Part Fifty-Two

I wanted to go after Chester immediately but I also wanted to kill the other men involved. They all covered it up and they carried just as much blame as Chester did, I didn’t care what he had on them, what he was blackmailing them with, they sanctioned my father’s murder.

“What’s wrong?” Sierra asked as she turned towards me. It was dark in our room and I couldn’t sleep. I had been lying awake for hours now.

“It’s nothing, work’s just been crazy,” I said to her.

“I hope the crazy will stop before Sunday, you need a break and I plan on making you take that break right after our ceremony,” she said and snuggled closer to me.

“A break huh, where are you planning on taking me?” I asked her.

“Well I wanted to keep to tradition and I spoke to Connor and he suggested St. Barts,” she said and I laughed.

“St. Barts landed my father in jail,” I said.

“Really? What happened in St. Barts?” she asked me.

“My mom got pregnant with me in St. Barts and Damon marked her without her knowledge, she was kidnapped by another Alpha who wanted to mark her and that Alpha brought it before the Council. Damon got six months in prison and his memory wiped,” I said to her.

“What happened after that?” she asked me.

“Axel stored Damon’s memories but it took a while for them to come back, by that time my mom was almost ready to give birth to me. Damon left the clowder because he couldn’t shift and moved back to a house he owned right next to Finley. Connor remained her friend through everything and he was helping her put my crib together when Damon accused him of being the father, they fought and Connor let it slip that he was the father. Naturally Damon freaked out because he couldn’t remember shit and Finley ran,” I said with a chuckle.

“Ran where?” she asked.

“Some small town, but then Axel started remembering and so did Damon and he figured out that he was the father meanwhile Finley had given birth to me and Damon started tracking her. When he found her he forced her to move in with him so they could raise me together and then they got married after Damon marked her again, this time with her consent,” I said.

“Your mother sounds like a remarkable person,” she said softly.

“She was.”

“Maybe we should skip St. Barts,” she said with a laugh.

“Maybe we shouldn’t, you’ll be marked before we go there anyway, so the only tradition we can keep to is you getting pregnant,” I said.

“Not a chance,” she said.

“You don’t want kids?” I asked her.

“Not at twenty,” she said.

“Have you ever thought of the possibility that you could already be pregnant?” I asked her.

“What?” she asked me with wide eyes.

“We never actually used protection, ever,” I said.

“No, I’m not pregnant. I would know if I was,” she said and turned away from me.

“I wouldn’t mind,” I said.

“Not happening for at least two or three more years,” she said.

“We’ll see,” I said with a smile and finally closed my eyes to sleep.

It was Friday and the house was buzzing with activity. Our acceptance ceremony was scheduled for Sunday morning, followed by me marking her and then the celebrations that tended to last well into the next day.

Jett was running around almost hysterically as he oversaw the decorations with Tanith looking at him like he had truly gone insane as he rearranged almost everything. After a while Tanith gave up and flopped down on the couch in the living room.

“I think I’m just going to make my escape before Jett ropes me in too,” I said and sneaked out of the living room.

“Chicken!” she yelled as I almost ran down the hall.

I had no idea what Sierra was busy with, but every now and then I caught a whiff of her scent as she darted around the house. Meals were being prepped and the deliveries seemed never ending, so I locked myself in the computer room and took a deep breath.

“Woods,” I answered my phone.

“Alpha Woods, your presence is required immediately for an emergency meeting with the Council,” the woman said.

“With regards to?” I asked her.

“I was only told to call you Alpha, the details will be discussed once you arrive,” she said to me.

“I’ll be there in an hour,” I said.

“Conference room seven,” she said and ended the phone call.

I knew exactly what this was about, they had found Grant’s body and everybody was freaking out. The cameras would show him arriving for work, going to his office and never leaving it but somehow he had ended up dead.

I went downstairs in search of Sierra and found her in the kitchen giving instructions. I pulled her away to the living room where Tanith had thankfully disappeared from. She looked at me in frustration because I had interrupted her work.

“I need to port to New York,” I said.

“Why?” she asked me suddenly frowning.

“I don’t know, I just got a call saying they required my immediate presence,” I said to her.

“Fine, but don’t stay there the whole day, we have a lot of things to do here,” she said.

“I’ll be back,” I said and pulled her closer for a kiss.

I left after ten minutes of trying to convince her to escape to our room and her trying to free herself from me. In the end she threatened me with the couch if I didn’t let her do her work and I went upstairs to change into a suit.

“Alpha Woods, you can go right up,” the man behind the counter said the moment I stepped through the portal.

I didn’t even answer him as I headed straight towards the elevator and went up to the eleventh floor. Conference room seven was more of a secure type of location than a room used for meetings. This had worked out better than even I could’ve planned for.

Two warriors stood outside the door and I showed them my ID card and had to scan my palm print on one of their tablets to verify my identity. The first warrior punched in a code and the door to the room opened up.

“Alpha Woods,” Chester greeted me and the door closed behind me.

“What’s this all about Chester?” I asked him.

Chester, Louis, Kevin and Phil were all in the room sitting around a table and they all stood up when I arrived. This definitely had to do with Grant, they were panicking and now hiding out together. I had been working on a plan to kill the rest and it seemed that fate was smiling down on me.

“Grant Greene’s dead,” Chester said.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said automatically.

“He was murdered Griffin, in his office,” Louis said his eyes darting around the room.

“Is that why I’m here? Don’t you have interrogators of your own? I assume the suspect is in custody,” I said as I took a seat at the table.

“There is no suspect, the camera footage shows him entering his office and closing his door, he didn’t once leave his office, and then a few hours later we found his body when he missed a meeting,” Chester said.

“How is that possible?” I asked.

“We don’t know,” Louis said and I could hear slight anxiety in his voice.

“Did you review the previous day’s footage? Maybe someone hid in his office and waited for him,” I suggested.

“Already checked,” Kevin said.

“Why are you four hiding out in here?” I asked.

“We mainly work on the same cases together and this past month we’ve ordered two executions and three imprisonments. I think we’re being targeted by someone,” Chester said.

“Still doesn’t explain why I’m here,” I said.

“You’re an Enforcer at heart, bound by an oath to protect the Council and keep peace, his murder was just too random for it not to be directly linked to one of our cases,” Louis said.

“You want protection?” I asked and almost laughed.

“Yes, until whoever’s doing this makes a mistake or shows his face,” Phil said.

“That could take days, I’m busy,” I said.

“Griffin, I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye but you’re the Enforcer Alpha, we need you to run this investigation and keep us safe,” Chester said.

My inner turmoil was starting to rage, this man orchestrated my father’s death, let in a hunter to kill him, unable to defend himself and he really expected me to aid him now. It was so perfect that I almost smiled. I already had a plan in mind.

“Fine, I’ll need to port back home before escorting you to a safe house,” I said.

“Thank you Griffin, the Council would be in your debt,” Louis said.

“Be ready to leave in two hours, no detours, we go straight to the safe house of which only I will know the location,” I said and they all nodded.

“What about our families?” Phil asked as I reached the door.

“It’s best not to let anyone know what’s going on, you don’t know who you can trust, obviously someone in the Council is in on this, it would explain how Grant got murdered in his office, this is supposed to be one of the most secure locations the Council has. I’ll port us out, nobody will even know that you guys have left this room,” I said.

“I agree, it’s safer to dispatch warriors to watch our families, and for us to remain hidden, we are the targets, not our families, whoever did this didn’t touch Grant’s family, they only killed him,” Chester said.

“I’ll order in some supplies and food to be brought here, make it look like we’re camping out in here instead of leaving,” Louis said as he picked up a landline.

“I’ll be back soon,” I said and smiled as I left the conference room.

Records would show me leaving, but it wouldn’t show me return. I planned on porting right into the room, now that I’ve been in there, it was easy to locate through the realms.