Vinnie scraped his hand over his jaw. “There was the ring of sincerity in his voice but, as Bree pointed out, hyenas are known for being incredibly good liars.”
“If he is telling the truth that Paxton spared his daughter, I doubt Dale simply wants to thank him,” said Alex. “The little girl was unharmed, true, but she was still kidnapped. It’s not good for their not-be-messed-with reputation that her kidnapper still lives.”
Alex certainly wouldn’t show any mercy to someone who took his child, no matter what that person tried to do to make it right. Nothing would be enough for Alex to overlook it. The last thing he’d be interested in doing was “thanking” them.
Nick nodded. “It basically sends the message that if someone snatches one of their clan, they won’t be hurt so long as the hyena they took is returned unharmed.”
“What about Dale’s claim that someone called him saying that Bree knew where Paxton was?” asked Shaya. “If someone did that, what would they have hoped to achieve?”
Alex rested his hand on the crook of Bree’s neck. “If that did happen, I’d say they wanted to keep Dale’s attention on Bree; wanted him to stay on her tail so that we’d immediately blame anything else that happened to her on him.”
“So, in effect,” began Bree, “their intention could have been to set up the hyenas to take the fall. Presuming Dale’s telling the truth.”
“Yes.” And Alex couldn’t help but be pissed that that hadn’t once occurred to him. Fuck it all.
Later that day, Bree sat nestled into Alex’s side on his sofa while Vinnie gave Elle and Alex’s parents a rundown of what happened at the mediation meeting. Agitation rode Bree and her cat hard. Farrell’s attempt to follow the hyenas back to their territory failed. They’d fired bullets in his general direction—deliberately missing him, he’d insisted—until his bird became so spooked it jerked backwards and banged its head on a tree trunk hard enough to make it pass out. By the time he came around, the hyenas were nowhere to be seen.
“Dale’s story doesn’t add up for me,” said James, sitting beside his mate on the other end of the sofa. “I don’t see why Paxton would have an issue killing a kid just because she’s an omega like Bree. I doubt he would have even viewed the girl as a person.”
“I agree,” said Valentina. “It makes no make sense.”
“Most of the things Paxton did made no sense, though.” Tate shrugged, shifting slightly on the chair he’d dragged in from the kitchen. “Why should this be any different?”
Well, he had a point there.
Sitting in the armchair, Vinnie inclined his head. “And that is why it wouldn’t be wise to dismiss Dale’s claims. It never hurts to be cautious. If the perpetrator is from our pride, it’s likely one of the Cages and can only be Ruben or Calvin, since Dale’s caller was male. Some of my enforcers are picking them both up as we speak. It’s time I had a little talk with them. They can explain to me why they never informed me that the hyenas approached them.”
“I want to be there for that talk,” said Alex.
“Yes, I thought you might.” Vinnie flexed his fingers. “I won’t let it slip to them that Dale told me he gave them his card. I want to see if they volunteer that info themselves.”
“Ruben will be upset with Bree for renouncing Paxton, but I can’t see him ever paying people to abduct her,” said Elle, perched on the arm of the chair. “It has to be Calvin who’s doing all this. He could have given his guards the slip when need be.”
“But he has no motive to do these things to Bree,” said Tate.
“No motive that we know of,” Elle corrected.
Tate sighed. “It’s fucking shit to know that one of our own could be behind this.”
It was. You wanted to believe your pride was your “safe place,” but that wasn’t always the case. Bree folded her arms. “I guess you can find shitheads anywhere.”
Luke nodded. “My words, your mouth.”
Vinnie’s phone began chiming. He pulled it out of his pocket and answered, “Hello?” His body went rigid. “Repeat that.” His face reddened. “Keep looking.” Pocketing his phone, he said, “That was Farrell.”
“And?” asked Tate.
“Ruben is gone,” replied the Alpha.
Bree stiffened, exchanging a look with Alex.
Luke blinked. “Gone?”
“Yes. So is Calvin. And Bernadette. And Moira.” A muscle in Vinnie’s cheek flexed. “No one saw them leave their homes, but they’re gone for sure.”
Alex cursed. “Are any of their belongings missing?”
“It looks as if Bernadette, Ruben, and Moira packed some things and left,” said Vinnie. “But the scene at Calvin’s apartment was much like that at Drina’s and Mateo’s—bloodstains, broken phone, nothing else disturbed.”
“Fuck,” Alex bit out.
“We didn’t make it common knowledge among the pride that we were meeting with the hyenas, but the Cages could have found out about it somehow,” said Luke. “If one of them is involved in what’s been happening to Bree, they might have confessed to the others. They might then have left as a family.”
“Hell, they could have all been in on it, wanting revenge on Bree for renouncing Paxton,” suggested Tate. “Calvin might have decided to stage it to look as though he was taken to throw us. Or maybe he was taken, and the others got so spooked by it that they left.”
Bree groaned. “I feel dizzy from all the theories bouncing around.” No less confused, her cat lay down and rested her chin on her forelegs.
“The good news is that Paxton might not be back after all—he might not even be alive,” said James. “The Cages might have just wanted to make you believe he was, Bree. They might have just wanted to scare or hurt you.”
If that was the case, Bree would be a very happy woman. But she couldn’t bring herself to believe it. She wasn’t sure what to think anymore.
“Operating on the assumption that one or all of the Cages were behind the attempts to kidnap Bree, do you think the fact that they’ve left the pride now signals that it’s over?” Elle asked her father. “That they’ll leave her alone?”
“I don’t know,” said Vinnie. “But I wouldn’t bank on it.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A hand curled around her upper arm just as a mouth grazed her ear. “Time to go,” Alex said quietly.
Bree frowned. “Not so soon.”
“We’ve been here hours.”
“Just a little longer.”
“You’re in pain.”
Pain seemed like a mild word. Usually, she needed to touch a person to read their emotions. But when people’s feelings were running high and wild, they tended to broadcast them. Which was why small, crowded places filled with heightened states of emotion could be a nightmare for omegas, especially memorials or funerals.
It didn’t matter how tough an omega’s shields were, there was no way to block out all that energy. Waves of it buzzed through the air. Despair. Grief. Anger. Pain. Devastation.