“No, Ryker and August haven’t done anything. They just came over to see if I knew what was going on. I’ve been trying to get in touch with Dad.”
Marcus sighed. “He hasn’t been using his phone. He says he wants face to face communication only.”
“Well, that’s stupid,” Steve said.
“I know, but you know what he’s like.” Marcus tapped his fingers on the surface of the kitchen table, his expression turning grave. “He hasn’t been doing so great since you left. It rattled him, when you called his bluff.”
“He shouldn’t have-”
“I know,” Marcus said, interrupting Steve’s angry reply. “But he didn’t think you’d choose to leave.”
“He didn’t cancel my trust fund,” Steve said, tentatively. “I figured that was how he was showing me that I could come back, if I wanted.”
Marcus rubbed his eyes, leaning back in his chair with an expression like he couldn’t believe his little brother was this dense. “Steve, I doubt he even remembers that you have a trust fund. I can assure you, he wasn’t sending you secret messages through your finances.”
“Oh.” Steve sounded crushed. “Does that mean I can’t come home?”
Marcus let out a slow breath.
“Steve, you were never supposed to leave in the first place. Of course you can come home.”
“But Dad said not to.”
Marcus looked at the ceiling like he was praying for patience.
“Steve, forget about Dad’s ultimatum, okay? Do you have any idea how close you came to getting into a real fight with him?”
The question wouldn’t have meant much to Dylan a few hours ago, but now it filled him with dread.
“Dad wouldn’tfightme,” Steve said, his voice dismissive. “Not for real. He knows that I’m not pack alpha material.”
“You went against him,” Marcus said, and Dylan drew back at the sudden fury in his voice. “He gave you an order as your alpha, and you opposed him. You’re lucky he didn’t rip out your throat.”
“He wouldn’t!” Steve exclaimed.
“In that moment, when you challenged his decision, he wanted to. I haven’t seen him that close to losing control since he and Mom split up. Now I know that you don’t remember that, but it was fucking bad, Steve. Our dad is not a stable and sane individual. What the fuck were you thinking, telling him that you were leaving the pack?”
“He told me to!” Steve exploded.
Marcus growled, and Dylan pushed his chair further back from the table. Marcus wasn’t as scary as his dad, but he was still terrifying when he growled. The sound was so deep that Dylan could feel it in his bones.
“He didn’t mean it,” Marcus said, like he was lecturing a small child. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve had to provoke him in the past four months, just to get him to redirect his energy from hunting you down to dealing with me?”
“You didn’t have to do-”
“Yes, I did, you little idiot!” Marcus slammed his fist down on the table, cracking it down the middle. One half landed on Dylan’s foot, but he bit back his yelp of pain. Marcus was full on growling now. “I had to, or he would have hunted you down and dragged you home. You can’t handle him like I can.”
“If he didn’t want me to work, why did he even let me go to school?” Steve asked, belligerent and refusing to give up. “What was the point?”
“The point was that you should have come to me,” Marcus said, his voice low and furious. “I would have dealt with Dad and gotten you what you wanted. What the fuck made you think that you could get into a confrontation with him about your role in the pack? He’s ouralpha, you braindead amoeba. You don’t challenge him. You work around him, or better yet, you let me deal with him. If you had come to me, I would have fixed everything like I did when you wanted to go to school in the first place.”
Steve’s answering silence was stubborn.
Marcus took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. “I can still fix this, if you let me.”
“Okay,” Steve said, chastised. “What do I have to do?”
Marcus’s shoulders relaxed. He looked relieved that Steve finally seemed to understand how serious of a mistake he’d made.
