I pick up my fork, but the first bite feels like lead in my stomach. Something about the way Ross is standing—the slight tension in his shoulders, the way he’s over-focusing on the syrup bottle—makes my skin prickle. Ross is the most transparent of all of them. When he’s happy, the whole house knows. When he’s hiding something, he gets quiet.
“Is the bar okay?” I look between Caleb and Ross.
Caleb doesn’t look up from his laptop. “He’s just on edge because of yesterday, Sandra. Eat your breakfast.”
I spend the next hour in the living room with Oli, scrolling through nursery designs on his tablet. He’s excited, zooming in on cribs and soft rugs, his honeysuckle scent blooming with every layout we swipe through. I try to match his energy, but my eyes keep drifting to the time.
Eleven o’clock. Eleven-fifteen.
Jethro always comes home for lunch. It’s the one rule he never breaks.
Eleven-thirty rolls around. The front door doesn’t open.
I stand up, setting the tablet onto the coffee table. The peace I felt this morning is evaporating, replaced by a cold, sharp anxiety that feels like a needle under my skin. “He should be here by now.”
Oli looks up, his smile faltering. “Maybe he got held up with a vendor. Caleb said the schedules were off.”
“He would have called.” I walk to the window, pulling the lace curtain back. The street is empty. “He always calls if he’s going to be ten minutes late. Caleb, have you heard from him?”
Caleb’s still at the island, but his hands are frozen over the keyboard as he stares at his screen. Ross stands by the sink, staring out the window at the backyard. The silence in the kitchen is no longer the comfortable, domestic quiet of the morning. It’s the suffocating silence of a secret.
“Ross.” I walk into the kitchen, my heart hammers against my ribs. “Look at me.”
Ross doesn’t move. He keeps his gaze fixed on the budding trees in the garden.
“Ross, look at me right now.” I keep my voice even, but the command hangs heavy in the air.
He slowly turns. His blue eyes are clouded with guilt. He looks at Caleb, searching for permission, but Caleb just closes his eyes and lets out a long, slow breath.
“I’m going down there.” I grab my coat from the mudroom hook. “I’m going to the Lucky Road. If he’s that busy, I’ll just eat lunch at the bar with him. But I’m not sitting here waiting around for him.”
“Sandra, wait.” Caleb stands up, his voice low and firm.
“Wait for what?” I turn on him, my hands shaking as I shrug into the wool fabric. “He’s been gone for hours. After what happened yesterday, you expect me to just sit here and pretend everything is fine? He’s not at the bar, is he?”
Ross walks over, his hands out as if he’s trying to settle a spooked horse. “Sandra, honey, sit down. Please.”
“Where is he, Ross?” I step into his space, my chin tilted up. “Where is my Alpha?”
Ross lets out a heavy sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. “He’s in Pueblo. He went to settle it with Sergio.”
A cold chill sweeps over my skin. I grip the edge of the island, staring at him to see if this is a bad joke. It isn’t. “Pueblo? He went there? Alone?”
“He told us to stay.” Caleb moves to my other side, his voice tight. “He has the military training. He said if he walked into a trap, we needed to be here to protect the house. He took the cash from the safe and went to clear your father’s debt.”
A hard knot of anger forms in my chest, pushing past the immediate spike of fear. “He went to negotiate with a mafia boss without telling me? He made a choice about my life, and my safety, and he didn’t even give me the chance to speak?”
“He did it to protect you.” Ross tries to touch my shoulder, but I step back.
“I don’t need a savior who hides things from me.” I cross my arms. “He thinks he can just go pay off the man who sold me, and I’ll just sit here and be grateful?”
“He’s invoking Alpha Law, Sandra.” Caleb’s voice is a calm anchor, but it doesn’t dull my frustration. “He’s making sure they can never touch you again. It’s the only way.”
“He still kept it from me.” I look between the three of them, shaking my head. “You all did. You let me wake up in that bed thinking he was five minutes away while he was walking right into my mess.”
I turn and head for the living room, needing space to breathe. My mind races through the scenarios, picturing Jethro standing in a warehouse trying to handle the mafia on his own.
I’m terrified. Deep down, a small part of me is grateful that he would risk his life to buy my freedom. But right now, the sheer terror of losing him buries that gratitude under a mountain of anger.
