely sleep. Tossing and turning, I couldn’t get Nathan’s behavior out of my mind. What on earth did he say or do before I got there? I can only imagine that the person asking for me did so because of Nathan.
There were so many people to offend. My face is heating, and that tight, tingling feeling of embarrassment starts in my shoulders all over again.
But two minutes before our meeting, I knock on Cade’s office door.
It takes forty-five seconds before someone turns the doorknob. Seconds that I count out in my head, hoping to drop dead before this conversation can happen.
The door opens, but it’s not Cade who lets me in.
It’s Deacon.
Fuck. I really am getting fired. I close my eyes for a second and then cross the threshold .
“Hey, Henri.” Cade doesn’t look up from his computer. “Come on in, have a seat.”
Out of habit, I plant my butt in the chair I’ve sat in hundreds of times before. It’s almost comforting that something so familiar is here for me.
“I don’t know where to start.” Cade shrugs, looking at me as he closes his laptop.
Deacon closes the door with a soft thud, slowly twisting the handle so it doesn’t click so loudly. He crosses behind me, and my hackles rise with how tense he feels. I know those feelings from our time together. When he’s on edge like this, he’s hurting and sober. I almost ask if he needs to know the soup of the day, but now’s clearly not the time. Deacon isn’t my responsibility anymore.
“Am I fired?” I whisper.
Cade snorts. “No. You’re not fired.”
Even Deacon gives a small laugh and a shake of his head.
There’s only a niggle of relief from those words. I’m not dumb enough to think this is going in a different direction than talking about Nathan. At least I still have my job.
“I’ve turned a blind eye for a long time, Henri. But that’s ending now. Nathan is no longer welcome on pack property. As much as I would love to just issue the Alpha command that you need to break up with him and come to live on pack property, it would be an abuse of my gift.” Cade draws a deep breath and lets it out, but it does nothing for the tension radiating from his side of the desk. “Henri, I know I don’t have to tell you this isn’t a healthy relationship.”
Guilt and shame cool the fiery heat of embarrassment previously coursing through my body. I try and fail not to shuffle in my chair, but instinct makes me slouch down from the force of his presence.
“There’s nothing I won’t do to help you out of your situation. I can send the sheriff’s department with movers and members of Corinth Security to help you pack up and get your possessions. We can put you up in the extra suites in the house, or there’s an extra cottage down with the pack if you’d like some separation and your own space.” Cade’s offer isn’t unexpected.
“I—” The argument doesn’t come.
I tilt my head back up to look at him rather than the desk in front of him.
“Henri, if you don’t leave him, Nathan will kill you.” His words are so assured, ringing with the truth in his conviction. “I called Dinah last night, and she saw it.”
The gift of future sight, the polar opposite of Lena’s gift, is wrong on occasion, and I don’t want to believe it’s the truth.
“I spoke with Nathan’s last girlfriend.” Deacon’s voice is cold and concise.
My eyes flick to him. I didn’t forget he was in the room, but I didn’t expect him to speak.
“Then, with the rest of the night, I tracked down everything about Grace Morelli that I could find, and while the coroner’s office wrote it off as an accident...” Deacon looks at me, his wolf’s deep brown eyes calling to my wolf. “After seeing the bruises that Nathan’s left on you, there’s no fuckin’ way that’s true.”
My wolf rises to the surface. He’s afraid. Deacon is afraid.
Nathan’s last girlfriend. She’s dead. And Deacon spoke to her.
Beyond that, I could have sworn I smelled him outside the front door this morning. It was just a faint scent, so I figured I was crossing scents. Did he stalk me... at home?
Cade opens his laptop and spins his second monitor so that it’s visible to me. He pulls up a small news article.
Local Woman Dies in Tragic Accident
It’s maybe two paragraphs long without a picture, nondescript, and it would almost go without notice. A tragic yet uneventful news experience except to the loved ones involved.
Cade taps his track pad, and the screen refreshes to pictures of the automobile. Pictures from a police report and not the newspaper.
“Best guess.” Deacon steps over and points to a picture of the driver’s seat. “He swapped out the floor mat.”
I lean in to get a better look at what he’s pointing to. The car’s interior is a cream color, and the floor mat is gray.
“The mat got hung up in the brake pedal, so it couldn’t be depressed. Without the ability to brake when she went around a curve, there was no way for her to navigate safely, and the car went over the embankment.” Cade navigates to the next photo. The car sits mangled among rocks at the bottom of a steep hill. “The car flipped at least once, probably twice, before it ended up at the bottom.”
Before hitting the button again, he warns me, “The rest of what Deacon found is a little graphic.”
A blonde woman is lying on a steel table. Bruising mars her face and neck.
Cade zooms in on a portion by her neck and ear. “This is fingerprint bruising.” The next picture is of her side and arm. “Broken ribs, unlikely sustained during the crash. She was wearing her seat belt, but these were on her left side.”
“The coroner conveniently did not take photos.” Deacon’s voice is harsh with an undercurrent of a frustrated snarl. “But he noted unrelated bruising on her inner thigh. ”
The implication of that last statement takes me back to our time at the Wisconsin house when I ran there for safety. But Deacon spares me the disgrace of drawing comparisons out loud.
“A wolf might have survived this.” Cade pauses as he closes out the files. “But I doubt it. Grace was half dead before the curve.”
If I hadn’t been speechless before, I am now.
Nathan told me his last girlfriend cheated on him and that he blocked her on social media. I didn’t even do my due diligence and check into that story.
Who would lie about that sort of thing? Who lies and says they blocked their girlfriend on social media when she’s dead instead? Nathan? No...
I shake my head in disbelief.
The other alternative is that... Cade and Deacon are lying. What motive would they have... Because Deacon wants me for himself? No. I brush a flyaway hair out of my face, trying to keep some semblance of calm.
“I need to think about it.” For the first time in the conversation, I pull a coherent sentence together. There’s got to be some rationale here. “This is a lot.”
Cade purses his lips, then pulls them into a thin line, and his nostrils flare. “Don’t wait too long, Henri. He was vocal yesterday about how much he disliked wolves and that we’d host an event like this.”
“I’m so sorry that happened.” The apology comes out second nature. “Obviously, I completely respect you not wanting him here anymore.”
Deacon steps back from the desk and returns to the window.
Silence between the three of us is tense, but Cade breaks it. “ Why don’t you go get ready for this morning’s debrief. Think it over. I won’t let this be you, Henri.”
“I understand.” I can’t flee Cade’s office fast enough. My heart hammers in my chest, and I nearly run to my office.
I have twenty minutes to pull myself together after our meeting, and I take it to organize my things and stare off into space, trying to center myself and focus on the task at hand.
I’m not fired. It’s going to be okay. That doesn’t stop the images of Grace haunting my mind. Could Nathan have done that?
Those twenty minutes pass in an instant, and the five-minute reminder on my meeting app reminds me that I’ve got to go be the pack publicist.
Fear of being late drives me across the hall and into the library, where we handle our group meetings. I sit in my usual space as the teams filter into the room and take their chairs. No one says anything or looks any different than any other day. Last night is seemingly not a topic of concern.
I draw a slow, calming breath. At least I’ve got that going for me.
“Good morning, everyone,” Meaghan says, walking into the library with her usual folders and tablet keyboard setup. She takes her normal seat next to where Cade will sit when he arrives, Finn already seated at his other side. “Cade is running a bit late today. He told us to cover some of the basic items that quote: ‘he doesn’t know anything about anyway.’”
A chorus of laughter rises around the room.
“Okay, so Cade obviously wants to handle the thank-you and appreciations himself. Finn, did you want to start with the talk about the security updates?”
“No, we need to hold on that.” Finn shakes his head. “The electronic component makes this awful fuckin’ high-pitched dog whistle noise the humans didn’t know about because they can’t hear it.”
“Oh no.” I cringe just thinking about the pain that must have put him through.
Meaghan goes down the meeting agenda. “That means we can discuss clean up and prep for March Equinox.”
The discussion is straightforward, and I’m following along taking notes, knowing there isn’t anything I need to do for this part because I have a whole person on staff for events like this.
Cade strolls through the door, and in the silence between topics, he greets us. “Thank you for starting the meeting without me. I appreciate your flexibility in my arrival.”
“Excellent timing.” Meaghan smiles. “We were just about to start the next line item.”
“Well, I’ll have to cut this meeting short, but let’s cover the important bits, and we can make the rest of the meeting, that probably could have been some emails, into an email.” Cade laughs.
“Fuckin’ Christ,” Finn mutters under his breath.
“Thank you all for your work in making yesterday flow without any issues. Obviously, I was concerned about the potential of a mauling, but the only one who got even a little dinged up was my ego when the one article called TL ‘cute.’” Cade wrinkles his nose.
“In my team’s defense, they did catch the attempt to misgender and misidentify TL and Thalia.” I laugh and cover my mouth with my hand. “Apparently there’s a notion that all black wolves are male.”
Cade rolls his eyes, and Finn snickers. The rest of the table takes the cue, and we all give it a little laugh, easing off some tension.
“Food and beverages were delicious. I probably ate a pan of lasagna all by myself. But we should make sure that every kitchen that contributed to the event receives extra thanks, maybe some sort of gift card because we all know they’re not going to accept cash, and getting receipts is already like pulling teeth.” Cade laughs and looks at the group. “Some things never change.” He runs his hand back through his hair. “On less positive news, Deacon is taking a leave of absence effective immediately. Henri and Meaghan, coordinate to figure out how to transition his appointments to myself and Thalia. Last resort, please push things to Finn’s and Lena’s calendars.”
Kyle clears his throat next to me, and I shoot him a glare. The mystery of what just happened is a bigger deal than him feeling slighted that Cade didn’t address him for this.
No reason or timeline is given for Deacon taking leave, and I don’t ask.
“Let’s adjourn there. Email Meaghan, please, any meeting things that we all need to be aware of. We’ll get everything regrouped and hashed out. But I’ve got to move on with my day, or I won’t get to see my mate for dinner.” Cade smiles and gestures toward the door.
We all rise to leave him at the table, and Cade says lowly, “Meaghan and Henri, stay, please.”
Finn follows the other meeting participants to the door and closes it behind them before returning to the table with us.
“Deacon needs some downtime. He’s not doing awesome. I’m hoping a week and he’ll be back to normal, but let’s go ahead and give him a bit more than that just to be safe.” Cade scrubs his hands down his face.
What happened after I left last night? Or is this because of the meeting we just had? Guilt wiggles against the back of my brain. I bite my lip against the desire to ask all the questions. I could go up and talk to him.
No. My wolf stops me. Don’t question the Alpha.
“It’s been a long time coming.” He breathes out a heavy sigh. “I shouldn’t have asked him for so much so fast.” Cade pauses but looks between me and Meaghan. “Are there any major issues that we need to hash out right away? Large events that have overlap?”
My fingers are shaking as I open my tablet to Deacon’s calendar. The screen refreshes slowly, and I then overlay Cade’s schedule on top of it.
“Henri.” Finn speaks lowly to me. “This was coming long before last night and the interaction with Nathan. Don’t feel responsible for this.”
I knew everyone knew about last night. Hell, Finn was there to stand behind Cade as his Second, but why did I think maybe no one noticed? I fight back whatever sting is making my eyes want to water.
My lack of belief in his words is monumental. Deacon was fine until yesterday evening. But I just nod and pretend to accept his words because he wasn’t there in the hallway. All Finn saw was Nathan. He has no way of knowing. He didn’t see the pain in Deacon’s eyes when he begged me not to go.
How isn’t this all my fault?