Page 45 of The Forgotten

Aled sighs, helping Gareth to get Balthy to move so that I’m not completely crushed. Instead, he’s now pressing his body beside me. Taking a full breath, I watch as Maddox begins to catalog my injuries.

Little does he know, the ones he can’t see hurt the most.

“Our lives weren’t safe for you, and we knew it. We never intended to drag you into all of this,” Maddox adds, regret in his sage green eyes. “We’ll make it up to you, even if we have to crawl through fire.”

Based on what Gareth has told me, they very well may be soon. Is it too little, too late?

Chapter

Ten

Two days later

CAI

I never promiseto do something I’m not planning to make good on, and neither do my brothers. Over the last two days, Maddox and I have systematically “retired” any guards with ties to my father.

If he’s paying them, or there is any communication with Dad, they’re dead. I took a deep dive into bank and phone records. None of them are smart enough to use burners, and why would they?

We’ve been Dad’s good little soldiers our entire lives, but we’re setting fire to all of that. We systematically broke the dead bodies apart with axes and electrical saws out in our woods and then buried them. It’s not perfect, yet it works.

No one has asked where the missing guards are, however, turnover can be normal for us. Maddox’s paranoia is well known,so it’s surprising to me in a way that these guards played with their lives for extra money.

My mind doesn’t work the way that everyone else’s does, though. When I’m firing on all cylinders and not distracted, I’m very calculated. Now that it counts, I am ensuring that the omega inside our home is safe from being kidnapped by someone much worse than us.

Olivia has been very quiet over the last two days, which means she’s also sleeping a lot. Maddox, Aled, and I have all been rotating on who brings her food. Unfortunately, Gareth is busy with his own surveillance and murdering spree, so Olivia has to deal with the least favorite of the Behan brothers.

Me.

I can see that Gareth is separating himself from our father as much as possible. The way he calls him by his first name speaks volumes about how he feels about him. However, what he isn’t allowed to do is cut us off.

I refuse to lose the crazy fucker because we didn’t step up faster. Gareth is the fucked up moral compass and backbone that we need. Jogging down the stairs after showering, I follow the sounds of Olivia talking in the kitchen. Maddox made her lunch and gave her his phone afterward to call her family.

The recording of the call is being sent to my phone, and I listened to some of it in the shower. Olivia is trying to convince her daughter and her pack that she’s healthy and fine.

She’s basically lying through her teeth, especially after the events that occurred two days ago. Liar, liar, little omega.

Leaning against the entrance to the kitchen, I watch Olivia lean against the counter. She’s careful not to put any pressure on her forearms, and I decide I’m going to check her wounds once she’s off the phone.

Is she in pain?I need to know.

“No, Cere,” Olivia sighs, placing the phone on the counter. She must be on speaker phone. Good, now I won’t have to go back later to listen to the recording. It’s efficient. “You don’t need to do all that. I want you to take care of yourself and the baby. I can handle this.”

“Mom, you shouldn’t have to deal with alphas who do anything other than worship the ground you walk on,”her daughter says. I mean, she’s not wrong. “Cian is also worried about you. He ran into Dr. Royal and he said he saw you.”

That motherfucker.

“He’s the physician on call for the Behans,” Olivia says. “The guys had a knife fight between themselves. It wasn’t a big deal, but they needed stitches.”

My jaw almost unhinged itself as I listen to how easily she continues to lie. Damn.

“Dr. Royal didn’t give many details, but Cian said he was still worried. Are you sure we can’t just kill them all?”Cerenity asks.

For a pregnant woman, she’s pretty bloodthirsty.

“That’s really not necessary, baby. I promise. I’m figuring things out,” Olivia says. “I wanted to call and tell you I’m fine.”

“If they force anything on you, kill them. Cian told me to tell you that, by the way. He said he’d deal with any fallout. Please don’t think you need to play nice,”Cerenity adds.