Chapter 54 - Healing the Broken Alpha

River

I waited until our clients had left the board room, and then I closed the door. My father and Zachary were just about to rise from their seats, but seeing the closed door and the expression on my face, they eased themselves back into their chairs and watched me warily. I was feeling too anxious to sit, so I paced around the table to the windows that overlooked the gardens at the rear of the building.

“I think we need to rethink our financial take-over policy,” I announced abruptly.

My father folded his hands on the table and looked curious but unperturbed.

Zach, on the other hand, looked like he was about to explode. A red flush was creeping up under his collar, and his eyes had narrowed to slits as he turned his chair to watch me. “What do you mean, rethink it?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his fingers gripping the edge of the table until his knuckles turned white.

“It has come to my attention that what we are doing may be… morally objectionable.”

“Morally what?” a vein bulged in Zachary’s forehead. “This program, this policy, has been successfully executed for almost five years now. You never had any moral objections to it before! I’m this close to taking possession of the Gold Mountain Pack,” he measured the distance with his thumb and forefinger. “Why on earth would you want to back out now?”

I forced myself to stand strong, feet slightly spread, shoulders relaxed, hands clasped behind my back as I turned and faced the table again. I said we need to re-think it, not scrap it altogether. I was… given a different perspective today.”

“A different… oh bloody hell, its that woman, isn’t it? That little bitch that you are dragging to the office with you every day–”

“Watch your mouth!” I snarled in warning.

“What the hell is wrong with you!” Zachary said, shooting out of his chair. “You are willing to put your own brother on the chopping block, for a woman?”

“That woman is the luna, and you better show her some respect!”

“Fake luna! Oh come on, River! I know it was all part of an act, Asher told me all about it.” Zachary walked close to me, too close.

“Do you think Asher is an authority on my relationships?” I challenged him, moving over him, so we were almost nose to nose. “Lenora is my chosen mate, my luna, and you will show the proper respect–”

“Or you’ll do what? Excommunicate me from the pack? Or maybe you’d like to put out a warrant for my death? Get your head out of her ass, man. Don’t let one stupid woman jeopardize all our work, all of our plans.”

I pushed him back out of my face, and immediately his fists came up, and I felt the air shimmer around him, as he was about to shift. My father rose slowly, and began easing his way around the table.

I knew I was in danger. If Zachary shifted in a fit of rage, he could rip me apart. I could put him down in hand-to-hand combat, but I had no real defense against his wolf. But I didn’t back down. I knew I couldn’t afford to show any fear, any weakness.

“What exactly were we working toward, Zach?” I asked him coolly.

“You know! We stopped the petty, bloody pack-on-pack attacks! We’ve kept the whole region peaceful for half a decade, River!”

“We’ve kept the entire region in a state of near-poverty,” I pointed out. “We’ve stripped dozens of smaller packs of their autonomy.”

“It was necessary,” Zach fumed. His fists lowered, but I could still feel the ozone shifting around him. “You know it as well as I do! Those alphas were impulsive, incompetent! They weren’t fit to lead! They should have been stripped of their titles a long time ago!”

“Who are we to make that decision? Who gave us that authority?”

“It's the natural order of things, River. The strong must overtake the weak. The powerful must maintain order!”

“We are abusing our power.” I said, spitting out the words harshly.

“Man, Lenora really has brainwashed you! We didn’t abuse those packs! We saved them from themselves!” Zachary looked at my father. “Tell him, Uncle!”

My father had moved to stand at my shoulder. “I’m retired,” my father said. “I stepped out of retirement to help out while River was sick, but it wasn’t my place to make any major changes or decisions in his absence. However,” he drew in a deep breath. “The take-over policy has always been deeply concerning to me.”

Zachary rolled his eyes, “Not you too.”

“I’m suspending the program until we’ve had a chance to really study this.” I said firmly. “No new deals. And do not move forward on the Gold Mountain acquisition.”

“For f.ucks sake!” Zachary ran his fingers through his hair in agitation. “Do you know how long I’ve been working on that? How many months I’ve poured into that account? While you were at home pretending to be some crippled invalid, I was here, every goddamn day, sweating it out, putting in the hours, getting it done! And now you want to shut it down on the whim of some woman! A woman with no education, no business experience!”

“That’s right,” I turned away and strode to the door, suddenly very eager and anxious to hold said woman in my arms again. “A woman with compassion, understanding, personal experience, and more common sense than the both of us put together. Mind what I said, Zachary. I’ll have Janet put it in writing so that there are no misunderstandings, no accidents.”

I put my hand on the door, but before I could turn my wrist, I heard him mutter, “Your a disgrace, a f.ucking disgrace as an Alpha.”

It took all my self control to keep my composure, and walk away. I felt somewhat vulnerable, turning my back on my cousin. He might have been my best friend, and my beta once, but I had no doubt, if not for the presence of my father in the room, that he would have gladly sank his claws into my back while it was turned.

Zachary was not the man I had thought him to be. But it occurred to me that he hadn’t become this greedy, power hungry a.sshole just in the time that I was in a coma and confined to my home. He hadn’t suddenly changed. He had always been this way. I’d just been too busy, too self absorbed, too trusting to see this side of him.

I shook my head at my own gullibility and hurried back to my office, but when I strode in the door, the small desk by the window was empty. The files had been cleared away and the chair was neatly pushed in. A quick scan of the room told me that her briefcase and laptop were also gone. I swore and ran back out to Janet. “Where is she?”

Janet gave me an annoyed look. “Your so-called assistant went home for the day,” Janet said frostily. “She said she had a headache.”

“Son of a b.itch,” I went back to my office to get my keys before I flew down the hallway and into the elevator. I pushed the button for the ground floor repeatedly, as if jabbing the button a dozen times would make the elevator doors slide closed any faster. My heart was beating hard in my chest, and a thin layer of sweat had broken out on my neck.

She was angry with me. Disappointed, she had said. But surely, she wouldn’t take that as an excuse to do something rash and dangerous? I drove home like a maniac, pulling my tie loose. I would have called the house to check on her, but in my haste to get out of the office, I’d forgotten my cell phone on the charger at my desk. I skidded to a stop in front of the packhouse and ran in, almost plowing over Remmy in the foyer. “Remmy, oh thank the goddess! I grabbed him by his slender, slightly stooped shoulders. “Where is she?”

“The Luna?” he looked up at me with worried, watery eyes.

“Yeah,” I nodded, encouraging him to speak faster.

“Luna Lenora informed me that she was going out for a run. She refused to take a guard, but she promised to stay close to the house, and she said she would be back,” He checked his gold watch, a custom time piece I had given him at a Winter Solstice several years ago. “She should be back in the next twenty minutes,” he said.

I couldn’t wait twenty minutes. I stripped off my jacket and my tie and ran for the door. I might not be able to shift, but by the moon and stars, I would find her myself.