Page 65

COLE

T he joyful reunion soured my mood. Langston and Trent kept making inside jokes every few minutes, then launched into stories of their time in the service together.

He wasn’t just making inside jokes with Trent, though, but with Avery as well.

I sat, watching it all play out, unsure of how I felt about it all.

In some ways, I felt like an outsider peering through the window at a party.

It took a tremendous amount of willpower not to make some off-handed comment or be a dick.

I stuffed all that down, but it kept wanting to bubble up as I watched Langston interact with my mate.

Neither I nor my wolf liked it. They were so familiar with each other that it made my gut twist in a weird way, like someone had reached into my body and was wringing my intestines like a wet towel.

Regardless of what Avery had said, I couldn’t help but wonder if there had been something between them in the past. The thought alone made my skin hot and itchy.

When Avery brought over a tray of snacks, Langston smiled and thanked her.

Avery returned the smile. Earlier, Langston had nudged her and leaned in close to whisper something in her ear, making her laugh.

Small things, nothing actually incriminating, nothing forward enough that I needed to speak up.

Still, I didn’t like seeing another man so close to my fated mate.

If there’d been even one thing too much or too far, I’d have put a stop to it.

In fact, I was looking for it. But there was nothing.

It was all innocent. In fact, Langston seemed to want to catch up more with Trent than with Avery.

For some strange reason, that made me jealous as well.

My best friend being so happy to see this guy was a little like getting picked last on the playground.

Now that was childish. I knew Trent had buddies in the military.

He’d seen some shit and done even more. Going through things like that created a bond between people.

It was natural, and a healthy way to cope.

I had absolutely no reason to be upset that Langston was one of those buddies.

What upset me was that everyone I cared about damn near worshipped the guy.

Perhaps part of it was because it hurt my alpha pride.

I wasn’t used to that, and until a day ago, I didn’t think I had any alpha pride.

My whole life, I’d held myself to a different standard than my father.

I’d never let things get to my ego the way he had.

Now, it seemed I wasn’t as humble as I’d always thought.

“Ave, this pimento cheese dip is amazing,” Porter said, scooping a mound of the dip onto his cracker. “Did you make this?”

Avery snorted. “Someone did. All I did was buy it.”

“Well, either way, it’s better than airplane peanuts,” Porter said before stuffing the cracker into his mouth.

“Yeah,” Langston said. “Thanks. We were all starving. We didn’t stop for breakfast on the way here from the airport. We really appreciate it, Avery.”

He picked up a cucumber and dipped it in hummus.

My eyes locked on his hands. Soft and smooth.

Those did not look like the fingers of a man who got his hands dirty often.

I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that this pretty boy had done some dark and dangerous shit with Trent.

Langston looked like a Vogue model, not a badass.

I groaned internally. The rational part of my brain said this was simply my own prejudice and jealousy taking over, that my subconscious was trying to break the guy down in some way.

It wasn’t only his looks that irked me, but his clothing as well.

The Rolex on his wrist, designer slacks, and what looked like a three-hundred-dollar dress shirt told me this guy was well-off.

Due to the pack’s financial state and the payoff to Kyle leaching what money I did have, I couldn’t afford stuff like that at the moment.

What if Avery decided Langston was more stable than I was?

Why wouldn’t she? Hell, all she’d had to do was call the guy, and he’d flown halfway across the country the next day to help her.

I’d left her high and dry without so much as an explanation, leaving her to raise a child on her own.

Bitterness toward myself eclipsed my irritation with Langston. Would I ever get over that? Probably not. How did you get over the biggest mistake you’d ever made? What if my jealousy was really my subconscious comparing me to Langston and finding myself lacking?

“Okay,” Langston said, tearing me from my thoughts.

“Let’s get down to business. What do we know about Ashton being taken?

Avery didn’t get too deep into it on the phone.

Give us the whole rundown. Any security cameras around the park where he was taken?

Possible locations where he’s being held? Anything?”

Trent sighed and glanced at me. I nodded for him to go on, not trusting myself to speak.

“We don’t have a lot,” Trent admitted. “We know Cole and Farrah’s half-brother Dallas took Ashton. We’re, uh…” He shot Avery a worried look. “Well, we’re ninety percent sure Dallas was forced to do it through threat of violence or death.”

Avery’s eyes darkened. She clearly wasn’t sold on the idea that Dallas wasn’t a willing participant in Ashton’s kidnapping.

“What about cops?” Zayde asked. “Any involvement?”

“Nah,” Trent said. “First off, without definitive proof, they’d have no reason to go after Kyle.

Second, he’d probably kill Ashton the moment he got wind of police involvement.

Third, as Cole and I have discussed before, and as you guys are well-aware, authorities hate getting involved in pack business.

It’s part of why packs have enforcers to begin with.

They act like de facto police for pack towns and cities.

The police feel we should settle our own issues. ”

Porter grunted and sat back in his chair. “It’s bullshit, but you’re right.”

“Who is the enforcer for Harbor Mills?” Langston asked.

“Don’t have one,” I said, finally finding my voice.

The three of them shared a confused glance before Langston spoke again.

“No enforcer? Did Harbor Mills never have one, or what?”

Another wave of embarrassment washed over me. Thanks a lot, Dad .

“My, uh, father was not a great alpha in his last few years. He ran off the last enforcer and many of the elders prior to his death.”

That wasn’t typical behavior for an alpha. It should have elicited surprise, which was evident in Zayde and Porter’s eyes, but Langston merely nodded.

“Understood,” he said. “I’m sure things are in much better hands now.”

I didn’t sense any sarcasm or belittlement in his words. He was being sincere. That actually made me feel like more of a dick. God, couldn’t this guy just be a little bit of an asshole?

“What about the security cameras?” Langston asked. “Any at the park?”

Trent nodded. “I think so, yeah.”

Langston glanced at Zayde. “Wanna give it a try?”

“On it,” the other man said, grabbing his backpack from the floor. He pulled a laptop from his bag, along with a tattered notebook. He booted the computer up and flipped a few pages before beginning to type.

Craning my neck, I tried to see what was written in the book.

It looked like chaos. Random letters, numbers, and symbols written in lines.

Each page he flipped through had a hand-scrawled heading: VBScript, Java codes, Python, SQL.

There were others, but he flipped the pages too fast for me to get a good look.

The pages reminded me of hieroglyphs I’d seen in history books, but instead of pictures, he had a bunch of random symbols, numbers, and codes I couldn’t make heads or tails out of.

“So, uh, what are you doing?” I asked.

“Bro is doing that black-hat shit,” Porter said with a grin.

Zayde raised an eyebrow. “You saying that ’cause I’m black?”

Porter’s face fell, and his mouth dropped open in surprise. “Wait, what? No, I didn’t?—”

“I’m fucking with you. Calm down.” Zayde grinned and went back to work.

“What’s black hat?” I asked.

“He’s a hacker,” Trent said.

“Actually,” Zayde said, fingers flying across his keyboard, eyes glued to the screen, “this type of thing is technically called cracking . Breaking into secure systems, searching out encrypted information. You have white hat and black hat and gray hat hackers.”

“What?” Avery asked, looking as thoroughly confused as I was.

Zayde sighed and looked up from his screen.

“White hats do cyber security. They purposefully probe for weaknesses and help companies, organizations, and individuals better protect themselves from black hats. Those guys dive into their networks with malicious, or at least self-centered, interests. Think stealing secrets, hidden money transfers, system takeovers, blackmail, stuff like that. Gray hats operate in the in-between. I would consider myself more of a gray hat than anything else.”

He got back to work, and ten minutes later, he sighed with satisfaction.

“Looks like the municipality that operates the security cams has shit security. I didn’t even have to code a backdoor access gateway. It was fairly easy. I’m already in.”

We huddled around his chair, trying to get a look at his screen. Zayde used the touchpad to bring up the CCTV program.

“What was the date and time of the abduction?” he asked.

Avery told him, and after a few more clicks, a feed from a couple days before showed up. He clicked through the three different cameras at the park until the basketball court became visible. Avery and I both gasped when we saw Ashton dribbling the ball toward the basket.

“Doesn’t look like there’s any audio,” Zayde said. “Video only.”

As we watched, the game played out in real time. I started scanning the three cameras, looking for the pickup where Chuck had taken his last breath. At the top corner of one window, I caught sight of his truck.