“I just want to know what’s going on. I have worked with Gabriel pretty much my whole life and now he’s gone, and nobody will tell me what happened to him. I feel like I have a right to know. He’s like family.”
“Let’s just say that somebody saw you guys together and these feelings that you have for him that you want to hide, Gabriel is paying for it. He knew better than to touch my sister.”
Allie looked at him like he was mad and wanted to know what in the world he was talking about. She had an ill feeling inside of her like everything was going wrong. “What are you talking about? What do you mean, touch your sister? Gabriel?” Allie wanted to know, but her tone showed how much she believed him.
“You were seen in the city, Allie, at the same time he was there. You were also seen later kissing him. Then later you were seeing coming back with Gabriel. He sent everybody away so that you guys could be alone in your room. Are you going to say that none of this is true? I will tell you though, sister, I already know the truth, so there's no sense in lying. You can't save Gabriel now.”
Allie just stared at him, mouth open and eyes wide. She couldn't believe that her brother was saying it and all she could focus on was that it couldn't be true. There was no way that that was true. She might have been seen kissing someone, but it wasn’t Gabriel.
“You are so wrong, Ben. I mean, you are so wrong that you have no idea what you have done.” Allie shook inside. She couldn't believe that her brother would do such a thing. He killed him? Had he put him in the mountain cells? Allie was going to have to save him, of course. Gabriel hadn't done anything. He was the one that was trying to keep her from getting in trouble. Justice was the culprit, not Gabriel. Gabriel was probably 13-14 years older than her. It was ridiculous to even assume that she would be with somebody that age. The resentment she had for her brother was increasing by the minute.
“I'm not done, Allie. Like I said, you can't save him.”
“What did you do to him? What did you do to your friend who has done nothing wrong?” As Allie said it she felt even more disgusted because it was all her fault. She was the one who had run away to the city just to have a few moments to herself and then she had pushed herself onto Justice, taking a kiss that he didn't even want to give her. It had been life changing, but she just hadn't realized that it would be Gabriel’s life that was changed because of it.
So, there was a moment where she could have told the truth. She could have gotten somebody else in trouble and ended Justice's life or she could have kept herself quiet and Gabriel, a man that she had known most of her life, would be hurt because of it. Allie didn't like that feeling at all and it made her sick to her stomach.
“Please tell me that you're joking?” She just couldn't let it all go. She was searching Ben's face for a flicker of humor. He had to be kidding, right? Even as she asked herself that, Allie knew that she was wrong. This was real. Her actions had caused the pain and suffering of someone she cared about. Allie promised herself right then and there that she would never do anything like it again. There was no freedom if people got hurt because of it.
“I have done what I have to do to keep you safe, Allie. You are to be married to an Alpha; you are to rule another clan that is befitting you. I have gone through great lengths to find your mate and the last thing that can happen is you sully yourself beforehand with one of my soldiers. Gabriel knew what would happen to him if he did something like that. You knew it as well. You knew how close I was with Gabriel and that was likely why you picked him. It will take me a while to forgive you for that, Allie.”
Allie didn't know what to say, she was dying to say something for Gabriel, but at the same time she wasn't going to put another one on the chopping block. She had been seen kissing Justice, and since Justice was the only one that could be thrown under the bus, she decided to not say anything at all. Allie didn't know if that was the right thing to do or not. It felt like it was the only thing to do.
Instead, she just shook her head inside, telling her brother that he had made a huge mistake. It did not escape her that she was the one that made the mistake and ruined everything. Allie had no idea how she was supposed to go on. Without Gabriel around, Allie knew that it would never be the same again. Gabriel was like a father or older brother to her.
“Did you kill him, or did you just throw him in the dungeon?”
Ben scoffed, “If you’re trying to pretend like you don't care, you should stop asking about him.”
“He has been keeping an eye on me for years. Do you really think that I'm not going to care what happened to him? You have been told lies and I care that an innocent man is going to be punished. You should care too, brother. A good leader would care that he was sentencing his loyal friend to unfair punishment.”
Her brother just shrugged like it didn't matter either way, and Allie had the feeling that he was being honest. She wouldn't let it go though and he finally told her that for the time being, Gabriel was still alive. Allie wasn't the only one that was close with him. He had been in their lives for most of it. Allie tried to reason with her brother and tell him once more that he was seeing it all wrong, and he told her if she could give some kind of excuse that made sense, he would let it go, but the only excuse she had was that she had been kissing somebody else. Allie knew that that would not help anybody. So, she kept her mouth shut, feeling guilty and bad about it the whole time.
Allie left Ben’s office not too long after she got there. She had no idea what to say to her brother and she was honestly a little disgusted about the whole thing. Allie couldn't believe that her brother would do such a thing, not to Gabriel, not to someone that she had viewed as family for a very long time. The whole situation had Allie second guessing everything. She also found herself in extraordinary guilt because she had made it happen. Her desire to live for a moment had destroyed someone else's life. Allie knew that she could never do something like that again. She was just going to have to except what her life was to be. She was to be married and then like Gabriel said, she wouldn't be around to cause him anymore trouble. Allie just wished that she hadn't messed it up beforehand.
Hurting Gabriel was the last thing she ever wanted to do. Maybe after she was gone for a time and her brother had calmed down, her brother would forgive Gabriel or finally see that what he heard wasn't the truth. Gabriel would never do something like that to her brother. He was too loyal for that.
She felt even worse when she got back to her room and really thought about it. She felt guilty that she still thought about Justice and the kiss that they shared together. Allie had thought that it was fate, such a silly notion that she should have known better about. Sad thing was she wanted it to be true so badly that she had partially believed it. Not only had she lied to her brother and other people, but she had fooled herself as well, which was probably the scariest thing.
Even as she told herself that she just had to accept it, Allie hated the idea of it. She wanted to live a real life, she wanted to be free, but it just wasn't meant to be for her. Allie's life apparently was going to be ruled by the men in charge of her, and it wasn't the first time that Allie wished she could just run away and be someone else. She was never going to be able to be her own person with Ben around. He wasn't going to let her go either. Unfortunately, Allie knew that she was stuck in a life that she didn't want and there was nothing she could do about it. As bad as her fate was though, it didn’t have to be someone else’s too.
Chapter 6
Justice
“Dude, what is going on with you lately? Your heart rate is probably double what it normally is. Are you going to tell me what's going on or am I going to have to keep guessing?”
Justice did not want to tell anybody what was going on. He was just trying to get through it, even though he knew it was likely he wouldn't. His heart was racing because of the guilt. He knew that he had done wrong. He knew that Allie was the Alpha’s sister and the last thing, the very last thing he should have done was put his hands on her. If he somehow got out of this in one piece, Justice promised himself that he would never do something so stupid again.
The problem was, it wasn’t like he had a choice to stay away from her. For whatever reason, he was now part of her protection crew, and he had no idea why. Not only that, but the Alpha had also talked to Justice like he knew him and talked about his loyalty. Was that just Ben’s messed up way of getting into his head? Was he trying to get him to feel guilty and admit it? Justice wasn't sure what it was, but he knew that he was messing up and he just kept feeling like it was all a trap and something horrible was about to happen.
He couldn't say any of that though. Instead he had to smile and pretend like everything was alright. It was not. It was all turning to shit and when he looked over at Jeff, his blond, perfect friend who never did anything wrong and seemed to do everything perfectly, Justice didn't even know what to say. What would he say to a guy like that? As much as he wanted to believe that the two of them were friends, and they were, he knew that there were certain things that even a lifetime friendship like theirs would not be able to handle. Not just that, Justice was also afraid of getting him in trouble. He was likely going to be going down and he didn't want to take anybody with him, especially not somebody like his friend Jeff.
“There's nothing going on, man. I'm just not getting much sleep.”
“I thought you were going to tell me it was about Vanessa. You've been acting differently since the other day, and I was hoping that the two of you had worked things out.”
Justice nodded, but the truth was he hadn't even thought about the girl he had been seeing for months. Vanessa was nice, they had a good time together and everything, but Justice felt nothing for her when compared to how he felt about Allie. Those moments that he had shared with her were still locked into his memory and there was nothing he could do about it. She was perfect, absolute perfection, and after meeting somebody like that and feeling a certain way about them, how in the world was he supposed to go back to feeling nothing for Vanessa? She was just a girl that he had a good time with. The answer was he couldn't.
