Warren yanks my arm back to stop me from leaving.
“Don’t touch her.” Hale’s expression darkens, showing a fiercely protective side of him as he struggles to free himself from the officers’ arms. “Let her go.”
“As admirable as your chivalry is, I don’t need your help, Hale.” I step into lawyer mode. “And please stop struggling so you aren’t charged for assaulting an officer, okay?”
He stops resisting but his reluctance is evident, his eyes burning into Warren as he’s carted out before I get a chance to apologize for causing all this trouble.
“Kady.” Warren adopts his patronizing voice, but he does drop his hold on me, which is something. “Your father thinks it’sbest if you return to New York. Your pack is also in agreement. They’ll even accompany you. I have accommodations arranged.”
“My pack?”
I halt for a second, remembering that he’s talking about the Blandon Pack. My stomach curdles at the thought of spending any alone time with them. This has gone too far. As much as I wanted to keep up the ruse, it’s not worth it if it means getting innocent men into trouble. I never meant for anyone else to get embroiled in my web of lies. Steeling myself, I strap on my big girl panties and get ready to tell the truth.
“They aren’t my pack, Warren. I asked the Blandon Pack to pretend to court me so I didn’t have to marry Timothy Oakwood.” I cross my arms, channeling Sabs’s fierce energy. “And I’m not going back to New York. I’m staying at SVU.”
“This is worse than I thought.” Warren shakes his head. “You’re not thinking clearly. We need to get you checked out at a hospital for head injuries.” Scrutinizing me, brackets form at the corners of his eyes. “They could have drugged you.”
“Drugged?” Last to be led out, Riven’s eyes almost pop out of their sockets. “I only made her hot cocoa.”
“Grab the cup.” Warren points at my half-full drink that’s now going cold. What a waste. “We can test it.”
“This is ridiculous, Warren. I’m absolutely fine, and for the record, I’m thinking more clearly than I have in years. You can tell my father that I’m done following his orders.”
“Maybe you’ll feel differently after the drugs have worn off.” Warren motions to the door. “A car is waiting outside.”
A heat spike ending in a police raid is not how I saw today ending, and I still have my father’s wrath to face. How could today have gone so wrong?
SEVENTEEN
Calder
The past twenty-four hours have felt like a movie. I knew Kady Sinclair was going to be trouble, but I never expected her to get my pack locked up for a night. I doubt the Forestville jail is home to many hardened criminals, and a friendly prison officer did give us a slice of cake because she felt sorry for us, but still.
“We’re fine, Mom.” Hale paces while speaking into his phone. “It was all one big misunderstanding.”
I can hear the faint sound of his mom talking in a worried rush, only catching portions of what she said like, “the prison called me,” “an omega,” and, “Richard Sinclair.”
I type away on my laptop, scouring the web for any articles I can find about Richard Sinclair while Ezra mindlessly flicks between television shows from the armchair he’s slouched in.
“How’s Dad doing?” Hale asks, his concern giving his scent a burned wood edge. The night in jail hasn’t bothered him, but the worry over what it could do to his father’s health has. Despite his dad putting up a strong front, we know that he’s struggling and is a mere shadow of his former self.
“I’m fine, son.” I hear Nick, Hale’s dad, say. “Give us a call if you need a good lawyer next time, okay? I could have had you out of there in a flash.”
“We didn’t need a lawyer.” Hale pinches the bridge of his nose. “They had no grounds to hold us. It was just a scare tactic.”
“You can never be too careful with a man like Richard Sinclair,” Nick retorts. “Next time, call us. I may be ill, but I’m not dead yet.”
After Hale’s mom snatches the phone back, it takes a further ten minutes for him to convince her that we haven’t got prison tattoos.
“My plants needed watering today.” Ezra sighs, slumping down into the armchair. “Dean Rivers doesn’t understand how rare they are.”
We’ve been targeted by one of the richest and most ruthless businessmen in the country, and that’s what he’s worried about?
I massage my temples. “We have bigger problems than a few flowers wilting.”
Ezra glowers at me. For someone with commitment issues, you’d think he’s married to his plants, given how well he tends to them.
“They are some of the only species in the country.” Ezra’s eyes narrow. “Everyone thought the Nymphaea thermarum was extinct until recently.”
