Page 61 of Down Knot Out (Pack Alphas of Misty Pines #3)

Blake steps up behind him without a sound, the sleeves of his flannel rolled up to reveal his muscular, tattooed forearms. Abbott flinches, stumbling half a step as his eyes dart to Blake’s large fists.

I pull the printout from my back pocket, unfold it, and hold it up for Abbott to read. “Redwater Holdings. Your name, your routing number, and every payment since you started. All timed to incidents on this site. You want to tell us what’s going on?”

His mouth opens, but only a dry, rasping sound comes out.

Emily holds up her phone, thumb over the record button. “If you want to try to clear this up, now’s your shot.”

Abbott tries for bravado, but the sweat beading on his hairline gives him away. “This is all circumstantial. You can’t pin it on me.”

Blake folds his arms across his chest. “We don’t need to. The sheriff has the chain of evidence already.”

Abbott’s face crumples. “You have no idea who you’re fucking with.”

“Redwater Holdings is a dummy company,” I inform him. “But the account manager who signed the checks? You used your real name the first three times.”

He closes his eyes. “Fuck.”

Emily hits record. “Tell us, Marcus. Who paid you?”

He licks his lips, then slumps, all the fight draining out. “Redwater. I’ve never met anyone. It’s all email and wire. They gave me burner phones for some of it. Instructions to slow you down, mess up shipments, make tools walk, nothing major. Said if I played ball, there’d be more work. If not…”

I tilt my head, waiting.

The fight drains out of him. “They said if I didn’t do it, they’d tell the union I had a criminal record. No one would hire me again.”

Blake steps forward, and for a second, I think he’s going to hit the man. Instead, he lays a hand on Abbott’s shoulder, hard enough to remind him resistance is a bad idea, but not so hard as to hurt. “We can help you if you help us.”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll tell you everything I know,” Abbott says, his chest rising with shallow breaths.

Emily ends the recording and thumbs it over to me. “You want to call the sheriff, or should I?”

My hands shake with adrenaline, and I take a steadying breath. “I’ll do it.”

Abbott sags, all the fight gone .

Blake keeps his hold on Abbott’s shoulder, his own face unreadable.

I dial the sheriff and give the story in clipped sentences, then hang up and slip the phone back into my pocket.

Blake still hasn’t let go of Abbott, but he gentles his hold. Maybe he realizes that if it hadn’t been Abbott, it would have been someone else. “Why didn’t you come to us? We could’ve protected you.”

Abbott gives a bitter laugh. “Didn’t think anyone would believe me.”

Blake lets out a long breath, releases his grip, and steps back. “We’re not your enemy.”

Without his support, Abbott sits down hard on the nearest pallet, staring at his hands.

Emily comes over and stands next to me, close enough for our sleeves to touch. “That’s it, then?”

I think about it, the tension in my shoulders easing by increments. “For now.”

We wait with Abbott for the deputies to arrive by boat. It only takes twenty minutes, since Kyle had been waiting at the docks to bring them over.

As the water taxi glides in, Dominic steps out of the shed with the footage and the envelope we prepared, copies of everything we found. He meets the deputies at the pier, all business .

I turn to Blake. “You ready to see this through?”

He wipes sweat from his brow. “Yeah. I am.”

The deputies gather up Abbott, promising to follow up within the week. We stand by the cabin, watching them go, a strange quiet settling over the site.

Blake sags, straightens, then sags again, riding a wave of relief and struggling through grief over the father who put him in this position.

“I was so worried we wouldn’t figure out who was doing this to us that I didn’t think about who was doing it.” He moves toward me, and I pull him in for a hug, knowing he needs the contact and my pheromones to calm him. “I still can’t believe my father tried to ruin us.”

“But he didn’t succeed.” I cup the back of his neck, a purr rising from my chest. “We’ll still have to face him, but now we can do it on our terms.”

Blake breathes out, and he sags against me. “Thank you so much for being my pack.”

My chest tightens. He’s got it backward.

I should be the one thanking him. For risking everything to leave our families.

For building a pack of two when we had nothing but each other.

For opening it to Holden and Dominic when they needed us.

I don’t even want to imagine where I’d be if Blake hadn’t stood with me back when we were barely more than kids.

I spoke with my father last night and sent him the same evidence tying Blake’s father to Redwater and the sabotage. It was a calculated risk. If my father had been in on the scheme, it would have tipped Abbott off. But his reaction came as expected.

Rage at a longtime business partner daring to smear the Burton name.

While I may have walked away from the family pack, I’m still his son, and as far as he’s concerned, my failures reflect on him.

Naturally, the tirade that followed had nothing to do with Blake or the damage done to our pack. All my father cared about was that his investment was threatened.

When I brought up the clause that would force Blake and me out of Misty Pines if the project failed to launch on time, he cut me off mid-sentence, said he had real business to handle, and hung up. I imagine he meant hiring a new construction firm for his land portfolio.

If nothing else, my father never strays from his priorities.

At least with Abbott gone and Harris Senior now under investigation, Phase One of the project will be completed with no more hiccups.

“Aww, so sweet.” Emily claps us on the backs, jostling us. “But you can cuddle after the job’s done. We still have a bit to go before we can open the doors to visitors.”

Blake laughs into my neck, then rubs his cheek against mine, his beard scratching my clean-shaven face before he pulls back. “You’re such a hardass.”

“That’s what you pay me for.” She hooks a thumb at the bundle of composite boards. “Now, help me clean this mess up.”

As they head off, I look at the surrounding crew, Emily, Dominic, and Blake, and I realize we’ve built something here that no amount of sabotage can touch.

It’s not the expansive familial pack like where I grew up in. It’s a different kind of pack, one centered around the family we chose.

And that’s what will give our home strength.