Page 30 of Rejected by My Stepbrother Alpha (Billionaire Shifter Club #1)

R ipped and Torn

Ivy

This time, I was the first to act. I threw open the door separating me from my son, and sprinted into his room. A blonde-haired man was attempting to take Adrian from his bed. My son was screaming and struggling away from the man, scrambling until his back hit the wall with a loud thump.

My whole body shook with rage, and a snarl burst from my lips. Asher’s rumbling growl from behind me seemed to shake the room.

As if we planned it, Asher and I acted at the same time.

I ran toward my son, sweeping his warm little body into my arms, pressing him close to me.

Asher practically flew at the kidnapper, tackling him to the floor, punching him in the face, the asshole’s head whipping to the side, blood sprinkling onto the white hotel carpet.

In my embrace, Adrian watched with wide, horrified eyes and began to cry.

“Keep him there,” I told Asher gruffly, tucking my son’s head into my chest, running out of the room, and slamming the door behind me.

My heart beat against my ribs as I ran across the hall .

“It’s all right, baby,” I whispered to my son in what I hoped was a soothing voice. “You’re safe now. He can’t hurt you.”

Adrian’s body trembled with fear, and his tears began to soak through my shirt.

I’m going to kill that asshole.

I pounded on my dad’s door. When he answered it, I ran into his room and quickly explained what happened at the playground and just now in Adrian’s bedroom.

My dad ran to get Damian. The three of us made a quick plan that my dad would stay with Adrian, lock all his doors, and wouldn’t take his eyes off my son.

Damian would guard my dad’s hotel room door.

“You’re safe now, sweetheart,” I said as I tucked Adrian into my dad’s large bed. “That man won’t be able to hurt you. Asher and I are going to handle things. Grandpa and Uncle Damian are going to protect you. Then, I’ll come back soon and I won’t leave your side. I promise.”

My son’s green eyes were bright with fear. Tears were still streaming down his round cheeks.

“Asher will stay with me tonight, right? He won’t leave me. Right, Mom?” Adrian asked.

I kissed his damp forehead and squeezed his hand. “Of course he will. I love you, honey. Try to get some rest.”

My dad had pulled a chair over to the side of the bed. “I won’t leave his side,” he promised me.

Guilt stabbed at my heart. I should never have left my son’s room to break down quietly before. That gave the kidnapper the chance to strike again. I should never have left his side.

But I could make it up to him by finding out why that bastard wanted to take my son away from me.

Adrenaline pumped through my bloodstream as I strode across the hall, nodding at Damian, who was standing guard at my dad’s door. Asher let me into the room. His hazel eyes were full of rage, and his hands were shaking.

A vindictive smile crossed my face when I saw that Asher had tied the man’s wrists and ankles to a chair using the cord from a lamp.

“This is the same bastard who tried to take Adrian at the playground,” Asher told me. “I recognize the same cruel look in his eyes.”

The man’s shoulder-length, dirty blonde hair was matted and disheveled.

He was wearing a sweat-stained gray shirt and black jeans that were ripped and torn.

His lip was bleeding, and a dark bruise was already forming on his right eye.

My son’s attempted kidnapper was almost as muscular as Asher, and his brown eyes were staring up at me with hatred.

But he didn’t intimidate me.

I crossed my arms as I stood above him. “Why are you trying to take my son?” I demanded in a low, dangerous voice. “Are you some sick freak? Or did someone send you?”

The man lifted his chin and stared me down. “I’ll tell you…for the right price.”

“You—“ Asher yelled, advancing toward the man, but I leaped forward and got in the man’s face.

“I’m not giving you a fucking dime,” I growled menacingly. “I will torture the information out of you. If you don’t start talking, you’ll be leaving this room in a body bag.”

I was inches away from the bastard's face. He reeked of cigarettes and sweat, but I didn’t move. I wanted him to know that I wasn’t messing around when it came to my son.

“I know you guys are millionaires,” the man said, looking at me, then at Asher, who was standing next to me with an enraged expression. “Pay up or I’m not saying a word.”

“You’re in no position to be making demands,” Asher snarled.

“Actually, I am,” the man drawled. “The only way I’ll speak is if you give me one million dollars. I don’t care what you do to me. I have nothing left to lose.” A smug smile crossed his face, and it was obvious he thought that he had the upper hand.

Well, I needed him to know that he didn’t.

I stood up and locked eyes with the man. Then I raised my fist and punched him across the face, putting all of my rage behind the hit. The power flowing through my body was unlike anything I’d felt before. This adrenaline rush must be similar to how moms felt when their child was in mortal danger.

The man’s eyes widened in surprise and pain as the chair he was tied to flew back, and he landed with a loud bang. His feet twitched, and a pitiful moan came from the ground.

My hand throbbed, but there was too much adrenaline in my system for me to feel any pain.

Asher shot me an impressed look, then righted the man’s chair so that he was facing us again.

His cheek was already red and swelling rapidly.

“Bitch,” he muttered under his breath and spit blood onto the floor.

“Don’t you dare call her that!” Asher exploded and rushed at him, rearing his fist back.

But I stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. We needed this man conscious so that he would be able to talk.

Asher lowered his arm and stepped back, allowing me to take the lead.

“Are you going to talk now?” I demanded.

“If not, there’s a lot more painful ways to get you to tell us what we need to know.

You’re not in control here. I am.” I tapped my chest, making the man’s eyes grow even darker.

“You’re the one tied to a chair. I’m fully willing and capable of making you wish you were dead.

” My voice was grim and flat. “I can do whatever I want to make you talk. It doesn’t matter how loud you scream, no one will come to help you. ”

The first traces of fear crept into his eyes and he swallowed nervously.

“I don’t fuck around when it comes to my son. I’m going to ask you one more time,” I said. “Why did you attempt to kidnap him twice?”

The man sighed and his shoulders slumped in defeat.

Finally.

“I’m a lone wolf,” the man said.

A lone wolf was a shifter who didn’t belong to a pack.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Riggs,” he answered reluctantly. “I have some…debts to pay off. A gang of other lone wolves are after me and I need money. A lot of money.”

I nodded and gestured for him to continue. Did someone pay him to kidnap my son? Who would do that?

Riggs looked at Asher. “A little more than a week ago, a woman approached me in a dive bar and she paid me to cut the brakes on your fancy car.” His voice was bitter, but his jealousy was the last thing I was focused on.

“Did this same woman pay you to kidnap my son?” I demanded.

Riggs looked at me with hatred, but he nodded. “I was supposed to bring the boy to a gas station a mile outside of town. The woman would have traded the boy for the money she promised me.” His tone was petulant, like a child who had been denied a toy he really wanted.

“How did you know we were here? How did you get into this room without a key?” I asked.

Riggs glanced at the balcony door. “I circled back and followed you here. I climbed up the balconies and came in through the sliding door. You idiots left it unlocked after your son was almost kidnapped.”

Damn it.

I couldn’t even be angry at him for that comment. Why the hell hadn’t I thought to lock the door?

“Did you attack her in your wolf form a little less than a week ago?” Asher questioned, nodding at me.

Riggs blinked, and a confused look came across his face. “No, I didn’t.”

I shared a loaded look with Asher. It seemed like he was telling the truth. He could be lying, but he had admitted everything else so far. What was the point of lying now? Who had tried to attack me if it hadn’t been Riggs, hired by this mysterious woman?

“Who was the woman who hired you?” I demanded.

“She never told me her name,” Riggs said. “I only saw her once at the bar where I met her. The rest of our communication has been through payphones and notes she leaves for me with instructions. She’s very secretive.”

“Well, what does she look like?” I said impatiently.

Riggs' eyes traveled down my body and then back up. His stare made a shiver of disgust go up my spine.

“The woman looks like an older version of you,” he said.

Holy shit.

My stomach dropped, and in an instant everything clicked .

The woman looked like an older version of me…everyone had always said that I was the spitting image of…

My mother.

A picture popped into my head of my mother in a smoky dive bar, her icy blue eyes scanning the place with disgust. I imagined the sound her high heels made on the dirty wooden floor as she walked across the room to Riggs on his sixth or seventh beer.

She would have smoothed her outfit down before she sat next to him and asked him for his help to ruin my life.

But why?

With my heart in my throat, I grabbed Asher’s hand and pulled him into the corner of the room, away from Riggs.

“Don’t worry about me! I’m perfectly comfortable tied to this chair,” he called from behind us.

Asher and I ignored him.

“It has to be my mother behind this,” I said.

He nodded. “That’s what I was thinking.” A frustrated sigh escaped his lips. “How did I not see this before? When your mom discovered that I convinced my dad to leave her out of the will, she vowed to seek revenge on me. She was pissed at the reading of my father’s will. She made a whole scene.”

“I remember her anger,” I said, recalling my mom blasting classical music when I came home that day. “She had slapped me and told me that I would regret not trying to convince you to marry me.”

Asher’s eyes darkened with anger.

“She hit you?” he growled.

I waved my hand impatiently. “That was seven years ago.”

“Right,” he said, but his hands were still clenched into tight fists.

“What did my mother do after I left Sun Fire? Did she leave the city right away like you requested? Or did she make another scene?” I asked.

“She left that night, disappearing without a trace,” he said.

“I don’t understand why my mother waited seven years to get her revenge on us,” I murmured. “What has taken her so long?”

I paused and bit my lip. Then, my eyes prickled with tears. Just the mention of my mom made all of my past trauma with her rise to the surface. The overwhelming emotions pressed in on me until I felt crushed under their enormous weight.

Asher noticed my distress, and he took my hand, gently squeezing it.

He stared at me, his eyes brimming with concern and realization. “You were just as much a victim of your mother as my father and I were. I’m so sorry for ever thinking that you were anything like your mother,” Asher said, his voice full of sincerity.

My heart burned with emotion.

No one had ever put it like that before. But it was true. I never asked to be a pawn in my mother’s games. She had forced me to be until I refused to go along with her schemes.

My heart warmed, and for a split second, I forgot about everything else as Asher and I gazed at each other. He was still holding my hand, and his thumb gently rubbed my knuckles.

“Thank you. That’s…really nice to hear that,” I said, even closer to tears than before.

“I’ve told you everything I know,” Riggs said loudly, interrupting our moment. “Can you just let me go? I’ll leave Sun Fire, and I won’t enter your territory again.”

Asher snorted. “Hell no. I’m going to call my guards, and they are going to take you to my pack prison where you’re going to rot for the rest of your miserable life.”

Riggs face became red with rage and he struggled against his bindings. “Are you fucking kidding me? That’s not fair!”

My hands trembled with anger. “Not fair?” I yelled, rushing across the room to get in his face. “You just admitted to attempted murder on an Alpha and you tried to kidnap my son twice! You’re lucky I don’t rip your beating heart out of your chest.”

A vindictive look crossed his face. “You know what’s funny? I notice that you always call the boy “your son”. But the woman who hired me referred to him as Alpha Asher’s heir.” He looked at me smugly, then at Asher.

It felt like I was falling down a deep, dark hole.

I turned and locked eyes with Asher.

He was frozen in place, his mouth hanging open in shock.