Felix
I was gonna do this thing the way I did everything according to sock starch Alex: “with all the subtlety of a large bull sneaking out of a small China shop.”
“Ok, gents!” I said, clapping my hands. “I handled shit, man that I am, by promising my Baby, Madame Chasity, that we would track down her shitty parents and bring them to her alive or kill the motherfuckers who killed them if we find out they’re dead.”
Calix looked dumbfounded but he always looked like that so it was fine. He was just processing the sentence. I had used adjectives and whatnot so he would need some time. Alex glared at me and then relaxed his expression. This was a bad sign. He was about to wash his hands of it.
“I’m confused,” said Alex, lying.
He was never confused. That was anti-Alex. Confusion was a Calix thing.
“You said you promised your Baby something but then you said we when talking about your upcoming investigation,” mused Alex, stroking his chin.
I called his bluff.
“Don’t help then. I’ll just do it alone. Even if I die trying to find out what happened to Chasity’s parents, Chasity will never stop obsessing over it,” I said nonchalantly. “She’ll also never forget that you two didn’t help. In fact, let’s all go tell her right now that you two aren’t interested in helping me achieve her dream of reuniting with her parents. Let her know you’re just interested in pounding her pussy not in her long-awaited dreams or actual personality or anything…”
Alex cut across me, “That is completely unfair and you know it, Felix! Do you think we’re stupid? Your manipulation isn’t that hard to unmask! You put us in a position where we can’t say no without risking losing Chasity whether she runs away to do it herself or shuts herself off because we don’t do it for her!” Yelled Alex, his eyes darkening as his wolf raged within.
I shrugged.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “So are you gonna tell her you don’t want to or should I?” I asked again.
“I never said I didn’t want to. You two don’t speak for me,” said Calix bluntly.
I was, as the kids say, “shook.” I leant all the way back as I looked at Calix. He was kinda commanding respect these days. Chasity had made a man out of him.
“You want to?” Asked Alex, softening, as he looked at Calix.
“You don’t?” Asked Calix, shocked, looking at Alex.
Alex sighed.
“Of course I want to help Chasity,” admitted Alex. “But whoever her parents were running from…they thought them too powerful even for their Alpha and Luna to help.”
“We are much better warriors than Dad,” I said brazenly.
It was true. He taught us how to fight but we had a knack for it separately, and together, we were unstoppable. We were so well connected. Essentially, each of us had three vantage points in every battle.
Alex shrugged.
“I say that with love,” I added.
It was time to pour some honey on this situation.
“And…I love Chasity so much. And I love you, Alex, as meticulous as you are and you, Calix, as Mommy-struck as you are,” I said.
Calix rolled his eyes. Alex pressed his lips together.
“I love you and Calix and I’m in love with Chasity and I don’t want the fiends, who probably did kill Chasity’s parents, coming back and targeting Chasity,” growled Alex, speaking with his wolf so that his voice was much deeper.
“And we’ll wipe the floor with them if they do,” I said confidently, adding my wolf to the mix so that my voice was just as deep.
Calix’s wolf was chilling.
“Let’s do it,” said Calix with a shrug. “It’s better to draw out these people if they’re our Luna’s enemies and deal with them.”
I nodded eagerly at Baby Boy Calix as he was speaking facts.
“Essentially what you’re saying is you promised Chasity that we’d track down her parents if they’re alive or kill her parents’ killer to avenge their deaths if they’re dead,” said Alex, nodding and laying it out on the table.
“Sounds like a cool movie plot. I like it,” said Calix encouragingly.
“Yeah, I promised her that because it’s what she wants most and what we want most is her. Until the chapter with her parents has some kind of conclusion on it, she won’t be fully present in the relationship,” I explained.
Alex and Calix exchanged a glance and then looked at me with wide surprised eyes. I knew they were shocked to hear me analyse Chasity. I secretly watched human talk shows like Oprah. I knew about investment in relationships. They should give me more credit.
After a long silence, Calix said, “I think we should do it. We owe her that much, but how are we going to get Mom to be ok with this?”
“We don’t need to tell her!” I grumbled immediately.
Just when Calix had earned my respect, he brought up getting Mom’s approval.
“We might, yeah,” said Alex. “We’ll need more information on Chasity’s parents like who their old friends are, where their old haunts are.”
Shit. Alex was right. We had no leads. We didn’t know shit about Chasity’s parents. We could probably get a few helpful details from Chasity but she had been just nine years old the last time she saw her parents. She might not remember that much. She also might not know certain things, adult things, things her parents would have kept from her, details our parents might have known. We could go after some old pack busybodies but Mom was sitting on the most knowledge when it came to her estranged stepbrother and his wife.
“Calix, are you willing to sweet-talk Mom into being ok with this?” I asked.
He was the apple of Mom’s eye but Chasity was a thorn in Mom’s side. She would want to help Calix but not Chasity but it was still worth a shot. She had to get with the program sooner or later. Chasity was ours and we were hers. The deal was sealed with our marks.
“Don’t tell her about the avenging their deaths part if they’ve been murdered! Just tell her about the finding out what happened for Chasity’s peace of mind part,” Alex explained.
Calix nodded. “I can do that,” he said.
“Work in how if Chasity finds out enough about her parents, she’ll be content enough to stay, thereby safeguarding our triplet hearts!” I added.
Mom’s main grievance with Chasity was that she was gonna break our…well, mostly Calix’s, her favourite’s…hearts.
“Good angle!” Commented Alex. “Mom will eat that up!”
Calix still looked a tad apprehensive.
“You got this, Calix!” Exclaimed Alex, psyching him up.
“Come through Baby boy Calix!” I cheered.
Calix grinned. He was ready.
Calix
I had to be the one to call Mom. I was not surprised. She told me a lot about herself. She might tell me about her stepbrother, Chasity’s Dad.
I put my iPhone on loud speaker.
Mom had designed this games room herself, making it like a casino, so it could be a man cave for Dad. However, she ended up stopping the gambling parties Dad would throw because of the rowdy wolves and sore losers. Dad would still have games nights where they played pool though. They just would not use the slot machines or play cards unless they could play without gambling.
Mom usually answered on the first ring and this time was no different.
The phone rang just once.
“Calix, sweetheart, how are you?” Cooed Mom. “Mommy misses you so much!”
I was regretting putting the phone on loudspeaker. Felix was stifling his snickering. Alex was nodding, trying to prompt me.
“Miss you too, Mom!” I said so her feelings would not be hurt.
Truth be told, I was a little glad to be away from her and Dad. She could be a tad smothering at times and I was fed up of hearing Dad tell me to “man up” just for him to turn around and treat me like a child anyway. Also, Chasity. Chasity, Chasity, Chasity. Every time I got close to Chasity, they managed to ruin it somehow. Now that I knew she was my fated mate, I needed time with her away from my parents to build our mate bond.
“I’m not good. Mom, I made a mistake,” I said sadly.
Alex smiled encouragingly.
“What happened, sweetheart?” Asked Mom, instantly worried.
“I…don’t hate me ok?” I said shakily.
The easiest way to get Mom on my side was to fret a bit. My brothers were egging me on. They always did this whenever they nominated me to ask Mom to let us do something as kids.
“I could never ever EVER hate you, Calix!! You are my baby boy! Now tell Mommy what happened?! She’s worried sick,” gushed Mom.
I felt a little guilty for making her worried.
“I let it slip to Chasity about how your little stepbrother is her father,” I mumbled.
There was a pause. I was a little nervous about her reaction.
“Calix, you have to be careful, hun, ok, especially around her,” warned Mom.
My wolf got a little aggravated. She was making our mate sound like a dangerous lunatic or a conniving bitch or something.
“Ok, Mommy but she asked something of me and I wanna give it to her,” I said, pressing on.
“Ok,” said Mom cautiously.
I launched right into it.
“I promised her I would help her find out what happened to her parents after that day they drove and left her at the pack house,” I explained.
Silence.
“Felix and Alex promised too!” I added. “It was either that or risk her running away to find out on her own. She could disappear too, Mom, or get hurt or…we couldn’t handle losing her, Mom. I can’t even think about it. It makes me sick,” I explained, my heart racing a little.
What if she refused to help us or tell us anything? What if she took it out on Chasity? I was not twelve years old anymore. I had to stand up for and stand with my mate.
“You know how the mate bond, don’t you, Mom?” I pleaded. “How would you react if Dad wanted to go off and solve some criminal cold case but it was super dangerous but you couldn’t stop him either!” I said, hoping she would understand.
“I…I…I would help him,” Mom spluttered reluctantly.
“Exactly, Mom, and we wanna help Chasity. We want her to be at peace with the past somewhat,” I said, finalising everything.
Mom let out a heavy sigh. I felt that twinge of guilt I used to get every time I “disappointed Mommy” when I was little. She used to speak of herself in the third person whenever she would scold me. She would only say “You’ve disappointed Mommy” though when I had done something nice for Chasity. Over time, my nice deeds towards Chasity became fewer in number, especially after that time Mom cried because I had stolen money from her wallet to buy Chasity some new shoes. Her shoes had been so worn out and my parents had not gotten her any new ones. Whenever I had reminded Mom, she had said she would “get to it eventually” and yet every time we would go shopping, she would bypass the girls’ shoes sections. I would run to the sections and grab up a few pairs and toss them among the things Mom would buy for herself or us. I would get the right sizes and everything cause Alex had helped me check the sizes. When I would get home and look for the shoes in the bags to present them to Chasity, they would be gone. I would check the receipts and sometimes the shoes were not listed meaning Mom had put them back at some point. Other times, the shoes were listed and paid for so where had they gone? What had my mother done with all those shoes, all those winter boots? I felt sick just thinking about it but it stopped me feeling sorry for Mom. I had never confronted her about the missing shoes.
“Ok,” she said, sounding as drained as I felt when I ruminated over all the things I should have done to help Chasity and stand up to Mom. “What do you need from me,” she said matter-of-factly.
Thankfully, Alex took over.
Alex
Calix was looking really uncomfortable. Confronting Mom about Chasity was not easy for him.
“Hi, Mom!” I interjected.
“Aww my Big Boy Alex!” She said.
“What were Chasity’s parents full names?” I asked, taking my specially engraved Alpha Alex pen out so I could jot down some notes in my journal.
“They were Chalice and Chase Case,” said Mom dryly.
I could tell she was annoyed I had gone straight into asking questions about Chasity’s parents without much preamble. Did she just say Chase Case? Was she making this up to throw us off the trail? Did she not wanna face her stepbrother?
“Chase case?” I asked incredulously.
Mom laughed suddenly.
“I didn’t name him,” she retorted, snorting with laughter.
I chuckled half-heartedly.
“What was Chasity’s Mom’s maiden name?” I asked.
“Smith,” said Mom immediately.
I paused after I wrote it down. I had expected her to hesitate for that one, to have to struggle to remember. Many people did not know the maiden names of the married women they knew. Mom must have paid closer attention to her stepbrother’s mate than I thought.
“Did either Chase or Chalice have a best friend? Or friends?” I asked.
We would need to interview more people than just Mom to get to the bottom of this.
“Yeah, ummm, Chalice was the social one. She liked a lot of attention, that one.” Said Mom snidely.
Just as I figured, Mom had a problem with Chalice so she had been keeping tabs on her somewhat.
“Remember any of their names,” I asked hopefully.
“Deirdre and Didi were her two main girlfriends. They were best friends,” said Mom.
“Describe them!” I said eagerly, my pen at the ready.
This would be a big help. Surely any friend worth their weight would know where they might have gone, their old haunts, their potential hideaways.
“Deirdre was a tall, statuesque girl. She looked like a model. She actually did some modelling. I wonder what became of her…” said Mom, trailing off.
Why was that name so familiar to me?
“You mean Deirdre Binx?!” Asked Calix incredulously.
Huh? Calix knew her too.
“Yes! That was her last name! I remember now! Tall, dark skinned, high cheekbones. You could cut cheese with those cheek bones!” Said Mom, laughing.
“Mom!” Exclaimed Felix. “Deidre really did become a model, an international supermodel. She’s retired but she’s the real deal!”
Wow, ok. I was not up to date on my pop culture or whatever but my brothers certainly were. I had assumed Deidre’s name was familiar because she was someone from the gym or something.
Calix googled the name and showed the page to me. There were millions of pictures of her online. She had a summer house in LA in the human realm. Wow, Chasity’s Mom had such a famous best friend. None of that added up. I had to assume Deidre knew Chalice had a daughter, so why had she never inquired about Chasity even after her mother went missing? If my close friends went missing and they had a kid, I would at least send Christmas gifts or something. Didn’t she want to know how Chasity was holding up? Didn’t she want to reminisce and tell Chasity funny stories about her Mom’s glory days?
I wrote down Deidre’s full name and the alleged address of her Summer House as it was listed online.
“Then there was Didi Torte,” said Mom. “She was a short girl with blonde hair and huge orb-like eyes. She knew everybody’s business. A huge busybody!”
I could tell from the way Mom had described these people that she found Deidre impressive and Didi not so much.
“Do you have phone numbers for either of these people, Mom?” I wondered.
They were originally our pack members after all no matter where they lived now.
“Nope, sorry, Hun,” said Mom.
“What about Chasity’s father, any close companions?” I tried.
“Just one! He was a bit of a loner. My stepbrother. He was shy and sweet,” said Mom.
I found that hard to believe. He had been a drug addict with a party animal mate according to Mom so was he suddenly being dubbed shy and sweet and a loner?
“Ok and this one close companion was called?” I prompted.
“Dexter! Dexter Sharpe. He was an aspiring news reporter actually. He was a nervous guy with shifty eyes. Tall and thin, walked kinda hunched over with his fingers wiggling all the time,” said Mom.
“And what places did they hangout at, Mom?” I asked.
Mom made a disapproving “tsk” sound.
“Anywhere drugs and alcohol could be found,” she retorted. “Bars. There was a bar they frequented called The Serpent’s Tongue. There was a club where people would cage fight called A Fork in the Road and there was a casino they liked…” said Mom, stopping abruptly.
“A casino?” I said, eager to note it down with the rest.
This was the lead I had been hoping for! The casino where they had incurred their huge debts and possibly met with their huge enemy whether that be a loan shark, another gambler or the owner himself.
“Yeah, umm, it was called The Lucky Toad,” said Mom reluctantly.
“A friendly place?” I asked nonchalantly, trying to gauge how criminal these characters would be.
Mom snorted with laughter.
“Of course not, the guys there probably eat gravel and drink freshly mixed cement,” retorted Mom.
I could just picture her shaking her head and folding her arms at the indignity of it all. She was clearly not over her stepbrother’s past poor choices.
“They were animals! Always getting in fights. The police got called there so many times, they tried to shut the place down but couldn’t because the people that owned it had connections. The police just stopped showing up there even when called after a while,” explained Mom.
I looked at my brothers. We had our work cut out for us. We definitely had to track down and interview the three old friends of Chalice and Chase and question them. We also had to scope out the their three old haunts. There would probably be more people there to question if anyone was willing to come forward with information. I hoped we were not stirring up a hornet’s nest with these leads. I was not about to my Chasity, my brothers or myself get stung.
“Thanks, Mom,” said Calix. “I really, really appreciate it. It means the world to Chasity so it means the world to me.”
There was a pause.
“Well, then, if it means the world to my baby boy then it means the world to me,” said Mom, sounding strained.
“Thanks, Mom. It really does mean a lot to us,” I emphasised.
“Thanks for being cool about this, Mom! You’re a fox,” Said Felix.
“Oh, Felix,” chuckled Mom. “You know I did go to a few parties back in my day. I wasn’t wild and reckless like that girl’s mother, you know! I mean, I had a reputation to uphold, of course, but I did have my fun…”
“Awesome sauce, Mom,” said Felix, trying to cut her off.
“Amazing, Mom, thanks again,” said Alex.
“Thanks for sharing,” added Felix.
“Thanks Mommy! Love you! Bye!” Said Calix.
We all breathed a sigh of relief. We looked at each other.
“Fuck yeah! We did it!” Yelled Felix triumphantly.
He and Calix high-fived.
“I don’t mean to be a killjoy…” I began.
“Then don’t,” said Felix.
I rolled my eyes. Felix frowned. Calix pouted.
“Fuck yeah,” I said, smiling, high-fiving my little brothers.
“Whoo,” yelled Felix.
Calix did a strange little victory dance. We had not actually done anything, other than amass a couple leads. I just hoped they were true leads and not dead-ends.
I went over my notes. We had six main leads.
Deidre Binx, Chalice’s retired supermodel friend.
Didi Torte, Chalice’s busybody friend.
Dexter Sharpe, Chase’s alleged only friend.
The Serpent’s Tongue Bar.
A Fork in the Road Cage-fighting Club.
The Lucky Toad Casino.
My brothers were still celebrating. I was a man of logic but my wolf and I had this ritual. We would have hunches, and they were never wrong, literally never. We circled the lead we had a hunch about, the one we kept coming back to. We would see if our hunch was right yet again soon enough.
There, I said to myself as I stared at the name circled in red ink.
Deidre Binx.