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I wish I’d had the chance to talk with Davis before this, to give him a heads up of everything that Sylvie discovered. But it’s not like Maxim actually tried to hide what he was doing. Anyone who looked at the account would have seen the deposits and the name attached to it.
Once again, Maxim looks unperturbed by my knowledge. Instead, he sighs, sighs, like I’m a troublesome child he’s going to have to reason with. “I did. Once again, it was to protect you. Sylvie was not a suitable match. Is still not a suitable match. If you’re finally ready to settle with an omega, I have a list of recently presented ones that will be more than happy to match with a pack like yours.”
“What part of ‘Vee is ours’ do you not understand, Dad?” Davis asks, voice dropping to a deadly calm, one that I recognize as him being one wrong move away from snapping. “We knew it back then and we know it now. No one else can take her spot in our pack. She’s not interchangeable with any other omega. She. Is. Ours.”
I watch as Maxim’s jaw ticks. “I might have paid her grandmother to get rid of her, to keep her away, but Sylvie is the one that left. She could have stayed, heard you out, tried to keep her claws in you. But she took her grandmother’s word for it and left you. She made that choice.”
“After you made us break her heart!” I growl, feeling my alpha rear up. He doesn’t do it in Maxim’s presence often. He beat that out of me at a young age. “You made us reject her publicly. And then reinforced it with that bogus fucking article.” I see Yasmin wince out of the corner of my eye. She had a hand in it as well, in making sure Vee knew we didn’t want her. “Of course she ran.”
“We won’t let you do it again,” Davis says with no hint of his usual teasing tone. He’s dead serious about this. And so the fuck am I.
Maxim is silent for a long moment, and then nods. “Fine. If that is the case, then you will bring her to dinner. Wednesday.”
I’m shaking my head before he’s even finished and Davis lets out a bark of laughter at the demand. “No. Hell no. We aren’t bringing Sylvie anywhere near you and your machinations. Not now. Not ever.”
Our dad stands, smoothing a hand down the front of his jacket. “If she is to be your omega, then she needs to have stronger skin than she has exhibited so far. If she is going to be a part of the Werth clan, then she needs to actually be a part of it. Your mother will want to see her, get to know her again.”
My hands fist at my sides all over again. I want to hit him so fucking bad, but I refrain. All it will do is piss him off and I need to get him on side for our being with Sylvie. It’ll make it a hell of a lot easier if we’re not fighting him at every turn. I’ll do it, but I’d rather focus on being with Sylvie.
My jaw clenches, but I give one sharp nod. “Fine. We’ll bring her to dinner.” Davis whips his head in my direction, glaring at me, but he keeps quiet. “But if you step one toe over the line with her, if you insult her, hurt her feelings, look at her wrong, I will take delight in ending you.” I move closer to my father, meeting his eye. “You don’t know what it’s like having your fated mate, dad.” His eyes widen at that bit of news. “You hardly give a shit about mom, because she isn’t meant to be yours. But let me tell you, there is nothing I wouldn’t do for Vee. If that means tearing down everything you’ve built, I’ll do it. If that means turning my back on the family, I’ll do it. If that means ripping you limb from limb, I’ll fucking do it.”
My father stares at me while Davis straightens at my back, showing in no uncertain terms he’s on my side.
“Careful, boy,” Maxim says. “I still have the power to destroy you.”
I scoff and shake my head. “You don’t understand that we’ve been working for years toward this exact moment, do you?”
That’s not even a bluff. We have plans in place, contingences for ways to get Maxim to back off. At the time it had felt like being over prepared, but now knowing what he did to keep us apart, the way he sacrificed our happiness for his unknown vendetta against Sylvie and her family? Yeah, I think it’s just being prepared now.
But Maxim just grins, completely unperturbed. “So have I, son.”
Then he claps a hand on my shoulder like we’ve just had a pleasant fucking conversation and he’s proud of me or some shit. He nods to Davis. “Wednesday,” he reminds before heading out the door.
Yasmin whistles when it snicks shut behind him. “Wow. You really managed to piss him off.”
Davis scowls at her. “He managed to piss us off. He doesn’t have the right to fuck with our lives like this, with Vee’s life-”
She holds up a hand to stall out his tirade. “I agree. You don’t have to convince me. I’m on your side here. I always have been.” She sounds genuine, but I can’t stop myself from glaring at her claim. Yasmin ignores my death stare. “I just want you to be prepared for what he’s going to do. You know he won’t just sit back and let you be happy. Not when he thinks it’s the wrong choice.”
She’s not wrong. That’s part of the problem with most alphas. We get it in our heads that we’re right and everyone else is wrong. We’re stubborn and prideful and set on our convictions. Lord help anyone who gets in the way of that. Maxim Werth has decided that Vee is going to ruin us, and so he’ll do everything he can to ruin her first.
I can’t let that happen.
By the look on my brother’s face, he won’t either.
“What are you even doing here, Yas?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest.
She waves away the question. “Not for anything nefarious, I promise. At least not on my part. I’m here to talk with an omega fertility specialist. You might imagine it’s harder to get pregnant when there are no dicks involved, but we’re considering using a donor. We just want to make sure everything is okay down there.”
“Congratulations,” I say begrudgingly, because she’s where I want to be, where I should be. With a complete pack, happily mated for years and considering growing the family. The image of Vee round with our child hits me, and I have to grit my teeth from letting out the possessive growl at the picture.
Fuck. I want that so badly.
Yasmin eyes me, a smirk on her face, because she knows exactly how I feel about that. “You wouldn’t be interested-”
“No!” I snarl at the same time Davis shouts, “Fuck no!”
She laughs like it’s the biggest joke in the world and it takes everything in me not to toss her out on her ass. “Oh my god, I’m obviously kidding. I know every drop of your seed is for Vee.”
