Page 44

Leo watches the play of emotions cross her face, lightning-fast and ranging from sadness to fear to regret, but she lands on disdain. It doesn’t reach her eyes, but she plows on anyway.

“No. Gideon told us we were dead to you, so I don’t know why you’re here or what you want, but you aren’t going to get it. You shouldn’t have come.”

“Mother, please. You owe me this much.”

Jay grasps her hand, and it’s enough to draw her eyes up toward his face.

Time slows as a myriad of emotions flicker across her face.

No one is more surprised than Leo when she finally nods.

“You’re right. Come with me. He’ll be here soon and…” She shakes her head, cutting off that train of thought. “Ju st…not here.”

“Okay,” Leo says, “then where?”

She flashes him a small, grateful smile.

“We can find a meeting room.”

They find what she’s looking for in the administrative wing. It’s oddly quiet, and Leo enters first, just to be sure there’s not an ambush. As much as Gideon and Jay think Carnell is all about their omega, Leo has always maintained otherwise.

She closes the door when they’re inside and rests her forehead on the wood.

When she turns around, she lets her mask of fake “country club socialite” fall. She looks haggard and tired, and not just a little bit scared.

“Mother.” Jay must see it, too.

“No, Jamie. Please. You are right. I owe you this at least. But…it’s difficult for me—”

“Not easy for you?”

Leo cannot believe the nerve of this woman, any momentary sympathy evaporating under her careless words. He feels his rare anger pulse in his chest.

“Leo.”

“No, Jaybird. She has been nothing but horrible to you your whole life, she’s responsible for Nix’s torture and trauma, and now…she’s caught up with Carnell. She is owed none of your understanding, and you are too god-damned nice that you’ll let it all slide. No.”

“You’re right,” Miranda agrees.

Wait. What?

“I am?”

Miranda nods.

“You are right. I have been a terrible mother to you for your whole life. Self-centered and vain. And worse, I let your father dictate how our family would be and took the selfish way out. I am sorry.”

“That’s not—” Enough. Sorry isn’t near enough.

“Leo,” Jay cuts him off.

“Fine.” Leo grits his teeth and mimes zipping his mouth .

“He’s right. You have good mates. I am happy for you. I am sorry. I know it’s not enough, and we don’t have time for me to tell you all the ways I regret not being the mother you deserve.”

She pulls out a chair, sitting heavily, indicating they should, too.

“After your call last fall, your father…he…he lost control of his temper. You know how he can be? Well, your Gideon really let him have it. I don’t know what was said exactly, but he set your father off in a way I hadn’t seen before. Gideon really must love all of you.”

Jay and Leo nod.

“I am so glad you have someone like him in your pack. You’re a good alpha, I imagine?”

She asks Leo this question like she would love to hear Leo wax poetic about her son’s good qualities.

Leo isn’t going to give her the satisfaction of sharing all the ways Jay is perfect, even though they are on the tip of his tongue and at the forefront of his mind every minute of the day.

“The very best,” is all he’s willing to give.

“I am glad, and not surprised. Well, the same cannot be said for James. After the call, he disappeared for a few days, as he sometimes does when his anger is terrible. Those things he’s accused of doing?”

“Embezzlement and fraud?” Jay asks.

Miranda can only nod.

“He’s guilty, of course. I am, too, I suppose, despite being unaware for the longest time. I am certainly complicit.” She waves her hand to encompass her lifestyle.

“Mother, why?”

“Isn’t that the question? I am vain and ignorant, at the very least, and speciesist and neglectful at worst. I take full responsibility for the consequences of my actions, Jamie. I am not a nice person. But I am trying to be better.”

Her phone rings in her purse, and she jolts.

“I have to go soon, but I want you to know that you need to avoid your father. He’s involved with Carnell, as you must know. It’s the reason you’re here, I presume?”

When they don’t answer, she perseveres.

“Yes, well, when your father came back last fall, he was different. Harder, crueler, and it has only gotten worse—like something is eating away at him. I don’t know what he’s after, exactly, but Jamie? You’re at the center of it.”

“Me? No. It’s not about me at all.”

Wisely, Jay doesn’t offer Nix’s name but asks,

“Why wouldn’t you have tried to call me and warn me? I know you’ve never been fond of me, but at least you could have tried?”

“Fond? Jamie, I love you as much as I am able. I have been calling you. I have tried all your numbers, and Ripley Records has refused my calls, as has your newest company, Phoenix. Congratulations, by the way.”

“You’ve been calling?”

“I was until James found out.”

She pauses and rotates her wrist a few times, almost without realizing it. It’s the same thing Nix sometimes does when he’s thinking about Hayes, on the infrequent bad nights after a dark dream.

“You were safe in Nashville. You have to go back as soon as possible. Give up on whatever madness has you here.”

“Mother. Come with us,” Jay begs, far too forgiving for Leo’s peace of mind. “Come and meet Nix again. And the others. We’re having babies.”

Miranda gasps.

“You are? Oh, my. Grand-babies? Multiple?”

“Two little girls.”

She looks wistful, and the soft smile eases the hard lines on her face. She looks like she might ask more questions, but her phone rings again, and her face hardens with resolve.

“I can’t go with you. I need to be here, but if you’d accept my calls in the future, maybe? I know I don’t deserve it, but…”

“I will. I’ll tell reception at Phoenix to connect you right away. But if you reconsider? We’ll come for you,” Jay says. “I can’t forget everything you did, but if you are trying to make amends, I can try to be forgiving.”

Miranda blinks and turns away, as if she is surprised at the offer .

“Thank you. Now go. There’s an exit in the locker room onto the green.

Follow the building around until you find the parking lot.

You probably shouldn’t take your car back—he’ll have found that already, and he’ll likely be waiting.

He didn’t know it was you this morning when he got the call from the staff, but he will by now. ”

She opens the door and looks up the corridor toward the way they’d come.

“It’s clear. Give me five minutes before you try to get to the men’s locker room. I know he’s not calling from there, as cell phones are prohibited inside for privacy.”

She cracks open the door and looks back before slipping through.

A small smile curves her lips.

“I’m proud of you, Jamie.”

And with that, she is gone, shutting the door softly behind her.

They stand there in silence—Jay stock-still, and his scent superseding his scent blocker. It’s pine turned forest fire.

Leo counts five minutes before he opens the door, dragging his somber alpha up the hallway and into the men’s locker room, and right out the door Miranda had mentioned.

“How are we getting back?” he asks. “Your mother is right; we can’t take the car back. Especially if James knows who we are.”

They skirt the edge of the building, following it around in the opposite direction of the parking lot. It takes an extra few minutes, but they’re able to follow the driveway back toward the road without being seen. Maybe they can find a taxi on the other side.

“Are you alright?” Leo asks finally, guiding the distracted alpha into the cover of a large bush, when an expensive black car flies past them up the drive. No sense in being seen or remembered, even if it’s somebody in for a quick round in the middle of the day.

“No. Fuck. I hadn’t expected that.”

“Me, either. She seemed—” Leo breaks off, a sharp pain in his belly making him catch his breath at the same time Jay clutches his chest.

“Ow, fuck. ”

It’s gone as quickly as it had come, but it was Nix, for sure.

They reach the entrance to the Club, and the security guard is on the phone and paying them no mind when they skirt under the arm of the gate.

Jay already has his burner phone in hand.

“Gid. What the fuck is going on? Is Nix okay? Are you?”

Leo steers them toward the safe house along the side of the road—and hopefully toward a ride.

He has no problem hearing Gideon’s annoyed tone over the line.

“Well, yes, to all of that. We’re okay, but Gray blew the MRI machine up with whatever mojo he’s got cooking now, and he’s out.

Nix isn’t taking to that too well, and Finn was a pincushion for some exploding glass that we really need to get out right now.

We might have to replace a three-million-dollar MRI machine. ”

Mojo? Blew up the MRI? Three million dollars?

Leo is sure his face mirrors his alpha’s concern and disbelief.

“What’s happening to Gray?”

“No idea, but we have a civilian incoming. Will call later.”

The line goes dead, and Jay hits himself in the forehead with the device a few times.

“What next, Leo? That could have been the worst kind of bad.”

Jay sits for a minute in the grass, heedless, as he usually is of his expensive clothes.

If they cover his ass, he couldn’t care less how much they cost.

“No fucking kidding. Everyone is alright, though.”

Jay lies back, and Leo joins him. The sky looks much the same here as it does at home—the white clouds in a bright blue sky.

It’s a strange feeling. Maybe he could capture it for a song.

“I’ll call back soon. Do you think my mom is going to be okay?”

The last thing Leo wants to do is feel guilty about leaving Miranda Rhodes to the big bad wolf, but the question makes him think about her fear—and that wrist movement.

Jay is too good for this world, and Leo has always been too honest.

“No, I really don’t. ”

“Me either.”

Jay climbs to his feet, pulling Leo up after him, turning back toward the Golf Club.

“Whoa! Where are you going? Pack house is this way.”

“I can’t leave her there. I’m going to make her come with us. You heard her. My father is crazy.”

He can’t argue with that, and even though he’s got a bad feeling about this whole thing, he couldn’t live with himself if Jay had guilt for the rest of his life.

“Okay.”

A bright smile flashes across Jay’s face.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You lead, I follow. Has never done me wrong yet.”

“I love you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go. I am not looking forward to facing your Dad on an empty stomach. Although, to be fair, a full one seems like even less of a good idea. Know what I mean?”

“Sadly, I do.”

He leans into the arm Jay has thrown over his shoulder.

The guard is distracted again when they sneak past, and they start up the return route the way they’d come.

Leo pulls Jay in behind the same bush when he sees the same large black car leaving.

Must have been a quick round.

It’s moving quicker than before, and the guard only barely gets the arm up in time.

“What an asshole,” Jay mutters—right before there’s a cacophony of noise.

It’s so loud that Jay drags him to the ground, shielding Leo’s body with his own.

The ground trembles and shakes beneath them, and the subsequent absence of noise rings in Leo’s ears.

Leo looks up into Jay’s shocked face, and he can’t shake the feeling that whatever that was?

It was meant for them .