Page 6

“When were you going to tell me he was your mate?”

Marco sounded pissed as he drove too fast on the inner-city streets, heading back to the pack lands to finish clearing out Emilio’s dad’s place with their cousin Luca.

Emilio wished he’d driven himself to the meet-up with the MC, but he hadn’t had time to grab a pack vehicle, so he would’ve had to turn up on the motorbike he kept in the garage under his loft.

No way was he going to look like he was trying to ingratiate himself to Rocco and the MC like that.

“He would only be my mate if we completed the bond, which I have no intention of doing. It was irrelevant information.”

“Why the fuck wouldn’t you complete the bond with the man you’re going to marry?”

There was an old pain hidden in Marco’s stern voice, and Emilio made himself take a calming breath before answering.

His Alpha had watched his mate die in front of him when he was just a teenager, gunned down by their enemies, and it had left him with an obsession with the bonds that many of their kind found too invasive to pursue.

The pack was lucky Marco had been waiting for his mate to be older to bond with her, or they’d have lost him too; not that Marco saw it that way.

Emilio had only been four at the time, but the stories of the murderous rampage Marco and his friend Bella had set out on had been formative for him.

“I’m a loner. You know that. I’m not interested.”

Marco growled, hands tightening on the steering wheel. “You are not a lone wolf. You’re my blood. You’re as important a part of this pack as anyone else. Do I have to kick your ass to prove it? Try again.”

Raw Alpha dominance washed over him through the bond, and Emilio scowled even as he tipped his jaw to expose his throat to Marco, the words he hadn’t wanted to say leaving his mouth despite him. “I won’t open myself up to be betrayed by a human mate like my father.”

“You think Gio abandoned you like your mother did, and you’re scared everyone else will, too. We’re not going to abandon you, Emmy. And neither will your mate once you bond.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Did he get to have any fucking secrets? This is why he hated coming home. Marco could see right through him.

They’d turned onto the long, forested road to the pack buildings as they spoke, and Marco waited until he’d passed through the opening in the pack’s apartments to pull into his parking garage before continuing.

As the thrum of the engine cut off and the distant sounds of the pack surrounded them, Marco turned to him and reached out, cupping his nape and scent-marking him as he pulled Emilio in until their foreheads were touching and they were sharing each breath.

“Your mother was a bitch. I would’ve killed her myself for leaving you if she hadn’t turned up dead before I got the chance.

You’ve been avoiding us long enough. Surely, you know by now that I will never turn my back on you.

No matter what. Just like you have never, and will never, turn your back on me.

Let your family in. Your wolf deserves a pack to run with and a mate to protect. ”

“This isn’t about you or the pack,” Emilio muttered.

“Isn’t it?”

Emilio sighed. “The human is different,” he said, not willing to admit Marco was right.

Marco pulled away and nodded. “Just promise me you’ll give him a chance. We may never get to the bottom of what happened with your father and his mate, but you know that wasn’t normal. Once the bond is formed, even humans usually couldn’t betray their mate that way.”

“Did you hear that domineering asshole? I wouldn’t trust him as far as I can bite him.”

Marco smirked. “And how many times did you imagine biting him on the drive here?”

“Shut up.”

“What did he say to you when he was hiding you with his power?”

There was no way Emilio was sharing that. “Fine. I’m not going to bond him, but I promise I’ll give him a chance before I orchestrate his removal from my life.”

“Three months of marriage. At least. We need to sell this arrangement to the Supernatural Council and Kyan and the coven.”

Three months should be enough time to clear up his dad’s affairs, find whoever was bringing weapons into the city for the terrorist D-2S, and extricate himself from this sham of a marriage.

“Done. But don’t expect me to help organise the wedding, and once the time’s up, I’m out of here and heading home. ”

Marco grinned. “We’ll see. Pretty sure home isn’t where you think it is.”

Their cousins Luca and Aria were waiting for them when they stepped into his father’s nearly empty suite of rooms. Most of the work to clear out Gio’s things was complete.

They’d just been waiting for a moment they were all free to go through his office so they could search through his papers for any sign of why Gio had betrayed the pack.

“Bro! How’d it go?” Luca asked.

Sometime over the last few weeks, he’d been upgraded from cuz to bro .

The twins had grown up living with him and Gio after their parents died.

The two of them had always had each other, but they must have decided he needed them more now that his last remaining parent was gone.

It was sweet but unnecessary. He didn’t need anyone, although he’d die for them all.

“It’s agreed. I signed the thing.”

Luca frowned in concern. His past made this marriage a touchy subject for him. “I’m sure we can get you out of it if you need.”

“I’ll be fine, little cuz.”

“He’ll be more than fine if the sexual tension between them is anything to go by,” Marco teased. “Rocco could give a wolf a run for his money with his possessiveness, and they’ve only seen each other twice in passing.”

Emilio just shook his head and made his way to the office. At least Marco hadn’t said anything about the potential bond.

“Do you have the combination to the safe?” Aria asked.

“Yeah, he gave it to me a month or so back. I should’ve realised something was up at the time, but I was … busy.”

Heading to a moody landscape painting that had probably hung there for half a century or more, Emilio pressed his thumb to the hidden fingerprint scanner and stood back as the whole wall panel slid aside.

He could feel all three of his cousins’ curious presence behind him, peering over his shoulder as he keyed in the 15-digit code.

“What the fuck?” Aria’s voice cut through the silence as they stared at the contents of the large safe.

All it contained was a single envelope with Emilio’s name written in his father’s careful script on the front. Something told him this was going to hurt.

“Open it,” Marco said. “Maybe it has the answers we’ve been searching for.”

None of them knew what had happened for Gio to betray them. Even to protect his mate, his actions had been extreme. Multiple assassins had come so close to killing Luca, who was basically Gio’s son. He’d betrayed not just his pack, but his family. It was unthinkable.

Emilio’s hands shook as he collapsed into the one remaining chair and unfolded the paper, his actions designed to ensure no one but him could read the words.

Marco would insist on reading it, as he should, but if the letter made things worse, Emilio would protect Luca and Aria from this final rending blow.

Dear Emmy,

A tear snuck down his cheek despite himself at the shortening of his name that his father hadn’t used since he was in single digits.

If you’re reading this, you have no doubt discovered my greatest shame. It is a story of two parts. Two betrayals that ricocheted through my life like shrapnel, tearing me to pieces.

The first betrayal was when you were just a toddler.

In my arrogance, I turned a blind eye to someone, thinking that Marco was too young to lead.

That it was my job to protect him from his responsibilities.

I was wrong, and that mistake became the vulnerability which led to my undoing.

That mistake almost broke our pack apart.

I thought my uncle had the pack’s best interests at heart, but that is no excuse.

I still don’t know how the humans discovered that first betrayal.

They started off with small requests. It seemed of no consequence to divert a few guns to them that we didn’t need in order to keep a secret that could reopen generational wounds that had never fully healed.

I told myself I wasn’t betraying the pack; I was just helping the humans out sometimes.

That they just wanted to balance the scales of power between the species a little better.

That stopping my shame from being revealed was protecting Marco from the fallout of my betrayal all those years ago.

Before I knew it, I was trapped in a web of escalating demands—death by a thousand cuts—and I didn’t know how to get out. Despite that, I was about to come clean. To tell Marco everything. Then, they somehow found Ethan, my fated mate.

They recruited him before we even met. Tricked me into bonding with him and used him to control me. It was only then that I learned how deep the humans’ hatred ran and first saw the D-2S for what they were.

My heart, my soul, was torn. I convinced myself if I had just a little more time, I could convince my mate to love me and abandon the group.

That I could save us both. I convinced myself that I was a sleeper agent, biding my time, collecting intel on them, making the ultimate sacrifice to protect my pack.

My notes on the D-2S are on the attached pages. I hope I was redeemed in my death. I hope you can find something more than shame in my actions. I hope something in this letter helps to keep you safe.

I love you. I am so proud of you. I never wanted to hurt you or the pack. Please tell Luca and Marco I’m sorry.

Love always, your father .