Suspicions

KADEN'S POV.

For days, I and the twins stayed in our father's room. We didn't touch anything, nor did we speak to each other. We just sat there, having memories of our father flit in and out of our heads.

The memories were so painful. Why was it that when a person died, almost every memory shared with that person came to mind?

And why were the happy memories tainted with sadness? From the start, our father was everything to us. He took us out to places, and tried to be there for us whenever we needed him. Sometimes, he had been strict, but we never stopped loving him. Other times, he was too busy, but he always kept his word.

Whenever he promised to take us somewhere, show up at school, or spend days with us, he neglected everything that had to do with work, and kept his word.

We all knew how much it had cost him to put a stop to our mating ceremony with Eileen, yet he didn't resent us, or get angry. He had thrown it all away for our sakes, and had been happy to see us happy.

Days passed by without eating, but we didn't feel hungry. I wanted to rise out of my depression, but I was being held back, and I began to wonder if I'd ever move on.

We barely spoke. We only responded to the maids coming in, and out. That was Reece, and I.

But Ethan… Ethan didn't say a single word, and had been stuck in the same position for days, staring at the picture on a frame.

"Let's go home." I finally said, after a week, and some days.

"I want to go home too." Reece said, sadly, but Ethan didn't respond. It almost felt like he had forgotten how to speak.

"Ethan." I called, going to him, but he didn't budge. I had never seen Ethan shaken that bad in all my life, and it saddened me. He was always the strong one, the one who carried all the responsibility, so him being so weak, struck a cord in me. "I'm sorry." I finally said, wrapping my hands around him, and he began to cry afresh in my arms.

It turned out he still had more tears, and that was the reason he was still stuck in his total depression.

Reece and I had cried, and fought out half of our pain, and had a little of our senses intact, but Ethan hadn't voiced much. He had cried, but after the first day, he had stopped crying, while we continued.

"Let's just stay. A little more. Just a little more." He said, sniffing, still in my arms. Reece came to me too, and I wrapped my arms around him.

It was time to be strong for both of them. Ethan alone had been strong for a long time, so when he wasn't, I needed to be, even though I was trying not to crumble under my own depression.

~

Finally, our father was laid to rest, and all three of us had cried upon seeing him being lowered into the ground.

We would never see him again. He would never touch us, he will never give his hearty laugh anymore, he would never hug us, and tell us we did well. We will never hear his voice anymore.

Never again would we feel we had someone backing us, we had only ourselves, and had to be strong. We had to be fierce. We were the ones in charge already. In short, we had to grow up, and stop being boys.

Mr. Gawde came to pay his last respects, and his eyes were red. It was funny how Mr. Gawde, a man with a heart of stone could actually cry. Well, we could understand. He had spent longer years with our father before we came into the picture.

He and my father were always together.

Theo also graced the occasion, and gave his condolences, wishing our emotional wounds would heal as fast as our physical wounds did.

Yrene was silent, and it was understandable that she was speechless, but I was never more grateful to Eileen who held our hands at every opportunity she had.

"You're not alone. You have me, you have my dad." She had said, and that had moved me to tears. She had hugged me, and I had cried in her arms.

When a lot of important people had gathered, and we were meant to make a speech, I had a panic attack, and couldn't join the Reece, and Ethan.

Eileen had stayed with me, telling me to breathe, and had helped me calm down. She told me father was doing well, and that he had started his next journey. A journey most people weren't privileged to start at his age, rather, they started earlier.

She also reminded me that my father had a calm expression, as the last expression on his face, and not a pained one. Initially, we had wanted an autopsy, but she had asked if we really wanted his body opened up, and seen by more people, and we had realized we didn't really want that.

Our father's death was hard on us. There was also the ceremony where we'd take over as pack leaders. It all seemed too soon. Like we weren't given enough time to prepare.

~

YRENE'S POV.

I saw through the brothers' suffering every day, and it burned to see them like that. Kaden, and Reece, who I thought would be able to smile, and endure the pain, were unable to.

Ethan, who I had thought would think rationally, was utterly destroyed, and each time Eileen walked into their room to stay with them, I felt uneasy.

There was definitely something fishy going on.

The Alpha had been perfectly fine, and had never complained of a problem. He was strong, and healthy, so why would he have an heart attack all of a sudden?

I did a lot of research on heart attacks, and asked the maids if they'd seen symptoms, but their replied were negative.

It was even more suspicious that it was days after he had approved of us mating, with each other that he happened to die.

Eileen had drastically changed to a loving person within that time, and it looked to me like she'd been trying to gain their trust.

Well, she had succeeded because she was the one comforting the triplets everytime.

When I gave them food, they didn't eat until she forced them to, but of course my thoughts were only suspicions. Until one night, a week after the funeral when I saw her staring fixedly at something in her hand, before throwing it into the bin.

It made a noise, and piqued my curiousity, so after she had left, I made my way over to the bin silently, and dipped my hand into it.

My hands met something solid like glass, and I picked it up.

It was a framed picture of the Late Alpha.