Page 13 of Cruel Revenge (Jacky Leon #12)

CHAPTER NINE

“ A rlo, Benjamin!” I called out, seeing them halfway down my driveway, walking to the packhouse.

Arlo turned around first, elbowing Benjamin to make him stop, too. He had headphones in and yanked them out, his eyes wide as he realized I was the one flagging them down.

“There was something else I wanted to talk to you two about,” I said, catching up to them. “And why are you walking? Just grab your car and drive over there.”

“The walk is nice,” Benjamin said, shrugging. Arlo nodded.

“So what’s up?” Arlo asked, crossing his arms.

“How’s it been living with Olivia?”

“Uh… good?” Arlo shrugged this time. “She’s nice.

She and Teagan are really sweet together.

She’s always making food for us and answers questions for us and stuff.

She doesn’t know like anything about the moon cursed, but she has a surprising amount of animal facts and can’t help comparing them together. ”

“Really?”

“Teagan finds it cute, I think,” Benjamin mumbled. “It’s not insulting. She’s just really obsessed with animals.”

“Teagan thinks it’s smart, but then Teagan has been… changing around her.”

My brows went up at Arlo’s words.

“How so?”

“He’s more grumbly. If I try to be… more dominant than him, he gets snappier, like if I tried to bug Kody or something and rank up over him. It’s like he’s not really a Beta anymore. It’s weird. Not bad. Really good, actually, but a change.”

“Huh.” I crossed my arms. I was going to have to ask Olivia and Teagan about this myself. Or maybe I should just trust Heath about it and go to him first.

“Teagan is like really old, so… if he’s not worried about any of this, then why should we be? Plus, she’s really nice. To us.” Arlo pointed to him and Benjamin. “She’s not trying to be our mom or anything. She’s just nice, and Teagan doesn’t just trust her. He’s really in love with her.”

“I think they have a mate bond they haven’t told anyone about,” Benjamin whispered.

“No!” Arlo didn’t agree at all. “You keep saying that, but I’m not buying it. I think they would tell us if they did.”

“They look at each other secretly like Dirk and Landon do,” Benjamin continued, arguing his case. “Like they know exactly when the other is looking at them and stuff.”

Benjamin was the people watcher of the two. I was inclined to believe him noticing things like that. At the same time, I believed that if Teagan and Olivia had a real mate bond, we’d all know about it. At least Heath would, and he would tell me. Or I wanted to believe he would tell me.

“Well, I just wanted to check in, and since everything seems okay, that’s all.”

“You weren’t awake when she got here. Of course, you’re more cautious than the rest of us,” Arlo said, sounding ten years older than he had any right to.

“Dirk trusted her enough to bring her to help you, though. Teagan was going to protect her from Heath if he had to. Your mom likes her. We like her. It’s all good, Jacky.

” Arlo grinned. “We’re going to go hang out at the packhouse now. ”

“Go have fun,” I said, stepping back and waving as they got back to walking.

When I reached the house again, I could smell something new.

There was a nervous energy that hadn’t been there earlier.

My anxiety jumped as I recognized it as Carey’s nerves and wondered what had gotten her worked up from breakfast to now.

I went back into my office to find her there, fiddling with her phone, and she jumped out of her skin as I entered.

“What’s wrong?” I demanded.

“I need to talk to you about something important, and my dad can’t know,” she said simply, her nervous swallow almost audible.

“Are you in danger? What’s happening?”

“I’m not in any danger. I don’t think. Um…” Carey started pacing. “You know, you and Dad are covered by the news, right? I know we pretend like it’s not happening because it’s not like we have paparazzi here or anything, but it happens.”

“Heath and I are public figures. He’s a well-known public Alpha, and I’m designated as the werecat rep for humanity,” I confirmed.

“We don’t do a lot publicly, but there are people interested in what we’re doing and where we are.

” I let my brother, Davor, and Dirk manage all of that.

Davor made sure nothing too personal snuck out into the public and if it did, he had alerts to quickly get things taken down or held off.

He didn’t report any of this to me. I was allowed to live my life and ignore it.

Heath didn’t particularly care about his own movements being followed, either, something Callahan taught all the Alphas.

Just move about the world like a normal person, and the articles get less news.

It worked. We weren’t very interesting, so only niche, obsessed humans really cared, and none of them were stupid enough to become proper stalkers.

Beyond that, the BSA was always trying to follow all of us.

“Well, you and Dad… your engagement made the news ages ago, right? It’s been public for a long time.

It got whispered out there by some BSA agent or another werewolf Alpha or whatever.

It doesn’t matter. Because of that, someone reached out to me recently.

” Carey was looking down at her phone, flipping it around in her hands.

“Who?”

“My biological mother,” she answered softly.

Oh, shit.

I couldn’t stop my pulse from skyrocketing.

I couldn’t stop my breathing from becoming a little too fast and shallow.

I did my best to keep those as my only reactions to this information, though, as I walked around my desk and reached my seat.

I planted my hands on my desk and sat down, letting that news hit me.

“And because I don’t want Dad to know about this, but I did want you to know, I had to wait for a good moment to tell you.” Carey came closer to the desk, her eyes bright with anxiety.

“And today is it.”

“And I started getting really nervous, knowing you were going to be back in here any second,” she explained, coming another step closer.

“So, what does this mean? Your biological mother has reached out. She must have hired an investigator to get your phone number. You don’t have social media anymore.”

“Yeah. You guessed exactly right,” she said, nodding. “She wants to have dinner. She said she’s felt really guilty about leaving me for all these years and… with you and Dad getting married…”

“You want to meet her.” I closed my eyes.

This is her mother. Her real mother. She’s not even seventeen. Of course, she wants to meet her mom finally. Give the woman a chance…

“Yeah,” Carey confirmed softly. “But only once. I just need her to explain… all of it. Why she left and stuff. I don’t want anything else from her.”

“Really?” I asked, pained. I couldn’t smell a lie, but this was an unexpectedly painful conversation to be having. I couldn’t force my human emotions to trust what my werecat nose knew.

“I promise. It’s all I want. Just to hear her side of things. She’s never been in my life. I don’t really want her to be in right now, but with you about to marry Dad… I think it’s a good time for me to get answers from her.”

“I don’t like this,” I admitted.

But I can’t trust it’s not just my own fear of losing her to her human mother. Her real mother.

“You don’t like it. Dad would hate it. I’m worried he won’t let me actually talk to her.”

Would he be wrong about that?

“When does she want to meet you?”

“She said if I give her twenty-four hours, she can fly here and meet me in Dallas or Tyler. She doesn’t want to come to Jacksonville… I don’t blame her for that.”

“Of course. She’s brushed elbows with too many supernaturals to foolishly walk into my town,” I said, nodding.

“Can I give her a time and place for tomorrow?” Carey asked in a tiny voice, one that made me think of an eleven-year-old, not the sixteen-year-old in front of me.

“Carey, I really don’t like this.”

“If Dad gets upset, I’ll take all the blame,” she pleaded, coming closer, until she was practically hovering over me at the desk.

“Please, Jacky. We can take all the werewolves, have everyone on guard. I’ll do whatever you want for security.

Let me do this. Let me finally meet her and talk to her. Just this once.”

My heart was being ripped out of my chest, and I could barely breathe, but I couldn’t let her know any of that.

I wasn’t going to show this bright young woman I watched grow up any of that.

It wasn’t her fault that I was secretly jealous of her biological mother for having that prior claim, for being the one who brought this amazing girl into the world.

I could be Carey’s protector, I could be her friend, and I could be her stepmother, but I could never beat the woman who carried her for months and brought her into the world.

But none of that was Carey’s fault, so I wasn’t going to make it her problem.

“I want to choose the place,” I said, making my decision and hating the words even as they came out.

“I want to make sure it’s clear of everyone else.

It will only be me, you, and her as patrons.

I’ll make sure of that. It will be Tyler, not Dallas.

Dallas is too far from home.” I took a deep breath.

If I tried to do this while Zuri was here, I’d have back up, someone who could hug me and let me know it was going to be okay, but I risked Heath putting a stop to it if I got more people involved.

Zuri could tell him and I would rather ask for forgiveness than permission.

Carey deserves the chance to talk to her real mother. She deserves the answers and the possibility of a relationship.

“Okay. And when do you think we can do this?”

“Tomorrow,” I said, taking a deep breath as I made my choice. “Tomorrow dinner, in Tyler. Restaurant to be decided. Let her know.”

“Thank you, Jacky,” Carey said, coming around the desk to launch into me with a hug.

I wanted to hold her for a long time, but she was clearly distracted.

There was some excitement in her scent and nerves.

There was love, which was for me at that moment, and it was the only thing that eased my nerves.

I can do this for her. I can make sure she has a chance to meet her mother. This is a good thing. She deserves this.

I released her, and she immediately started texting on her phone, definitely to that woman. I knew Heath had files on her.

Dirk would have access to them, but would he tell Heath about this? Heath could order him to, but perhaps he won’t think to. Dirk is my werewolf, after all.

I considered whether I knew enough to find those files myself.

I got up slowly and started walking, heading straight for the packhouse.

I texted the group chat between me and the werewolves to let them know I was coming over to get something, and I wanted privacy.

Stacy waved at me as I passed the security building, and I frowned.

“We decided we’d always have someone here just in case you needed to leave the house. It’s my shift right now. You don’t need to worry.”

“Thank you,” I said softly, trying to appreciate the thoughtfulness of the young werewolf, but it was hard while I was trying to hide how shellshocked I was by Carey’s request and my new mission.

When I reached the packhouse, I realized my mistake. Heath was going to smell me if I went into his office and started looking through his files. I never did that, so he would have questions. He would know if I lied. He’d find out, then Carey would lose her chance.

Maybe he wouldn’t stop her. He’s not heartless. This is her mother. Maybe if I give him a good security plan for it, it would be fine.

Groaning, I rubbed my face, unable to make a decision. She wasn’t my daughter. She was in my heart. I was her legal guardian if Heath and Landon weren’t available, but I wasn’t her mother.

I have to tell him. I do. I’ll tell him tonight when he asks about me going through the files. I’ll just draw the line for Carey, so she has a chance to do this.

I went into Heath’s office, the rest of my day consumed by this task. A gift to Carey. Letting her meet her mother for the first time in her life.