Prologue
Sinclair
“How are you?”
I wanted to ask more, but I knew I couldn’t. There were unspoken rules about our weekly conversations. One of them was that I couldn’t ask about things that were considered too personal.
“I’m fine,” Stone replied.
That was always Stone’s reply.
I almost smiled.
“Councilman James called earlier and said he had a few new assignments coming through. He asked me to do a bit of research before handing them off to you guys.”
“Did he say who the mark was?” Stone asked.
“Marks,” I said. “From what I understand, there is more than one.”
“Okay, did he say who the marks were?”
“No.” And that was odd. “He asked me to look into a few leads, but I haven’t really had the time to look at them. I’ve been pretty busy trying to clean up some mess Samson got himself into with a pride of lions.”
“Samson got involved with a pride of lions?”
I chuckled at the shock I could hear in Stone’s voice. It had been a surprise to me, too. “Apparently, he camped out in their territory without permission while on an assignment and the pride leader is pissed.”
“And he didn’t wipe the floor with the guy?”
We both knew he could. Samson was huge. Hence the name Samson. He kind of reminded me of a raging bull even though he was a panther shifter, but even that form was huge. He should have been an alpha. I never quite understood why he wasn’t, and Samson refused to talk about it.
“I can’t do this anymore.”
Stone’s words were like a knife to the gut, taking my ability to breathe. I knew this day would come at some point. I had always known. I just hadn’t expected it so fast. It had only been a few years.
“Ca—” I cleared my throat and tried again. “Can’t do what anymore?”
I prayed I was wrong about what he was going to say.
“This,” Stone snapped out. “Us.”
I wasn’t wrong.
I squeezed my eyes shut as tears sprang up at the man’s words. I had to hold it together long enough to allow the man to end things. I refused to let him know how much anguish his words were causing me. I did have some pride.
“These little weekly phone calls of ours are crap, Sinclair.”
Sinclair, not Sin. Stone had been calling me Sin since almost the first day we met. He was the only one who did, and now he wasn’t even doing that.
I guess that kind of said it all.
“Haven’t I been punished enough?” Stone asked in a frigid tone.
I never considered myself a weak man, but in that moment, I didn’t want to do anything except curl up in my bed and cry. Stone’s words gutted me, destroying any hope I had ever held onto that he would one day accept me.
When I found my voice and spoke again, I prayed my tone was devoid of my despair. I didn’t want Stone to know how shattered I was. “I’m sorry if you feel our conversations were a punishment, Stone. You have my apologies and my promise that it will never happen again.”
My fingers trembled as I hit the disconnect button on my phone, hanging up on Stone. Knowing that was probably the last time I would ever hear Stone’s voice didn’t make it any easier.
