Page 50 of New Blood (Werewolf Alliance #1)

D anielle wanted to shake her head. She was in the car with Jude, heading back to the Gallagher estate.

He’d told her about his suspicion that Violet had been the one who’d tampered with the brakes of her car and caused the accident in order to get rid of her.

She didn’t want to believe it. Violet had always been kind to her, not like Eve who’d often treated her with contempt.

But she had to admit that Jude’s reasoning was sound.

Violet had motive, means, and opportunity.

How could she have been so wrong about what Violet was capable of?

And how could Violet have hidden her true feelings so easily that she hadn’t even suspected her?

“Violet of all people,” she murmured to herself.

Jude put his hand on hers and squeezed it, taking his eyes off the traffic for a second. “I’m afraid so.”

“What will happen to her now?”

“I’ll inform the Werewolf Alliance. They’ll deal with her.”

Danielle swallowed hard. She knew what that meant.

Violet would have to face a tribunal and most likely would be treated the same way as her father.

This would have serious consequences. Flora would never forgive them for getting her daughter exiled.

And Jude’s plan to unite the pack under his leadership?

It would never work. They would all rebel.

“I’ve never been so scared as when I realized that you’d left with Violet,” Jude said into the silence. “I can’t lose you.”

She slid her hand onto his thigh. “You won’t. I’m here, and I’m safe.”

A few minutes later, they arrived at the estate.

Jude parked the car in the driveway next to the Land Rover, and they got out.

He waited for her at the foot of the stairs and took her hand as they walked to the front door.

It wasn’t closed. She could already hear the heated voices coming from the foyer.

Half the Gallagher household was assembled, although neither Eve nor Priscilla nor Heath was among them. Several of Jude’s men stood shoulder to shoulder with Austin, who was gripping Violet’s upper arm.

Violet was crying. “I didn’t do anything! They’re wrong. I didn’t hurt Danielle. Mom, you have to help me.”

Flora lashed a glare at Jude and Danielle. “How dare you accuse my daughter? She’s innocent!”

Spencer, who stood next to his mother, added, “It’s an outrage! You have no proof of Violet doing anything wrong!” Then he glared at her. “Is that your way of thanking us for taking you in when you had nothing?”

Danielle opened her mouth to respond to the unfair accusation, but Jude was faster.

“We have sufficient evidence,” Jude said.

“All circumstantial,” Flora piped up. “Violet is a gentle soul. She would never hurt anyone. She’s not capable of that.”

“She was seen leaving her room at 5am and then seen leaving the garage at 7am by two different people.” Jude looked straight at Violet. “Tell me what you were doing in the garage.”

“Nothing, I… I…” Violet stuttered, while another sob tore from her. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Admit it!” Jude demanded. “You cut the brake line on Danielle’s car.”

“No!” Violet cried out, then looked straight at her. “Danielle, please. You know me; you know I would never hurt you. I was always good to you.”

Violet was right. Of the Gallaghers, she and Thaddeus had been the only ones who’d always been nice to her. She felt tears well up in her eyes. She couldn’t help but worry about what would happen to Violet once she was handed over to the Alliance. What if she was innocent?

“Lock her up,” Jude ordered, looking at his brother.

Austin nodded and dragged a protesting Violet toward the door to the basement, while her brothers and her mother cursed and complained to Jude. They were all talking over each other, threatening him.

“You’ll pay for that!” Owen spat.

“Enough!” Jude demanded, his booming voice echoing in the foyer like thunder.

“If any of you can show me evidence that somebody else tampered with the brakes or that Violet couldn’t have done this, I’ll reconsider my decision.

If not, I’ll hand her over to the Werewolf Alliance. You can find me in my office.”

Jude was still holding her hand. Together they walked to his office and entered. When he closed the door behind them, she let out a breath.

“There’s gonna be a mutiny,” Danielle said.

She was right, but she didn’t even know the half of it.

Any moment now, he would be removed as alpha, and as much as he hated leaving this mess behind for Austin to clean up, he’d had no other choice but to expose Violet and make her pay for what she did.

Now was probably a good time to tell Danielle that their lives were about to change.

But as long as they were together, he didn’t care where the Werewolf Alliance assigned him as punishment for trampling on their rules and not following their explicit orders.

“Baby,” he started. “There’s something you need to know. Somebody—”

A knock at the door interrupted him. He didn’t even have the chance to ask who it was when the door was ripped open, and Eve stormed in, waving a bunch of papers in her right hand.

“There!” she said triumphantly and slammed the papers on the desk.

“Is this evidence that Violet didn’t do it?” Jude asked, surprised at Eve’s theatrical entrance.

“Violet? No! That’s her problem. These are the love letters between Danielle and my father. You said I had twenty-four hours to find them. And I did.”

She cast Danielle a gleeful look.

Jude reached for the letters and glanced at them, his eyes flying over the words. Eve was right. They were love letters. He turned the first page over and found the signature. It was just the initial D, like Eve had said.

“This is proof that she had an affair with my father,” Eve claimed, pointing at Danielle.

Danielle stretched her hand out. “Show them to me.”

Jude handed her the stack and watched her as she perused the first page. A gasp rolled over her lips, and she lifted her head, looking straight at him, her chin dropping.

“Oh my God.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“See, I told you,” Eve interjected.

Danielle pointed at the letters, her hand trembling. “This… this is my mother’s handwriting.”

“No!” Eve protested. “But you signed them!”

Danielle shook her head and tapped on the signature. “My mother’s name was Diane. She initialed it with a D.” She bent toward the desk and reached for a pen and a notepad. She scribbled a sentence on it. “Here. That’s my handwriting.”

Jude took the notepad from her. Danielle had copied the first sentence of the letter on the pad.

While the handwriting had a few similarities, it wasn’t the same.

Eve ripped the pad from his fingers and stared at it, then back at the love letters.

When she looked up, he saw it in her eyes.

She knew that Danielle hadn’t written those letters.

“You were wrong,” Jude said in an even tone.

Eve remained silent, obviously shell-shocked.

“William had those? He kept them?” Danielle asked, and he wondered whether she was thinking what he was thinking.

“Yes. No,” Eve corrected herself. “I thought they would be in Mom’s things in the attic.”

“Why?”

“Because I showed them to her before she died. But they weren’t in her things nor among Dad’s. I found them in the boxes with Cameron’s stuff.”

Jude exchanged a look with Danielle. She leafed through the letters in her hand as if searching for something specific.

“Were these all the letters?” Danielle asked, her voice urgent. “There’s one missing.”

“What?” Eve asked. “How would you know that?”

Instead of replying to Eve, Danielle looked at him. “The letter my mother gave me to take to William so he would help me. It’s not among them.”

Jude nodded. He knew exactly what she was talking about. He looked at Eve. “Were there any others?”

She shrugged. “When I found these, I stopped searching.”

Before he could say anything else, a loud noise interrupted him. He turned on his heel and looked out the window, just as a helicopter was landing on the meadow behind the house.

“Fuck!” he cursed.

His time was up. The Werewolf Alliance was here to take him back to Bozeman so he could be punished.

“What’s going on?” Danielle asked, panic seeping into her voice.

Jude looked away from the window and put his hands on her shoulders, making her look straight at him.

“Somebody notified the Werewolf Alliance that I mated with you rather than with a Gallagher woman. They’re coming to remove me.”

“No!” Danielle cried out. “They can’t do that!”

“They can, and they will. I had my orders, and I defied them. I’m sorry, baby.”

Tears welled up in her eyes. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have stayed. Now I messed up your life.”

He shook his head. “Never believe that. I knew what I was doing, and I did it anyway. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Nothing is gonna change that.”

Just as long as the Werewolf Alliance didn’t punish him by separating him from Danielle.