Page 193 of Omega's Heart

“Pissed, little brother?” Quin asked, amused.

“You’re damn right I am. Because I was going through his numbers and organization and thinking we’d found it, the enclave that was going to make the Mutches roll over and beg, and then he had to piss me off. Now I don’t know what to do.”

“Have you turned in your report yet?” Quin asked.

Kaden shook his head. “Sometime this week, I think.”

Quin and Abel exchanged a glance. “Let us see it before you let the omegas have it?”

“Why? I don’t think we should be tweaking it to make things look better. It’ll only hurt more later.”

Abel shook his head and looked to Quin. “You’re more closely involved here than I am. He’s only Bax’s uncle by mating.”

“Like that matters with those two? But you’re right.” Quin’s brow wrinkled. “I don’t like that Holland has to beg his father for approval. It was better before I mated him because he was almost forgotten then. But ever since we mated—” He sucked in a breath and looked down at his beer. “Well, since he got pregnant with Zane, it’s been different.”

Kaden chewed at the inside of his cheek, thinking, before he asked the question that was really burning inside him. “They’ve got Holland sending them money, don’t they?” The twitch of Quin’s eye told him he was right. Abel, though, apparently didn’t know—he looked shocked.

“Some,” Quin said after a too-long silence. “That’s his money. He’s worked for it, he’s earned it, I’m not going to tell him what to do with it. Everything he’s ever had, they’ve tried to take from him —” He stopped dead and looked at the two of them, dismayed. “Damn them to the Barrens, they’re still doing it. I didn’t even see it like that, because he wants so badly to help.” He hefted his bottle as if he might throw it, then set it regretfully on the table in front of him.

“Don’t beat yourself up. You didn’t mate him to have to parent him, any more than I mated Felix to have to parent him.” Kaden watched his brother with narrowed eyes until Quin finally nodded glum agreement. Abel put a hand on Quin’s forearm”Mitchel as much as told me that he expected the next trust to be awarded to Buffalo Gap.” Kaden fiddled with his bottle, rocking it back and forth on its base. “I went back and looked over his paperwork on the flight home. It’s a voluntary disclosure situation, so I have to go by his records, but I wonder if he isn’t already spending those trust funds. That, or Holland’s sending him more money than he’s letting on.”

Quin rubbed his hands down his face and looked at the table. “I don’t know. I’ll cut Buffalo Gap off cold if I have to, though it’ll mean sleeping on the couch—or on your couch—until Holland calms down again. This is something Holland has to work out for himself, or it’s never going to stick and he’s going to hate himself and hate me. Ultimately, where the money he’s spending is coming from doesn’t really matter. Maybe giving Buffalo Gap a trust will get him to ease up on Holland.”

“You think that?” Cas asked softly. “Would you ease up if you suddenly didn’t need the Mutch money anymore?” His expression was wry. “One thing about a law degree, you get to see the ugly underside of a lot of people. We might not be human, but damned if we don’t fuck each other over sometimes just as well.”

“Might be just as well to hold off on Buffalo Gap then,” Abel suggested.

An uncomfortable silence settled over the table until Quin broke it. “It doesn’t really matter, anyway. I can talk to Holland about it, but I don’t know what he’ll do here. And as for Jesse, the meeting’s half a formality—it’s really Holland we have to convince, not the Mutches. If Holland wants Buffalo Gap to have the trust, you know that’s where Jesse will send it.”

“That doesn’t bother you? That he’s got his human with all sorts of money tripping over himself to do whatever Holland wants?” Kaden asked, genuinely curious. If someone, even a human like Jesse, had made his preference for Felix as obvious as Jesse’s infatuation with Holland was, Kaden wasn’t certain he’d be able to be as calm about it as Quin was. Actually, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be.

Quin snorted and picked up his beer. “No worry about that. Holland likes Jesse, but not like that. Jesse’s offered a couple of times to buy him a condo or a house, someplace nicer than Mercy Hills, give him a job in one of their businesses so he doesn’t have to take modeling jobs anymore. Holland turns him down each time.” He took a drink and smiled. “He doesn’t want to leave me. Or Mercy Hills. And he’s well aware that Jesse’s more in love with the idea of Holland, not the reality. Don’t worry about us, little brother. We’re fine. We’ve been through too damn much together to split up now.”

“It’s a little creepy, though, when you think about it,” Abel commented, with an odd tone to his voice.

“Yeah, well, I can hardly blame the poor guy.” Quin took another drink and set his empty bottle down to the side. “After all, it is Holland we’re talking about. I’m pretty busy tripping over myself for him too.” He flipped the cap of the beer bottle at Abel, who fielded it neatly and set it with the others.

Kaden made a face and played with his own bottle cap, using the index finger of his left hand to flip it up on edge, then letting it fall flat again. “So, what do we do about Buffalo Gap?”

“Do?” Quin looked at him like he had two heads. “Nothing right now. You still have other packs to look at—maybe you’ll find something with better potential than Buffalo Gap and all this fuss will be for nothing.”

“And if not?”

“There’s time to figure that out.” Quin glanced up at the back door of Abel’s house and his smile broadened. “And here they are. What are you four up to?”

Kaden twisted in his seat to see their omega mates coming out the back door of the house. They all looked happy, so whatever stories Felix had told about their trip, it hadn’t been upsetting. Kaden turned back to his brothers with a question on his face. Did they talk to them here and now about Buffalo Gap?

Quin got to his feet and pulled Holland to him for a kiss. “Ready to head home?”

“Early night?” Holland asked, draping his arms over his mate’s shoulders.

“I think that depends on the pups.” Quin’s arms tightened. “Unless Uncle Abel wants to keep them.”

“Nope,” Abel said mercilessly. “You’re on your own, Alpha.” He smiled as Bax fell onto the table’s bench seat beside him. “How tired do you think the pups are now?”

“They’ve been playing tag out front with Hunter all evening. I think they’re all going to sleep well tonight.”

“And how tired are you?”