Uncle Greg looks old—so old—as he scrubs a hand across his greying stubble.
My mom appears destroyed, and that’s the part that fucking kills me. It makes me want to tear this room apart. As if that would help.
A silence descends and everyone focuses on the alpha. Who focuses on me.
I swallow.
“What do you know about this, Bo?”
Fuck. He has an incredible ability to instill fear. It’s some primitive pack biology. He looks, I quiver.
I may think I’m a big man. I may scare the shit out of the little football players from other teams. But in here, I’m just a kid. I have no power and barely a will of my own.
I try to stick to the truth. With a slow, sorry shake of my head, I say, “I wasn’t part of it.”
“You better not have been a part of it!” my mother splutters as my uncle growls, “Damn straight.”
“That wasn’t the question, son,” the sheriff has to point out.
Damn the shaking. There’s no hiding it—every wolf in here will smell my fear.
“I suspected it,” I say. Again, not a lie. No one confirmed or denied the operation to me. I look over at my uncle. “The Porsche. And the Mercedes.”
“Yeah,” Uncle Greg says dryly. “I figured that much out.”
“Is he stealing the cars?” the sheriff demands.
I draw in a breath, then shrug. “I don’t think so,” I mumble. Covering for Winslow has been part of my M.O. since I was a tot. I don’t know why I’m dead set on not revealing Sloane’s involvement, though.
“So who is?” Alpha Green wants to know.
This is the fucking hard part. The impossible part. My will against alpha will.
I drop my eyes and scuff my huge red Nike hightops on the floor. “I don’t know,” I lie.
I lift my eyes and take in four dubious faces. I’m sure they think it was Ben Thomasson, my brother’s no-good friend who he’s been helling around with since the beginning of time. Or some human gang situation.
“Tell me everything you know about this, right now,” Alpha Green demands with alpha power. Aggression plows me in the center of the chest. No one moves, yet I feel it hit me in the sternum and push me back in my seat. It’s not just from the alpha—it’s from every male wolf in the room.
Only my mom looks at me with trust shining in her eyes.
She’s always believed in me. Always hung her hopes on my success. That’s why she wants me to go to college. Get ahead in the pack.
I clear my rusty voice. “I don’t know anything, sir. Like I said, I suspected, but Winslow purposely kept me out of it. He told me to mind my own business when I brought it up.”
Alpha Green stares a hole into me so large a fist would fit through it. He knows I’m holding something back, and he’s pissed as hell.
“Well, if you get in touch with Winslow, give him my message—he needs to come before council in the next twenty-four hours, or he’s banished.”
My mom chokes back a sob.
And he’s banished is probably more like it. I’m sure council’s edict would be for him to turn himself in or be banished, anyway.
“I’ll tell him, sir. If I hear from him.”
Alpha Green’s still giving me the death glare. “Bo, if I ever hear you were a part of this operation or if you become a part of this operation, son…”
“I’m not. You won’t. I swear to fate,” I interrupt.
He lifts his chin. “Go.”
I stand up. No one else moves, so I guess I’m the only one dismissed. Or the adults are going to discuss me when I leave. Fuck.
I walk out. My bike’s still at school, so I text Wilde for a pick up. He and the other alpha-holes are blowing up my phone to find out what happened.
While I stand there, my mind whirls around what to do.
And every thought is centered around Sloane. That Cave Hills bitch who brought all this shit down. I’m going down there, right fucking now, to have a word with her.
A few words.
Austin, Wilde and Slade pull up in Wilde’s Jeep and yank me in on a rolling stop.
Cole isn’t with them—probably because he’s only about Bailey now and has been since the full moon run, when my asshole brother and his friends cornered and attacked her, and we had to fight them off—in wolf form.
Which means she knows what we are.
I honestly don’t know how Cole’s gonna handle that shit with the alpha, but so far, none of us have breathed a word. Not Winslow and his buddies—because they were at fault. And definitely not us.
I’ve literally been best friends with these guys since I was born. They are more like brothers to me in terms of having my back than Winslow will ever be. In fact, most of the time, it’s been us against Winslow and his buddies, who were always hell on wheels.