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Carletta was getting even more unstable. I grabbed her arm.
“Sit down,” I said, leading her to a chair, and she all but collapsed onto it.
“You can’t do this, Jamie,” she panted, out of breath. “You can’t push away every single good thing that happens to you.”
“I’m not pushing away a good thing,” I countered. “I’m trying to fix what I broke.”
“You didn’t break anything any more than I did. We weren’t there for her, and we should have been. You can take care of Tate, but Oaklee… it’s not right.”
I balled my hands into fists so that my nails dug into my palms. Carletta wanted to see the good in Oaklee. Fuck, so did I. She was everything I’d never known I needed.
She was also the daughter of the man who killed my sister, and if she had something that was of great value to him, that had power to overthrow me, then that automatically made her the enemy.
“I won’t do anything that doesn’t protect you, my pack, or my territory,” I said to Carletta. “But if Oaklee has something that will give Tate the power to get rid of me, she’s a part of this war, and I can’t hold back.”
“She said she took it from him. She said she was trying to get away from him. What if you have this all wrong? You can’t afford to lose someone again,” Carletta whispered.
“I can’t afford to lose, period,” I countered. “I have to do what’s right as the alpha of this pack.”
Carletta wanted to argue, but she was weak. She lolled her head back and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.
“I wish I still had what you have with her,” she said.
“I know.”
“I wish we still had Delaney.”
“I know,” I said again, my heart growing heavier.
“I wish this would all end.”
“I know,” I whispered.
20
OAKLEE
Iran through to the back of the club, sticking to the walls, hoping I didn’t run into anyone. A fox in the middle of the city wouldn’t be weird if someone who was also a shifter saw me, but shifting was against the club rules. Sex and shifting together made for a nasty combination that could cause a whole lot of damage when different creatures got involved, and we weren’t allowed to leave our human forms behind. Not even the ones working here.
I made my way to the back entrance where all the booze was delivered.
Please be open,I willed, but the alcohol was usually delivered in the mornings, and it was almost opening time.
The door was shut when I got there, just as I’d suspected it would be.
I looked around frantically, trying to find a way out.
Footsteps sounded behind me, and my heart leaped into my throat. Jameson was after me. Maybe he wouldn’t do the dirty work himself, and he’d put his security on me. Whatever it was, I couldn’t get caught. It was all about survival now. It didn’t matter what I left behind, it just mattered that I stayed alive.
I spotted an open window. It was high up, but boxes were stacked in front of it, and I aimed, ran, and jumped. I made it easily, and crept through the open window, dropping myself to the floor in the alleyway that ran behind the club. Trucks rumbled up and down this part of the city, only deliveries and people up to no good creeping around in the shadows here.
And lowly shifters who were running away from their alpha because they’d lied to them.
Now that I was safe, my mind spun again, thinking about what had happened in Jameson’s office.
I’d wanted to tell him who I was before Felix had gotten to him. I’d needed him to know, to hear it from me so that it wouldn’t become this big thing where he thought I was the enemy.
I’d been too late. Way too late.
