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Please. Please. Please.
So many fucking pleas for her to just… have a little faith in us, in how we feel about her.
I let out a breath when Jackson skids into the long winding driveway that leads to Vee’s house, to her grandmother’s house. We can’t call it Vee’s. It’s not her home. Her home is with us. It is us.
The lights on the first floor are lit up, along with the one in the second-floor window I know leads to Sylvie’s bedroom. I’ve climbed through it enough times. My body relaxes at the sight. They’re home. She’s home. Probably curled up in a ball, crying her eyes out, but she’s here, and we’ll fix it.
We have to fucking fix it.
The five of us tumble out of the car, pound up the steps to the front door.
Davis reaches it first, even though he was in the middle of the back seat. His fist meets the wood, while Asher reaches out to press the doorbell. I hear the chime, and my body tenses, readying for a fight that will in no way be physical. No, it’s a fight for our girl’s heart.
The door creaks open and my stomach drops when I see it’s not our girl, but her grandmother, glaring at us through a gap in the door that’s only about two inches wide.
Davis gives her his best smile, the one that makes all the ladies at the grocery store go, aw, what a nice young man he is. “Good evening, Mrs. Benson. Could we speak with Sylvie, please?”
The old woman scoffs and shakes her head. “You want to talk to her now? After all the damage is done? After you broke her heart?” She tightens her grip on the door and places her body behind it, no doubt ready to slam it in our faces.
It won’t keep us out.
“I told her to stay away from you, but would she listen? No. She was so certain you would pick her. That you loved her.” All of that is a lie, but I bite my tongue to keep from calling her on it. We know Gladys Benson coached Sylvie on how best to snare us. Vee never hid that from us. Made us love her all the more.
“We do love her,” Asher assures the older woman.
“Please, if we could just explain-” Topher starts, but Gladys cuts him off.
“Explain what? That you found someone better suited to your fancy, wealthy pack? That you don’t want someone as low class as her in your pack, but you’re still happy to fuck her? Keep her on the side?”
I blink that the word ‘fuck’ coming out of this old woman’s mouth. Gladys Benson has never sworn in front of us. It’s a testament to how angry she is. If only I could believe it’s on Vee’s behalf. But I know it’s not. She thinks her meal ticket is gone.
Jackson’s jaw ticks. I can tell he’s on the verge of losing it completely. If he does, the rest of us will be right on the edge behind him. “Please, ask Sylvie to come down. We need to speak to her.”
Gladys shakes her head. “Well, she doesn’t want to speak to you. She’s not ready.”
“Fuck this,” I mutter, fully intending to push my way into the house and up the stairs. Vee is mad at us, yes, but if she’d let us explain, I’m sure she would see that this is for the best. We have a plan, and it includes her. There just wasn’t time to give her the details.
My hand presses against the wood, but Gladys braces, and short of literally shoving the woman, I don’t have any other options. Her nostrils flair and her eyes narrow. “If you set one foot inside my house, Ford Woods, I will call the police.”
“We could make you let us in,” Asher growls, his tone warning of an alpha bark.
All the color drains from Gladys’s face, but she doesn’t budge. “Yes, I’m sure Sylvie will love that, having you force your way into talking to her with an alpha bark. She’ll definitely forgive you for that.”
Jackson’s hand claps on my shoulder, his other comes down on Asher’s. He squeezes a warning while eyeing the woman. I know what he’s warning me about. We can’t make a scene. We can’t have the cops called on us. This all goes against the deal we struck with his dads. Well, his dad. Since Maxim is the driving force behind all of this.
“We’re going,” he says, all but dragging us away. Topher helps, placing a hand on my chest and hooking Davis too. “But please tell her we need to talk to her. That it isn’t what she thinks. We just need to explain.”
She arches her brow. “Maybe you should have taken the time to do that before you ruined her life.” Then she slams the door in our faces. The turn of the deadbolt echoes through the night. We move off the porch and climb into the car.
The interior is silent as Jackson pulls back onto the driveway. We’re almost back to the Werth Pack house, when he breaks the silence, hands tight on the steering wheel. “She’ll come around. We just need to give her time to calm down.”
I’m not sure who he’s trying to convince, us or himself.
It’s been a week.
A week of walking around like a zombie, like half of my soul is missing. My whole heart is gone. The sun has been hidden behind a haze of clouds even though it’s the middle of August, like it knows the weather should match my mood. Our mood.
Cloudy, gray, overcast. Without Vee, the sun doesn’t want to shine.
