He shook his head. “I hadn’t heard about you.”
“Alpha Hughes knows.”
He looked surprised. “Why? Did they—”
“Robbie.”
Joe scowled. “Robbie.”
“He came here to… spy on us? Maybe. I don’t know. He was the new Osmond.”
“And you let him in the pack?” Joe demanded.
I watched him coolly. “He doesn’t belong to Hughes. He belongs to me.”
He recoiled like I’d slapped him. “Ox, you know what Osmond did. He betrayed my father. For all we know, Hughes was in on it too! They could have wanted him dead for years.”
“He’s not,” I said. “It’s not like that.”
“You don’t know that,” Joe spat. “They said the same thing about Osmond.”
“Is this because of Robbie? Or is it because of you?”
“What the hell.”
“He is my friend, Joe. That’s it.”
“Right,” Joe said, giving up all pretense. “And nothing more. He doesn’t want anything more.”
“I don’t want anything more.”
“He can’t—he’s not—”
“I told him. He knows.”
“Knows what?”
But I wasn’t ready for that. It would be too easy to let him off the hook. And part of me wanted to. I was already tired of this. Of the anger.
I said, “You cut us out.”
He took a step back. “Ox.”
“You said I’m sorry. In the middle of the night when you knew I wouldn’t see it. Like a coward. You said I’m sorry and then I didn’t hear anything from you. We didn’t hear anything from you. For years.”
He was revving himself up for another fight. I could see it in his stony expression. But I wasn’t going to let this one go. He had been wrong about a lot of things. But I thought this had been his worst mistake.
“I did what I had to,” he said, voice even.
“What you had to,” I echoed. “And why was that?”
“We couldn’t have the distraction.”
I snorted. “Right. We, meaning all of you. Meaning you all agreed.”
He hesitated.
“You didn’t,” I said, “did you? All of you didn’t agree.”