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Nearby, a man in a sharp black suit whose eyes were as savage and dead as a shark’s, leaned against a desk, speaking on his cell phone. I briefly amused myself by imagining he and Perry were speaking to each other.
The suit was definitely a lawyer. And judging by the quality of the tailoring and how precisely combed his hair was, I’d bet good money he was one of Callum’s, which meant the original three had called in reinforcements already. My uncle spared no expense when it came to protecting the pack’s good name and image.
Lawyer Guy spotted me coming and frowned, glancing over his shoulder to the opposite side of the room. Well, this kept getting more interesting, didn’t it?
Our lawyers were all human, or at least not shifters, so he didn’t owe me any allegiance or typical respect. But I knew exactly who he was looking for when he started to cast his gaze around the room, and it pissed me off to no end.
He was trying to find Ben.
My brother emerged from a small office at the back of the work floor, laughing while he shook hands with a burly, white-haired man wearing a crisp white dress shirt adorned with patches and pins. The older man clapped Ben on his shoulder, grinning from e
ar to ear like he’d just won the lottery.
My twin spotted me, and his smile faltered. He said something quietly to the precinct captain, and they parted ways. Ben took a deep breath before crossing the room to meet us.
“Nice of you to join us, Eugenia,” he said.
There was a dismissiveness and superiority to his tone that made my blood boil. I balled my hands into fists and focused on the pain of my nails digging into my palms, otherwise I’d punch him.
Ben hadn’t always been this way. When we were younger, and even after I came home from the swamp, he was warm, kind, generous. It was during his time training with Amelia that he’d started to become colder. I don’t know what she’d told him, but it had made him believe he needed to be something else.
Like he thought a good leader couldn’t be both well-liked and well-respected at the same time.
I really didn’t like his implication that this was my first time involving myself in this situation, as if I had let Emmett and Mason sit in a holding cell for kicks while I slept in.
“What are you doing here?” I tried to stay calm, but my words came out as a snarl. So much for being the levelheaded sibling.
Though, if I was being honest with myself, when it came to our tempers, all the McQueen children tended to be like our mother.
Mercy McQueen had been a homicidal nutjob who had abandoned Ben and me, then tried to kill Secret. So, not exactly the maternal type. But ohhhhh boy did she know how to cultivate a nasty temper.
Right now I was feeling very much like my mother’s daughter.
“Can we talk about this in private?” Ever the pragmatist, my brother. Of course he wouldn’t want the subordinates to hear us fight.
Detective Perry was off his call now, watching the pair of us expectantly. Magnolia had her most concerned countenance on, while Wilder’s expression was totally impassive. He almost looked bored.
I wanted to yell. I wanted to embarrass Ben publicly by making an enormous scene in the middle of this police station with two pack members he considered beneath him looking on. I would have given a kidney to dress him down so thoroughly he ran off with his tail between his legs.
Too bad for me I also needed to make sure my pack members were taken care of and the mystery of Liam Casey’s death was resolved without media attention.
Throwing a temper tantrum wasn’t the best way to be taken seriously, let alone to manipulate the system into giving me what I needed.
“Is there somewhere my brother and I can have a chat?” I asked Detective Perry, never moving my gaze from Ben’s face.
We resembled each other, but not in a way that made us borderline identical. We both had the same dark hair and green eyes, but there was a sneering cruelty to him now I’d never seen in my own reflection.
Perhaps, of the two of us, he was more like our mother than I’d realized.
The thought chilled me to my core.
Perry pointed to an office along the wall behind him, its light off and the wooden desk empty of any personal effects. Without another word I led the way into the office and shut the door. Ben angled for the seat behind the desk, but I cleared my throat, making him stop mid-step.
“Last time I checked, Benjamin, I was the Alpha here.”
His lip curled. “We’ll see.”
Chapter Nine
