Page 308 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha

We’d just gotten back from Wargs’ territory the night before, and while Bryn made sure the Kings were ready for the winter, Dom, Tavi, Lance, and I were back in the office, going through more piles of paperwork. It was a nice change of pace to visit home, but I was eager to get back to the problem of the children who had disappeared a decade ago. Dom and Tavi had been working to find any evidence of where the children were taken or where their remains might be. We were hoping to find evidence inthese documents of secret, undeveloped land Gregor owned. It was a long shot, but we had to keep looking.

Getting Lance to agree to team up had been like pulling teeth, but after I’d caught him in the library, he seemed to realize he couldn’t do this on his own. Supposedly, he still found the idea of looking through paperwork tedious and unnecessary, but he was here, helping.

Tavi laughed suddenly, pulling my attention from the stapled stack of business projections. She was sitting on the ground by Dom’s chair. Dom must have said or done something she found funny.

“Can you lovebirds flirt later?” I demanded. “We’re supposed to be working.”

“Weareworking,” Tavi replied. Damn, but it was hard to be annoyed at her. She’d brightened even more over the last couple of weeks. She’d even stopped wearing oversized, long-sleeved shirts. Her outfits were a lot more modest than the crop tops she used to wear, but maybe that was just because we were in the middle of winter.

“Sure,” I replied.

I glanced at Lance. His expression was blank as he pretended to focus on his stack of papers, but his jaw was tense. I couldn’t tell if he was annoyed by my sister and beta or just generally uncomfortable. It still ate at me that I had to keep the truth about him from Bryn, but her due date was looming. I was counting down the days.

A few minutes of silence passed until Dom suddenly sprang to his feet. “Here it is!” he exclaimed. “Here it fucking is.”

“What?” My heart rate spiked. “Show me.”

He got up and approached my desk, with Tavi and Lance right behind him. He placed the paper in front of me, his head held high with pride. It wasn’t an official typed document, just a few coordinates scribbled on the back of a sheet torn from a legal pad. On the other side was a grocery list.

I looked up, my eyes wide, and zeroed in on the map of Idaho that was tacked to the wall across from me. Dom, having the same idea, went to the map and circled the corresponding locations with a red pen.

“I want a team out there right now,” I said.

“There might be nothing at any of these locations,” Lance pointed out. “For all we know, they might just be places where Gregor met up with his mistresses.”

I decided to ignore that last part, and not just because I didn’t want to hear about my sharing blood with a man who had not found faithfulness a tenet in relationships.

“We can’t afford to ignore it,” I said. “Not where these kids are concerned.”

Dom nodded. “I already have a team in mind. I’ll get them together and see how quickly we can get out to these locations.”

“Good. Take Tav with you.”

The excitement in the room was catching, and Tavi wasn’t immune to it. “Won’t you miss my charming presence?” she asked me with a smile.

I rolled my eyes. “No, and I won’t miss the nonstop giggling, either.” I nodded to the door. “Get to work.”

Dom winked at me and left hand-in-hand with Tavi. That left me and Lance. A few weeks ago, that would have bothered me, but after spending more time with him, he was just another wolf to me.

“I’m glad to have a few minutes of peace and quiet,” he said, returning to his chair. “But I’m not sure I like the idea of being here alone with you.”

“Uh huh.” The tension in his jaw and shoulders had relaxed. I was sure now that he was just uncomfortable being around Tavi and Dom’s closeness, not annoyed. “Did you make progress while I was gone?”

“I did, actually.”

“Really? Did you find that tax account number?” That number would let us know where Troy was spending money. If we knew that, it would lead us right to him.

“No, but I did confirm it was a dead end.” He crossed one leg over the other. “I spent hours on the phone with human banks, and they all told me the same thing. Even if we had the account information, it would be impossible to access it without written permission from the account holder, meaning Troy or Gregor. It’s essentially untouchable even with our resources.”

I sighed. That wasn’t encouraging, but after looking for that account for so many months, it was a relief to know we could put that search to rest.

“What else?”

“Well, I made headway. While you and Bryn were gone, people weren’t as careful.” He tapped his temple. “I’ve got a list ofnames up here. I can give them to you whenever you’re ready for ‘em.”

“Good.” I’d get that list to my men and make sure their movements were tracked. “What about these missing kids? Did Troy ever mention them to you?”

Lance shook his head. “He never mentioned them. It wasn’t until Gregor started getting sick that I even found out kids went missing ten years ago. A little while after that, I learned he and Gregor were obsessed with that portal BS.” His upper lip curled. “I started to wonder if those missing kids were related.”