Page 53

COLE

A weird haze had fallen over me as I drove away from Avery’s place.

I couldn’t get the scene out of my head.

Her determination to end things with me, the anger and hurt in Ashton’s eyes, the awful truths she’d said that I didn’t want to hear.

It had been like a nightmare I couldn’t claw my way out of.

The fact that she’d known everything already had blindsided me.

Grumbling under my breath, I drove to Trent’s place.

Best friend or not, he had some fucking explaining to do.

He had no right to go behind my back and tell Avery everything.

It would have been better if she’d left angry rather than scared for her life.

Both scenarios were bad, but to me, one was better than the other.

And that should have been my decision to make.

When I finally pulled into Trent’s driveway, my anger had escalated. It wasn’t really about Trent. Everything was snowballing, but I couldn’t stop the pain from taking over.

Trent must have seen me pull up because he was on the porch when I got out of the truck.

“I know why you’re here,” Trent said.

“You goddamn better know why,” I snarled, and took the steps two at a time until I was chest-to-chest with him.

“You need to back up,” Trent said calmly.

It was childish and immature, but the fact that he wasn’t cowing down to me only enraged me further. My alpha aura pulsed out of me, sweeping over him in waves. Trent jerked back, growling low in his throat as he lowered his head.

“That’s not cool, bro,” he hissed.

The words snapped me out of it, and I loosened the power I held over him. He raised his head again, but rather than looking at me with betrayal or anger, all I saw was sorrow and pity.

“I’m guessing it didn’t go well,” Trent said.

“You betrayed me,” I said, my anger still running hot but somewhat under control. “You went behind my back and disobeyed your alpha. Do you realize what that means?”

“First, I didn’t disobey you.”

“You fucking did!” I screamed, my voice nearly breaking with emotion.

“No. You never said, ‘Don’t tell Avery the truth.’ Therefore, I did not disobey a direct command of my alpha.

For fuck’s sake, Cole, you and I both know she needed to know.

I told you that shit you were gonna pull made no sense.

You can’t just break things off with her and force her away without telling her why.

” He let out an exasperated sigh. “Dude, she’s been my friend since we were kids.

I never loved her like you do, but she’s like a sister to me.

I couldn’t let her talk to you without knowing what was going to happen. I’m not fucking apologizing for that.”

I shook my clenched fists between us. “I don’t care. It was still my decision. If you didn’t like it, you should have come to me. Fuck, maybe you could have talked me out of it.”

“Get off that shit, Cole,” Trent said, shaking his head.

“Look at you. There was no talking you out of it. You’d made up your mind, and that was that.

All I did was try to save you from yourself.

I’m your second-in-command. My job is to keep you in control if I think you don’t have the pack’s best interests in mind. ”

“What do I do now, though?” I asked, hopelessness starting to replace the fiery rage.

“You focus on what’s important,” Trent said, pounding a fist gently on my chest. “If you want Avery and Ashton to have any kind of life here, we’ve got to deal with Kyle.

Once he’s out of the way and the pack is secured, then you can work on winning her over a fucking third time.

Got it? We can’t simply run him off. Do you really think Avery will ever be safe if we don’t end this once and for all? ”

“No,” I conceded. “Probably not. He won’t stop until he has everything he has fucking eye on, even if it’s by force.”

My wolf snarled at the thought of that fucker putting his hands on Avery. Regardless of how I did it, I needed to take that piece of shit out.

“You good now, bro? Are we good?” Trent asked.

“We’re good,” I said. “I’m sorry. I was a dick. I didn’t mean to blow up at you.”

“No harm done. What matters is that we’re in this together. I’ve got your back to the end. Like always.”

“Thanks. I’ll let you relax. Gonna head back home.”

Trent headed for his front door. “Call if you need me.”

“Will do.”

The whole trip home, I beat myself up. What the fuck was wrong with me? I’d been under too much stress. I’d tried to ruin every relationship I had in one day. Thank Christ Farrah hadn’t been around me this afternoon, or I would have been four-for-four.

With nothing better to do when I got home, I went through my father’s office again, sorting out all the crap I hadn’t looked at yet.

I was hoping to find an official version of his will.

I wanted to see, with my own eyes, that he’d signed the pack over to Dallas.

The photocopied pages Kyle had shown me looked fairly legitimate, but there was always a chance he might be trying to pull some big, elaborate con.

Surely, Dad hadn’t been too far gone that he wouldn’t have kept a second certified copy of the will.

If a designation—or redesignation , as was the case—of a pack heir was legal, then it would have been registered with the state.

Shifter packs were monitored closely all the way up to the federal level.

Some shifters took offense to that, but most were fine with it.

For every hundred good and law-abiding shifter, there was always one like Kyle who gave the rest of us a bad name.

Better that tabs were kept on who was and wasn’t in charge of an entire town or city full of shapeshifting magical creatures.

No one, human and shifter alike, wanted a shifter with a felony record or ties to terrorist organizations taking over a pack.

I had a hunch that Kyle might be lying or hiding the truth. In the months since Dad died, no one had received a letter stating Dallas was the new alpha. It would have sent shockwaves through the pack, and there was no way I wouldn’t have heard about it.

If the copy of the will Kyle had shown me was official and had been registered with the state, then there should have been some type of recognition of that, and a certified letter from Georgia’s Shifter Alliance Office recognizing the new alpha.

That would be all the proof I needed. If Dallas’s name was on that letter, then Kyle was telling the truth.

But where the hell would that letter be?

The letter, or the will. Either one would do.

Farrah and I had made a good dent in the mess that was Dad’s office, but there were still stacks and piles of shit everywhere—the accumulated financial, legal, and accounting paperwork that had built up over the forty years that Dad had been the alpha.

I scanned the room, wondering where I’d find what I was looking for.

Finally, my gaze rested on a stack of mail on the bookshelf.

The top several layers were nothing but supermarket ads, postcards from window installation companies, a big cardboard coupon for a car wash, and junk mail.

All of it dated well before Dad died. The deeper I dug into the pile, the closer the dates got to his death.

Toward the bottom, I found a thick envelope with the Georgia state seal stamped on the front.

“Son of a bitch,” I hissed as I tore the envelope open.

A maid service had been taking care of Dad’s house in the years before his death.

They must have brought the mail in as well.

Neither I nor Farrah would have ever had any reason to think something was amiss with the pack succession.

Why the fuck would we? We’d been too mired in the financial disaster we’d inherited to worry about succession documentation.

The document was exactly what I thought it was, post-dated to three days after Dad’s death. I skimmed down until I found the line that sank into my brain like teeth:

The Georgia State Shifter Alliance Office does hereby register the Harbor Mills pack as No Alpha Available. The N.A.A designation will be removed upon receipt of official documentation of pack hierarchy succession in the form of a notarized last will and testament.

No alpha available? So, a will hadn’t been filed with the state.

That meant that Kyle may have been telling the truth, but it was only guesswork.

All it really meant for sure was that Dad hadn’t done his due diligence in the years leading up to his death.

Even if there was a will that proclaimed me as the new pack alpha, that hadn’t been sent in, either.

These were things he should have done literally decades ago, and hadn’t.

“Fuck, Dad,” I muttered, and slapped the document onto the desk.

Before I could stew any longer the shortcomings of my father, the doorbell rang. I flinched, and my inner wolf gave a low, sad whine. I could already sense who was at the door. Ashton.

My heart thundered. I could still see the anguish and anger on his face when he’d called me out for what was happening. It seemed the Garrett family had a habit of letting their sons down.

I was no coward, far from it, but the thirty seconds it took me to answer the front door was the most terrifying moment of my life.

The last thing I wanted was to open the door and see my son glaring at me, coming to give me another tongue-lashing.

It was worse because I knew anything he’d say to me would be warranted and deserved.

Thankfully, when I opened the door, Ashton wasn’t glaring or snarling in anger. Instead, he looked contrite and apologetic.

“Uh, hey, Ash,” I said, shocked at how weak and scared my voice sounded.

“Hi. Can I come in?”

“Sure,” I said, and stepped aside.

My wolf gave another heartbroken whine as I closed the door. It took everything I had to keep my emotions in check.

“I’m sorry for what I said,” Ashton said, his eyes pinned on his shoes.