“I failed your mother,” he croaked, wiping his eyes.
I didn’t think anyone besides Evelyn would ever mourn my death, but apparently I was wrong. Apparently Uncle Jeb would.
“I’m not dead yet.” My words were thin, flat. I couldn’t deal with his grief or his remorse. Not now. Maybe not ever. To each their own. “Can we please just go? I want to get this over with…”
That set him off all over again. Hearing a grown man cry used to irk me, but as I sat there, watching the tears drip around his mouth, I was numb.
When he still hadn’t started driving, I repeated, “Can we please go?”
He inhaled deeply, stared at my stony expression, and finally…finally started driving.
The world smeared into one long strip of color outside the window. I hadn’t taken this road in years. It had changed. There was still the Mom and Pop ice-cream shop with the flickering neon cone and the gas station-empty at this early hour, but new buildings had sprouted on the sunburned grass. All of them carried the word Watt.
August and his father had expanded the business. I was glad it had been so profitable even though seeing their name on those plaques instead of my father’s pinched my heart.
The flat-roofed gray warehouse-the original workshop-materialized in the distance. It looked the same as it had the dusty afternoon Mom and I had driven over to hand Nelson the keys and the deed.
Jeb parked in front of the loading bay, which was gaping wide. I climbed out of the van and then closed the door.
A figure stepped out of the shadowy workshop, cutting across the lot.
Liam. Mute sunlight played over his handsome face, danced across his lips.
My heart became very quiet. When he reached out for me, I took a step back. If he touched me, I’d break. Shading my eyes, I stared around the lot, then back at him, at the slant of his eyebrows.
He stared around the lot too. “Are you expecting someone?”
“No,” I said fast.
Jeb came around the car. “Morning, Liam.”
One glance at my uncle’s tear-streaked face, and Liam’s eyes widened, as though he understood my moodiness.
“The fight’s off,” he said. “But only if we both concede.”
Uncle Jeb squinted his red-rimmed eyes. “Then who becomes Alpha?”
“Lucas,” Liam said.
As though he’d heard his name, Lucas stepped out of the warehouse, his black hair devouring the rays of pale sun.
A chill swept up my spine. If he became Alpha, then Lucas wasn’t the one blackmailing me.
Unless he didn’t want the title.
No. He wanted it. Even though he wouldn’t have willingly taken it from his friend, there was no way he would turn this down.
Maybe it really was Lucy, but wouldn’t my uncle be aware of his wife’s machinations?
Unless Julian was behind the whole thing.
“You need to tell the elders you’re conceding.” Liam placed his hand low on my back to guide me into the warehouse. His pressure was light, and yet I felt like his fingers were imprinting into my flesh.
Every set of eyes fixed on me. On Liam. On the place where his palm connected with my body.
The warehouse was so quiet. Or maybe I couldn’t hear anything over the deafening sound of my thundering pulse. My phone vibrated in my pocket. I jumped. My gaze sped over every man and boy. I checked their hands for phones. None of them held one.
With rigid fingers, I extricated it from my pocket. The silicone cover caught on the crumpled note, which slipped out and tumbled onto the sprinkling of sawdust like a cluster of down. I watched in horror as my uncle crouched to retrieve it. Time slowed as he rose, the paper tucked in his palm.
The world tipped, and Liam’s fingers curled around my waist.
“This fell out.” Jeb handed it to me without so much as glancing at it.
My knuckles seemed to have fused with my phalanges, yet somehow, I managed to hold the paper and stuff it back into my pocket.
A groove materialized between Liam’s eyebrows. It deepened when I stepped away from him to read my newest text message.
I tried to reason that it could be from anyone.
Maybe it was from August.
The number was unlisted. I see you.
Nothing else. Nothing more.
My throat locked up.
Someone touched my shoulder, and I jumped.
“Everything all right?” Jeb asked.
I powered off my phone. If they were watching me, that meant they were here. That meant they no longer had to communicate with me through enigmatic text messages. I wanted to yell at whoever was sick enough to toy with me to man up and step forward, but I didn’t yell. I barely breathed.
“Has Liam filled you in on what we’re offering?” Frank’s white hair frizzed around his leathery face like a halo.
I gave a sharp nod.
Eric frowned at me, light pinging off his bald head. “It’s a great sacrifice he’s making to save your life.”
“Do you forfeit, Ness?” Frank asked.
The cement floor shifted, yet everyone remained upright. The strips of lights on the ceiling droned like wasps. Mouths moved, but voices didn’t reach my throbbing eardrums. I wanted to scream yes, I forfeit, but the words on my phone seared my corneas.
I. See. You.
Julian wasn’t here.
Unless he was seeing me through a surveillance camera.