I watched as he sniffed the air, hunting her down, just as Liza had described. As if it weren’t bad enough that there was a potential threat against Liza from Castro, it turned out that the man in question was an ex-convict named Dennis Felter. Of all the residents whose attention Liza could’ve caught, it had to be him. He’d been arrested on a number of occasions. It seemed Mr. Felter had an issue understanding boundaries after having harassed and assaulted a human woman.
The man had a history of tracking a woman down and attacking her.
Fuck.
Zephyr pulled Dennis’s arrest records for me. The man had a temper on him. While he was incarcerated, he’d instigated more than one fight with multiple inmates.
He’d been under psychiatric care since his release and, luckily, hadn’t caused any issues, and seemed to be lying low.
That was until he’d caught wind of Liza’s pheromones.
I wasn’t sure if he was a definite threat to Liza, but it didn’t sit well with me. As a shifter, he had the ability to hunt her down in the night, sniffing until he tracked her scent all the way to her front door. I could only hope that his obsession with Liza’s pheromones would dissipate, but there was no way to know for sure how someone with a criminal record and under psychiatric care would recover after catching a whiff of her scent.
A flashback of the men snarling and moving toward Liza in the diner popped into my mind. I assumed those men hadn’t been criminals, and yet they’d been unable to control their primal desires when met with Liza’s scent.
How could I expect a guy like Dennis to forget and move on? I couldn’t.
I called Nico.
“What can I do for you, Ty?” He sounded out of breath.
“I need your men to keep an eye on someone for me.”
Nico cleared his throat. “Sure. Sorry, you caught me in the middle of a run. Of course, I can do that. Care to fill me in on the situation? Is it related to Castro?”
“No, I haven’t heard anything else from Castro. Liza stirred quite an interest in another shopper earlier today. His name is Dennis Felter. I’ll text you the information I have on him.” I tapped my fingers against the desk.“Don’t make any moves right now, just have someone trailing him at all times. The last thing I want is him hunting Liza down.” Even though Nico had made the call to kill Liza’s parents, he’d done it to protect Dad. I could trust him to do whatever it took to protect Liza, which was exactly what I needed—someone who wouldn’t think twice about going to extremes to keep her safe.
“Got it,” Nico said. “Anything else?”
“No, that’ll do for now. Thanks, Nico.”
We hung up just as Dad walked into his office. He grinned at me. “You look like you belong at that desk.”
I scoffed. “No way.” Standing and gesturing toward the chair, I watched my father make his way across the room.
He looked tired, which wasn’t new, but his gait told me his exhaustion was catching up to him. “Are you okay?”
He sank down into his chair. “Yeah, just one of those days. I’ve been on edge since the shit hit the fan at the library the other night.”
“Haven’t we all?” I walked around the desk and fell down in the chair I usually took.
He sighed. “Castro having access to all of Nico’s transcripts is distressing, to say the least. I admit there are some dark things in those files, and if any of it gets out, our allies could turn into enemies real fast.”
I couldn’t argue with that, and I didn’t want to think of what would happen if Castro spread the pack’s dirty laundry around for the whole world to see.
“You make it sound like the Keller pack has more to hide than other packs. Do you think that’s true?” I had to ask, considering I would be taking over soon. It would be better to have as much information as possible before I took the throne, rather than getting hit with surprises later.
“Honestly, Ty, I’d say that most packs have a history of making knee-jerk reactions or choosing one path over the other that wasn’t exactly kosher.” Dad ran a hand over his face. “Some might have more dirt to hide, like our friends in Loveska, while others truly try to do what’s right. Sometimes mistakes are made that lead to wrong choices, but I think the most important aspect of leading a pack is learning from your mistakes, acknowledging them, and moving forward. That way, you always get better and move in the right direction.”
I snorted. “I’ve never heard you speak about other packs that way before.”
Dad reached across the desk and placed his hand on mine for a brief second. “I know, but I believe in the value of understanding your wrong moves and reevaluating, taking a different route the next time you’re faced with a similar adversity. Even mistakes can be turned into lessons. That’s something I want you to remember when you take over as alpha.”
I nodded, considering his words. What could we have done differently about Castro? Well, that was easy. I should have killed him properly the first time round instead of thinking he would have left town with the tail between his legs after being bested. We hadn’t realized how deeply his obsession for Liza went.
Dad turned his attention to his inbox. His hands weren’t as steady as they used to be, and it took him longer to type his replies.
The stress was speeding up the fading of his alpha powers. It didn’t help that we’d had a general idea of the game Castro was playing before it all blew up in our faces. Now, all bets were off.
