Page 25

Vincent

In the back of my mind, I believed Xavier when he said something was wrong with Della.

I hadn’t wanted to believe him. It’s easier to close your eyes and stay focused on a task you’ve spent years working toward than let yourself be distracted.

After Levi said she hadn’t eaten the meal he brought, she didn’t reply to my knock on her door. I stood outside her room, listening, but there was no answer, and the silence made it hard to focus.

The city is heading into civil war if I don’t show my face.

I’m within touching distance of finding the person who killed my omega, but a beta who I hadn’t believed knew the meaning of quiet is silent.

“ Dexter ,” Morgan snaps.

“You’ve given me a lot to think about,” I say calmly as I process what part of the conversation I missed. “Rushing into anything would be hasty.”

Through the large screen set up on the wall of my office, the members of the Council narrow their eyes.

Five members.

One elected head.

To become the head, I had to show them that, as the youngest, I could protect their interests and the city. But I had no interest in them, their politics, or even the city. I wanted enough power to obtain information that I couldn’t access any other way than by being in charge.

“The problem isn’t a lack of hastiness,” Olin scoffs. The bald, scarred alpha spends his days in a high-rise tower he owns in the heart of the city. At fifty, he’s the oldest among us. “It’s your lack of action.”

True.

I steeple my fingers on the desk as I eye them one by one.

Soon after I took power, one of these men tried to kill me. But that’s the game we all play. If you want power, be prepared for someone to try to take it from you.

“The city is tipping toward a civil war,” I admit.

“Because you aren’t doing anything,” Cook says.

Also true.

His sharp eyes observe me keenly. The lean, dark alpha is usually quiet, but anyone who challenges him should expect to die if they fail. He is cunning.

A soft creak pulls my attention to my closed office door.

It’s nine, and Levi went to bed early after his evening workout.

Nowhere has ever felt like home, and none of us has wanted to lay down permanent roots anywhere.

We find a house, rent it until we get itchy feet, then we move on.

We’ve been here for six months, the longest we’ve called a rental home.

Quietly, I get to my feet, picking up a small black remote from the desk. “This requires a delicate touch. Acting fast could create more problems than it would solve.”

Rounding the desk, I take light steps. I’m still talking when I close my hand around the doorknob, twist, and pull. Fast.

Thud .

Della Jackson stares up at me from the floor.

She’s no longer in the backless hospital gown she was wearing before.

It’s not the first time she has been on the floor in front of me, gazing up at me with her large, expressive, dark blue eyes. The first time, she was on her knees in her uniform, and the thoughts I had at that moment were anything but teacherly.

“Problem, Dexter?” Cook calls out.

Della’s eyes widen at my other name.

I don’t look away from her. “An urgent matter just came up. We’ll continue this conversation another time.”

Olin is complaining when I point my remote at the monitor and end the conference call.

“You’re Dexter Pieter,” Della whispers.

“Yes, and no.”

Yes, that’s the name most people know me as, and no, that is not who I am. Or, it’s not all I am.

I return to my desk and sit down as Della picks herself up from the floor.

It’s dim in here, but Xavier was right. Della hasn’t been sleeping, and judging by her hollow cheeks and the way she slightly sways as she gets to her feet, she hasn’t been eating either.

I pretend to focus on a file on my desk as I continue to observe her out of the corner of my eye.

“Why were you pretending to be a teacher?” she asks.

“That’s a big question, Miss Farrow.” The name slips out. It’s not her real name. It’s as fake as Dexter Pieter.

She drops gracelessly into the chair on the other side of my desk. “It’s Della Jackson.”

“I didn’t invite you to sit.”

“Didn’t you?” She stares at me as if daring me to throw her out.

“Maybe you could tell me what you were doing pretending to be a student at Haven,” I say, not expecting a response.

“Breaking as many omegas out of that hamster wheel as I could.”

I lift my eyebrow. “Hamster wheel?”

She rolls her eyes. “Everyone busy, busy, busy, but going nowhere.”

“You’re here for a reason.” I close the file, abandoning any pretense of reading it. My attention is locked on the woman across from me, and she’s making it impossible to look away. “What?”

She forced her way in here, inviting herself to sit without permission and staring me down as if challenging me to throw her out.

Defiance.

In every way since I’ve met Della Jackson, she has been defiant.

But now?

A flicker of uncertainty chases away the stubborn look in her eyes.

She swallows hard enough for me to track the motion on her slender, bruised throat. Finger marks tell me how those bruises got there and seeing them enrages me.

She catches me looking and lowers her chin, as if embarrassed by them.

I set my palms on my desk and lean toward her. “Miss Jackson.”

“No one calls me that,” she mutters, pulling up the neck of her shirt.

I patiently wait for her to tell me why she’s here.

“Being the big guy in charge, I suppose you have ways of finding things out,” she starts, head angled toward my monitor as she plays with her fingers.

“Things like what?”

“People,” she says in a rush. “Specific people.”

I sit back in my chair, studying her closely.

The city could erupt in violence at any moment because I’m not doing my work. Yet here I am, sitting in my office chair, watching Della Jackson.

“I would think a security company might serve you better. They’re in the business of finding people and things.”

She shakes her head. “The only security company I’ve heard of knows my sister. I don’t want it getting back to her.”

“There are countless companies in the city,” I remind her.

“Trust some random security company with my secrets?” She snorts. “Great idea.”

“What secrets?” I ask, as if I hadn’t voiced those same worries to Levi and Xavier.

Silence.

“I have work that you’re keeping me from, Miss Jackson,” I say, to provoke a response.

“Stop calling me that,” she snaps, cheeks turning pink.

“Then stop wasting my time,” I counter.

We stare at each other.

“I want three men dead.”

I don’t need to ask who those three men are and why she would want them dead. I saw the belt marks on her back, the bruises on her face and body.

“That sounds an awful lot like premeditated murder.”

“When someone hurts you, you hurt them back.” Her eyes harden, chips of deep blue ice. “This is not murder. This is revenge. Surely you have underlings to do your bidding.”

I strangle my need to smile. “ Underlings ?”

She deflates. “Yeah, that was probably wishful thinking, huh?”

“Why do you want these men dead?” I ask, curious if she’ll open up to me.

“Why were you pretending to be a math professor?” she counters.

The mistrust is mutual.

“I can help you, you know,” she says, sitting back in her seat and crossing her legs.

“With what?”

She waves one arm around. “Whatever thing you were doing there. I was a student. I might have seen something.”

“When you weren’t trying to set the school on fire?”

“I had my reasons,” she says tightly. “And if you can, though it might be very hard with the passage of time, try to remember what you were like in school.”

I choke back a laugh. The last time I laughed was an eternity ago. “Are you calling me old , Miss Jackson?”

She stares at me without expression.

She’s nineteen to my thirty-one, so she’s not entirely wrong.

“What was your point?” I ask.

“How many secrets floated around in your school that the teachers knew nothing about?”

Ah…

“You weren’t at the school long,” I remind her. “You couldn’t have heard much.”

“Of course not,” she says and gets to her feet. “Well, I’ll let you get back to whatever thing you’re doing. Maybe you’ll figure it out.”

“Reverse psychology doesn’t work on me, Miss Jackson,” I call after her.

But I’m tempted. More tempted than I should be.

Because she’s right.

Teachers back at school hardly knew anything about our lives. But Haven is different. At a boarding school where everyone lives on campus, students have more access to their teachers than I did at a school that closed its doors at three.

Della would have spoken with students who have been at the school for years. They would have had siblings who attended before them who might know things we could never know, especially now, with only Xavier to continue the investigation.

I’m still not sure why I brought Della to this house, or what I hoped to achieve. The fewer people who know about me, my pack, and what we’re doing, the better. Having a stranger wandering around is not wise.

She stops in the doorway and turns to face me. “I’m merely offering to help you get the thing you want, and, in return, you can help me get the thing I want. If you don’t want it?” She shrugs. “I’ll figure out my own thing. I don’t need you the way you need me.”

And she walks out, closing the door behind her.