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“So, my darling, why all the questions about the Wellingtons? What made you think of them after so long?”

I brought her up to date on the boxes of documents we’d been given.

“Your auction house is going through all the papers collected from the house before it was destroyed?”

“We are.”

“Well, I can’t imagine that anything important was left over after all this time, but perhaps I’m wrong. Did you find something exciting?”

“What if I did, hypothetically speaking?”

“That presents a bit of a problem, doesn’t it?”

It was why I’d separated the diary from the rest of the papers and was pondering where I could put it—in the building, of course, as I couldn’t legally remove it from the premises—but I wanted to hear it from her. “How so? What problem?”

“Hudson’s isn’t owned by a lupine, so technically, anything that was discovered at the auction house that could impact the lupine community would need to be turned over to the highest-ranking alpha. And you, as a lupine, are absolutely within your rights to give that information to the alpha. Even more so, if the information you discover affects other members of the jarl, as a member yourself, you’re duty bound to report that.”

Which I knew. “But really, who would I even tell that to if—again, hypothetically—I did find something?”

“If your father were there, you would give it to him, and he, in turn, would speak to the highest-ranking alpha there. Or in this case, cyne.”

No.

“Which would of course be the one cyne in Chicago, Graeme Davenport.”

No, no, no.

“Do let me know if you turn up anything scintillating.”

“I certainly will,” I promised, even as I wondered what in the world I was going to do.

4

DEACON

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Gigi had not let me go home alone to an empty apartment. Instead, I had been stuck at Graeme’s since I left the hospital, on Saturday, a week ago. Because of that and how closely she was monitoring me, I couldn’t make calls, coordinate with my team, go out, or have anyone over to the mansion. I was basically under house arrest until my dear sweet cousin decided I was well enough to go home.

And I literally didn’t have a leg to stand on either Saturday or Sunday, because I had trouble getting out of bed. Gigi had cackled when I said I could leave at any time. Apparently, until I could walk around the house faster than Lauren, her six-year-old, or either of Graeme’s children, that was not in the cards. The worst part of it all were the questions.

“Don’t you think you should visit Sasha and thank him for saving your life?” Avery asked me at dinner on Monday as he watched his son, Whitaker, Whit for short, all of three, try and feed me a strawberry-yogurt-covered wedge of cheddar cheese.

“I don’t think so.” I answered Avery before I bent and took the food from Whit’s little hand. I would not disappoint him when he smiled at me like an angel. The blond curls were adorable, as were his enormous charcoal eyes, a shade darker than Avery’s. He was a carbon copy of the police detective, whereas Elira Joan, who everyone called Ellie, resembled Graeme, all wavy chestnut hair and deep sepia eyes. With her long lashes and winsome smile, we were all putty in her hands. She adored her cousin, Lauren, a year older than her, went back and forth on her feelings for her brother, loved her fathers, her uncle Stone, and her aunt Gigi, was crazy about Wade, and squealed every time Linden showed up… and, for whatever insane reason, she also had a great big illogical affinity for me.

Graeme did not approve. I could read it all over his face.

“It’s because she knows you need love,” Gigi told me. Her own daughter was the same.

On Tuesday, Graeme came into the library and announced that he’d disbanded my group of mercenaries, and if I didn’t believe him, I could call. When I did, all the numbers were no longer in service.

“You had no right,” I told him through gritted teeth.

“You’re known now, Deacon,” Graeme explained. “Everyone sees you quite clearly. This facade of you being a depraved reprobate, utterly bereft of a moral compass⁠—”

“Bereft of a moral compass?” I repeated. Who talked like that?

“All of that,” he plowed on, glaring now, “has been destroyed by your heroics. Clearly, you’re one of the good guys, and you’re on the FBI’s radar, as well as Chicago PD’s. From now on, if you want to save omegas, or anyone else for that matter, you cannot skulk around in the shadows. You have to do it out here in the light, through legal channels like the rest of us.”

“You don’t under⁠—”