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Skylar growls in warning, and I sit poised, ready for any sign that she’s prepared to attack, but the voice that comes from the doorway makes that impossible.
“Leave, Elise,” Monte says, his tone annoyed as he motions towards the door.
Monte. My fists clench, wishing I could rip the tie free and pummel him into the ground, but I know I can’t, not until we’re on the same page, not until we find out what their plan is.
Elise snarls at him as he strides into the center of the room, but to my surprise, she listens to him, sneering as she passes him on the way out.
“Don’t have fun without me,” she huffs before slamming the door behind her, the clang of metal echoing through the small room.
“Were you at least surprised?” he asks, splaying his arms like betraying his pack and the woman he supposedly loved is something to be proud of.
“How could you?” Skylar spits out, rage and vitriol simmering in her golden eyes.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Monte says, feigning an innocent tone. “If you mean Isabella, I have nothing against her, but she did meddle in my plans. Elise got a little too happy with a rock before I could stop her, though. Pity.”
He frowns towards the beta on the floor, mocking a look of sympathy before he strolls into the middle of the circle to face Sky. Light glints off the black handgun in his hand, and I look pointedly at it, trying to draw the other’s attention there in case they missed it.
“If you mean working for the bears, I did it for you, of course,” Monte says, his brows knitting together as though it should be obvious. He closes the distance between them, standing just a foot away from her now.
My pulse pounds, my wolf howling in outrage, but I push him down, knowing it isn’t time.
“You did it for yourself,” she scoffs, her lips curling in disgust.
“I admit there was some selfish reasoning, but the catalyst at the end of the day was always you.” He smiles down at her as though the sentiment should be touching. He reaches towards her like he’s about to touch her cheek tenderly, but she leans out of the way, cringing at the ghost of his caress.
“Why should I trust a word that comes out of your mouth?” she hisses, shifting to put some space between them.
“Because I know who really killed your father, and I have proof.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Zeke snorts in derision. “We all know it was you who killed him after you tried to use me as a pawn to cover up your tracks.”
“Someone used you, but it wasn’t me,” he replies smugly.
“Who was it then?” I’m tired of his delusions.
“It’s funny that you ask,” he says, his gaze gleaming with malice as he turns my way. He pulls something from his front pocket, and I tense, eyeing the pistol still at his side. A remote is removed from his pocket, and he points it at the wall behind Arsenio, who shifts, attempting to see what Monte is doing as a light flickers on and a white screen lowers, revealing the picture projected on it.
I squint, my eyes adjusting to the sudden onslaught of light, and the picture comes into focus.
“I intercepted a copy of the video your little friend Jasper sent,” Monte says. “With the whole abduction ordeal, I figured you wouldn’t have had time to watch it yet.”
I want to rip this fucker’s head off and shove it up his ass.
Before anyone else can get another word out, he presses play, letting the video show the rest. The image starts off from an apartment, but Jasper must have enhanced the video and zoomed it in to show just the portion visible through the window. The rooftop is empty at first, just the barest hint of another figure dressed in black in the far corner, so small I wouldn’t know it was a person if I didn’t know it was Zeke already. In the next moment, that figure is eclipsed by another. They stride onto the rooftop in much the same fashion, setting up a sniper rifle and a camera on a tripod, back to the security camera, black hoodie covering the back of their head.
That is until they pull their phone from their pocket, and the camera freezes on the brief moment where their face is revealed, and it’s ...me.
My stomach sinks like a leaden weight as realization crashes into me. My blond hair, my blue eyes, my beard—they’re there staring back at me like a doppelganger. He somehow altered the video to have my face there instead of his. I narrow my eyes, attempting to see how he did it, but I’m not well-versed in this shit enough to know how. All I know is that’s my face, but I wasn’t there. The silence is stifling as the video continues, the murderer’s face disappearing again as he turns away from the camera.
The killer places the phone to his ear, disappearing into the hood as they speak. Zeke must take his shot in the distance, pulling it at the last minute unexpectedly as the person’s phone clatters to the ground, and they hurriedly line up their shot.
The video cuts off there, and Monte rolls up the screen and turns the projector off.
She can’t believe this, right?
I glance around at the others, spotting looks of disbelief from Zeke and Arsenio, not directed at me though, but rather at Monte. But Skylar, her face is unreadable, like a mask of stone has smoothed over her features, closing her off to me completely.
“Can’t you see, Sky? I was trying to save you from them, from your so-called mates who killed your father and covered it up,” Monte exclaims, as he watches her intently, clearly trying to see if his plan worked. “They were going to use you to take over the pack and then throw you out like yesterday’s trash. I was working with the bears to save you from them, to save you from your father who was willing to sell your soul to the devil just to gain their help.”
