I turn to leave to check on my three-year-old daughter when my nanny says, “She’s nothing like how I thought she would be. She was sweet, down to earth. She was good to Jackson, gave him attention, and made him feel… important, like the honor was hers meeting him for the first time.” Fuck, fuck, fuck! Not her, too. “They bonded… I think Jackson is right,” she blurts in a single breath.
With my back still facing her, I reply with a lethal edge in my voice, “I won’t discuss this shit with my employees. Is this clear? We are not friends. If you want to remain an employee, I suggest you stay out of my personal affairs, including my conversations with my son.”
“Y-Yes, Alpha. My apologies for overstepping.”
Good, I think as I storm down the hall.
I need to talk to my parents. I know they treat their employees like family, especially the pack. I don’t mind whatthey do, but I don’t like it. It sometimes gives the employees and pack members the impression that they can talk to us like friends, give us personal advice, mind our fucking business, betray us. Like they have the right.
I’m a private person. I like to keep my life and my identity confidential. I don’t want to be friends with everyone who works for me, including our pack. I’m their boss, their Alpha, and that relationship shouldn’t have blurred lines. It’s safer that way.
I sit heavily down in my office chair and lean forward, placing my elbows on my desk and my face in my hands. Growling into my hands, I flip open my laptop and take a deep breath. I open my itinerary for the next three days. What the fuck am I thinking? Why am I doing this? After that little rant in my head, I’m a walking, talking, fucking contradiction. This isn’t who I am. I’m going against everything I believe. I’m going against everything I stand for. I’m taking an extended vacation from work. I can’t remember when I last went on a vacation. I’m leaving my father in charge of the firm and the pack.
I turn my head and catch a glimpse of the photo of my partner and me, taken on our wedding day. It’s one of the few pictures where I’m actually smiling. Our union wasn’t based on love—well, romantic love anyway. It was an arranged marriage, but I was lucky to end up with my best friend in the whole world. The day she died, I almost lost myself entirely if not for my son and daughter. I almost reverted to how I used to be—an uncaring, heartless bastard.
Looking at the picture now in my hands, I recall that Emily never wanted me to give up on reuniting with my one true love. She always believed I still had a chance.
“I fucking hope you’re right, Em. I hope you’re right because if not, I will be making an ass of myself in front of millions of people.”
Chapter 3
A Pack In Crisis
CONTESTANT #19
Iglance down at the whiskey, neat, in my hand. I haven’t touched it. This is my second glass. I filled the first glass with ice, and the ice melted, watering down the whiskey, so I chucked it. Determined to find some kind of peace to quiet my rampant mind, I made another drink, this time without ice, and I still haven’t touched it.
I sit on my family home’s balcony facing Ruby Falls. At any other time, the sound of the falls would welcome and calm me. It used to put me to sleep. But not tonight. So much shit whirls through my head.
“There you are, sweetheart.”
I turn to face my mother. She has dark circles under her eyes. Her eyelids are swollen. A stab of guilt hits me in the gut. I made her cry. I haven’t seen my mother for years, and when I finally come home, I break her heart. “Hey, Mom.”
She runs her hand along the back of my head and rests it on the nape of my neck.
Gazing back at the scenery in front of me, I clutch my glass tighter in my hand. “I’m sorry for staying away for so long. Maybe if I came home sooner, none of this shit would have happened.”
She clucks her tongue. “Stop doing that to yourself. Things have been bad for a long time. I’m glad you left when you did.”
Recent events race through my mind, over and over on repeat. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Nothing ever turns out how it should, not when it comes to her.
Now I need to fix everything that Dad and his asshole Beta fucking destroyed. How the fuck did Dad let this happen? I used to revere him. He was everything I believed in, until he wasn’t.
“Our pack is in a state of crisis,” I snarl. She remains silent, trailing her thumb back and forth at the base of my hairline. “I need to fix what they did to our pack. It has to start with this union.” I squeeze the tumbler tighter, and the glass starts to crack. I throw it over the balcony. I wish I could beat the shit out of something. No, I want to beat the shit out of the Beta who my father trusted… and his son. I rub my shaking hand over my face and look at my mother. “She already rejected the betrothal contract. If she doesn’t choose me in this stupid game…”
She shakes her head. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I wish I was stronger. I wish I had intervened in all of this.”
I remove her hand from my neck and kiss it. “No, I… should have done something. Instead, I just stood there and watched them destroy her.” The truth is I was a coward and didn’t really try. I squeeze my eyes shut to block the memories of what I did… and didn’t do.
My mother sighs and bends in front of me to meet my eye. Bracketing my face in both of her hands, she says, “You’re a good boy. You remind me of your father, the young man I fell in love with.”
I scoff. “No offense, but you’re his true mate. You would love him and follow him, even if he was the devil reincarnated.”
She tsks. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, my son. Just because a woman finds her true mate doesn’t mean we don’t have free will. We can still make our own choices. We keep that to ourselves to let the males think they are in charge.”
She shakes my chin, and I give her a tight-lipped smile.
“Like I was saying, you remind me so much of your father when he was young before the Betas corrupted him. You have a good heart, just like him. He cared a lot about this pack. He and his father built all of this just for them. And you, despite everything, have added to it for your… pack… Don’t sell yourself short. You have come a long way since that time. You were just a teenager. There wasn’t much you could do.”
