Chapter Two

“He’s a good kid.” Farrah wasn’t sure why she felt the need to point it out as the three alphas entered her home.

Maybe she was nervous and blurting out the first thing that came to mind.

There’s no maybe about it. How can they still make me nervous? How is it I haven’t outgrown this?

“Every mom thinks that,” Blake said as he slid past Farrah.

“Except yours,” Pax called to Blake. “She always said I was the best.”

“And that proves moms have no taste,” Blake quipped in return.

Their banter took her back. Those two, stepbrothers, had forever been in some challenge to one-up the other. They always had an insult on the tips of their tongues, ready to toss out the moment the opportunity presented itself.

Farrah shook loose the chains of the past, trying to stay rooted in the now. She couldn’t get distracted. They’d agreed to help, as she’d known they would, then met her at her house for details and a chance to look over her son’s room.

The thought of them in her home made her uneasy. It felt like that groundless anxiety when she didn’t know the cause, but also couldn’t settle.

They took up too much room in her home, as though the house hadn’t been built with them in mind.

Worse? Their eyes scanned across objects and she felt naked, as though she were on display for each one.

“How long has he been missing?” Ryder started the conversation, which was funny, as he didn’t tend to talk as much as the others. Or at least, he hadn’t before. Then again, he’d also kept them focused.

Farrah walked into the kitchen that was open to the living room. She busied her hands with the coffee maker as she spoke. “Knox cut class on Friday. I haven’t heard from him since.”

“Four days,” Pax said as he stood across the kitchen bar from her. “No word at all?”

“Nothing. I called his friends, and no one’s heard from him.”

“Or they’re not saying,” Blake chimed in. “Boys tend to stick together. Can you imagine if Ryder’s mom called Pax or me when we were kids? Just because they aren’t saying doesn’t mean they don’t know.”

The point was a good one, but it still chafed. She wanted to argue that maybe it was true with Blake, Pax or Ryder, but not with her son.

Her son was different.

Which, of course, he wasn’t, but any mother would swear it.

So Farrah let the comment pass. “He doesn’t skip school. He’s never just taken off before.”

“Any fights between you two?”

“Nothing. Thursday night we ate dinner like always. Nothing happened.”

Pax leaned his elbow on the bar. “And his father? I know you said his father doesn’t live here, but any chance he could be involved? Usually, if a kid goes missing, it’s a parent.”

A pang in her chest made her lose count of how much coffee she’d added. “No chance,” she answered as she estimated and tossed in another two scoops.

“Most of the time—”

Farrah nailed Pax with a hard glare. “I’m telling you, it’s impossible. He doesn’t know anything about his father and his father knows nothing about him.”

Pax’s eyebrow lifted, probably at the venom in her voice.

She was not about to discuss Knox’s father with the three of them. Not a chance. Better to shut down the conversation fast.

“Any problems with other kids? fights?”

“A few fights,” she admitted. “But nothing serious. He’s an alpha, and he has the attitude of one.”

Blake let out a soft laugh, as though she were right and they all knew it.

She kept going. “None of them were big deals. I’m telling you, this isn’t like him. He doesn’t just stay out. He doesn’t miss curfew. No one’s spotted his car. He kept cash in his room, and it’s all gone. He cleaned out his bank account, too, so he’s got twelve hundred dollars, maybe. I think that’s one reason the police aren’t doing more, because they figure that means he took off on his own. They think he’ll come back in a few days.” A stinging in her eyes was her only hint that she was losing it.

She’d been tough the entire time since the school had called to tell her Knox hadn’t made it to his fourth period class. At the time, she’d been annoyed, ready to ground the boy when he walked through the door. Instead, he hadn’t shown. By the next morning, after a night when she hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep, she’d set about doing what needed to be done. She hadn’t had time to freak out, to give in to worry. She was all on her own, which meant she didn’t have the luxury of falling apart.

Somehow, talking about him made her walls crumble.

A gentle hand on her shoulder pushed her to the side, and Ryder took over finishing the drinks. That was for the best, since she was pretty sure she’d gotten the grounds-to-water ratio completely wrong. I hope they like strong coffee.

Farrah swiped her thumb beneath her traitorous eyes to wipe away any damned tears. She was not going to cry.

“I just need to find him,” she said with more bravado than she felt.

“We’ll find him,” Ryder promised as the coffee maker came to life when he hit the start button. “Trust me, we spend our time finding criminals who know how to disappear. I can’t imagine a thirteen-year-old will be all that hard.”

Thirteen. She ignored her flinch as he repeated the fake age she’d given them.

Close enough, right? What do two years matter?

“Thanks,” she said as she extracted herself from the close quarters of the kitchen, needing a few feet of space.

She wasn’t used to having alphas in her home.

Her son was one, but it was different. He was a kid, her kid. He was too smart to try to act like an alpha to her, but these three?

Even if they seemed to be trying to pretend it wasn’t true, to hide it, they were all watching her with the same predatory gaze.

“Nice house,” Blake said to break the tension. “Seems like you.”

“Like me?” Farrah crossed her arms as she scanned the large open space, trying to decide just what he meant by that.

“Cozy,” he continued, lips quirked into a half smile, as though her annoyance only made it all the better. “You never would have been the sort to doll up a house all fancy. This? Fits you.”

“You don’t know me.”

“And whose fault is that?” Pax added.

The answer said too much, so Farrah let it drop. “Come on. I’ll show you his room.”

The alphas went to his room. Having them rifle through his belongings had Farrah having to pull in her temper.

It felt wrong, having strangers go through his things.

They aren’t really strangers, are they?

But they were. They were fifteen-years strangers, and Farrah found she was quite the mama bear when it came to her cub and her den. Having these alphas in her space, in her son’s space, had her lip itching to curl up into a snarl.

“I haven’t seen any pictures of him,” Ryder said.

“Kids these days don’t have physical pictures. They’re all on his phone and he has that.” Farrah sidestepped the next question by answering it first. “I don’t have anything else right now. Most of our photos are in storage and getting a teenager to sit still is nearly impossible. Besides, I’ll recognize him. I just need you to help me figure out where he might be.”

Ryder stared at her without answering. His unwavering gaze said he caught something in her voice and her answer, but he didn’t say anything about it. Either he didn’t want to call her on it, or he wasn’t sure he still knew her that well.

Whatever it was worked in her favor, so she looked away and leaned against the doorframe of the small room.

It was small even with Knox in there, but with the three alphas?

Tight was the best way to describe it, though the word seemed filthier than it ought to.

“So what have you been doing?” Pax asked the question as he went through the papers shoved into Knox’s desk. He didn’t lift his face, didn’t look her way.

Farrah fought not to answer, she really did. Each word between them created a bond, or at least healed the one that had been there. It built upon the connection that had dwindled to a trip wire over the years.

Still, she found herself speaking, despite all her good intentions. “Being a mom, mostly.”

“Can’t be easy to raise a kid on your own.”

She shrugged as she watched the men work, as they studied each piece they found as though it were a different part of the puzzle. “It’s all I know.”

“What happened to Mr. Wonderful?”

Is that jealousy in his voice?

She fiddled with the hem of her shirt as she answered with as much truth as she dared. “Never would have worked. I was young, so was he and we wanted different things.”

“You know what you want? Well, ain’t that new?” Blake sat on the bed and went through the nightstand.

“I always knew what I wanted.”

“Right,” he said without turning back toward her. “Guess it’s just that no one can live up to your standards.”

“Come on, Blake, that isn’t fair. I recall a pretty sordid time we found her with Topher Contor’s hand up her sweater. Seems Topher lived up to it.” Pax sat at the desk and focused on the computer screen.

Her cheeks burned at the memory, at the way the three alphas, a year older than her and Topher, had surrounded the poor boy. He’d looked like a plaything between them, like a chew toy they planned on tearing apart.

“He was perfectly nice,” Farrah reminded them. “And last I heard, he’s settled down with a lovely woman and has three kids. Maybe you shouldn’t have run him off.”

Pax looked over his shoulder at her, heat in his deep blue eyes. “He’s lucky all we did was run him off. Besides, if he scared that easily, he wasn’t worth you. If he couldn’t stand up to us, fuck knows he couldn’t stand up to you.”

“Right, it was all for me.” She didn’t bother to smother her eye roll at the idea. She lived with a teenager, so she could roll her eyes with the best of them.

“Pretty much,” Blake agreed. “Last thing you’d want was to be saddled with some limp-dicked, no-spine yes-man.”

“A man who actually listened to me? Yes, what a tragedy.”

Blake tossed a balled-up shirt of Knox’s at her, and just like they were still fifteen years in the past, she got smacked right in the chest.

They boys had always been quicker. Not nearly as smart, but they’d made up for it with their speed and agility.

Pax chuckled, despite him still facing the screen as though he were ignoring them all. After a moment, he pulled out his cell. “People never remember to erase their internet history.”

“What?”

Blake shushed her, something that didn’t sit well.

Pax spoke into the phone after someone answered. “Yes, hello. I’m sorry to bother you, but I was wondering about someone I think rented a room there. Yes, I understand. No, I get it—you can’t give out information, and I normally wouldn’t call. The thing is, the boy, he’s my son.”

The word son made Farrah’s heart freeze in her chest as though something had grasped it tight and wouldn’t let go.

Pax kept talking. “He’s mad at me. You know how kids are. The thing is, he needs his meds for his diabetes. I just want to bring them to him, make sure he’s safe.” Another pause said the other person on the line was speaking, before Pax started up again. “Yeah, man, I know. Thirteen. Yeah, they’re a mess at this stage. If I can’t go talk some sense into him and get him his meds, I’m gonna have to call the cops. I don’t want to do that, and if he’s not there, the cops will have to keep searching. I just want to help him. Uh-huh. Okay, thanks, I owe you.”

Farrah bit her bottom lip as she listened to one side of the conversation. There was no way they could have already located him, right?

Pax hung up the phone then turned, spinning the office chair to face her. His expression held enough self-satisfied arrogance that she knew, yes, he had found Knox, and he was damned pleased with himself, too.

He rose from his seat, then tossed an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, let’s go collect your cub.”

Good. The sooner I can get these alphas out of my life, the better.