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He would remember his dad sitting him down and explaining as best he could about how Callie was his other half. His mate. How she and her son were different.
Different. That’s how his old man had tried to explain shifters to him.
All Quinten heard was that they were better. He and his mom were ordinary and not worth sticking around for, not when his dad could have a new and improved family.
His mom had gotten over it within a few months, focusing on building her career and lavishing attention on him, and even became friends with his dad and Callie eventually. It had been hard for Quinten to swallow at first, the idea that she hadn’t actually been as happy as he’d thought and had started to thrive once she was single. All these years later, she was still operating, occasionally dating, and generally just living her best life.
Quinten… had taken a little longer to get to a good place with his dad.
He was furious at the man for ruining their family. God, he’d been a dramatic little shit. He wouldn’t visit his dad unless he would guarantee Callie and her son wouldn’t be there. He’d started getting into fights at school. Typical kid bullshit.
Quinten smiled, unseeing the passing scenery out the SUV’s window.
It was almost a whole year after his dad met Callie that Quinten met her four-year-old son, Liam. Fuck, he’d been a cute little kid, and he’d looked at Quinten like he’d hung the moon. Followed him around that whole weekend, asked him a million questions.
Stole his damn heart.
And taught him what it meant to be family. To be pack.
The fact that Quinten spent the majority of his life now surrounded by shifters and witches who answered to him was an irony that wasn’t lost on him.
He laid a hand over his phone in his pocket. When was the last time he’d talked to Liam? Maybe he’d call him when he got home and guilt him into coming for a visit. He hadn’t seen him in person in nearly a year, and that just wasn’t acceptable.
Maybe he should tell Alan to bring him to the private airport where he kept his jet and just go visit his baby brother and his pack of felines.
His phone was halfway out of his pocket, mouth opening to give the order, when Darius raised his own cell to his ear and grunted a greeting. The low growl that filled the interior of the vehicle raised the hairs on the back of his neck, the primitive part of his brain warning him of the dangerous predator.
Sighing, he shoved his phone away and waited to hear what new problem he’d have to deal with instead of harassing his brother.
“Hang on,” Darius said, then muted the call and met Quinten’s eyes. “Someone broke into one of the warehouses.”
Quinten raised his brows. He could only assume it was someone new to town or maybe an unhoused person looking for shelter. “Send one of—”
“Ginger and Dominic are there with a few others. Dom says we need to get down there.”
Quinten felt Alan’s attention on them, but the fox kept his mouth shut, waiting to see what Quinten decided. He resisted the urge to rub at the headache forming behind his eyes. If it was just him and Darius, he wouldn’t care about showing such weakness, but he was more careful around everyone else who worked for him.
He gave a single nod to Darius before turning his head away once more, annoyed he had to personally go and see whatever was happening in one of his warehouses instead of going home and…
And what?
He ignored the snide voice in his head pointing out he had no one waiting for him in his fancy penthouse. No pet. No plants.
He squinted at his window. He might actually have a plant, but his housekeeper took care of it, not him.
The only thing waiting for him at home was his sinfully large shower and the latest season of his favorite baking competition show.
If all the people who thought he was evil personified could see the sad state of his personal life, they’d probably be a lot less afraid of him.
Though that would be a mistake.
“Did he say why exactly I’m dragging myself all the way across town to the warehouse district?” Quinten asked mildly after a few minutes.
“Not really,” Darius growled, still all prickly. “Just said you needed to see something.”
“Hm.” Dominic wasn’t exactly one to scare easily. He’d originally come from a large, violent pack—he’d fought to stay alive nearly every day of his life until he left and made his way to Chicago and into Quinten’s employment.
But he would not be happy if this was about some poor vagrant hunkering down amidst their pallets and refusing to leave.
