Big. Mistake.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Isabella
The second the mistress showed up, I knew it was her last day on this planet. My mates were not going to let her live after threatening my life. All I had to do was buy time until they arrived, and I did. It hadn’t been difficult getting her to rattle off all the reasons why I was the villain in her story. Narcissists were great like that. Once, I’d have not been able to get so much as a word out under that kind of duress.
Those days were long gone.
Initially, I felt bad about her death. She was pregnant, and that innocent life was lost because they had piece-of-shit parents. But I got over that quick. Based on the timing and how she looked in that dress, I knew she wasn’t pregnant. It had been one of her many lies.
My mates confirmed it, insisting that she wouldn’t be dead, only maimed, if she had been. Surprise shifter skill of pregnancy detection unveiled.
It didn’t surprise me that she’d made it up. We’d suspected as much. She had a history of manipulating Mark, not that he didn’t deserve it. He was just as bad, if not worse, because, unlike her, he had power. Lots and lots of power.
If it hadn’t been her, Mark would’ve had someone else in his bed. It was part of the prestige of his position, according to him. “A don is only as good as his mistress is hot.”
I didn’t understand why having a mistress was admired by his friends and competitors alike, and I didn’t want to. Let him have that life as long as he left me out of it.
With the dead bodies lying there, I expected to feel something. Sadness. Fear. Anger. I didn’t. Nothing aside from the frustration of figuring how to get rid of them and how toclean it up the blood. My emotions would catch up to me later, but for now, I had other things to worry about.
“We’ll just bring them back to Mark. He can deal with them.” Cash had a point.
That was the way to do it in Mark’s circles, after all. It would be different if they were random people who worked for him who got killed for gambling or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This wasn’t that, and a statement needed to be made.
Bringing cops here and saying that there was a bear attack, could technically work. No one would look at those bodies and think humans did that damage. But that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be questions. There would be a lot of them, especially when there were armed people who shouldn’t be armed, killed without shooting the bears. And also, a random woman in a cocktail dress hardly blended. This was better on all levels.
“Well, you guys get on that,” I said. “I’m gonna go make up some strong-ass bleach concoction, because this blood is not gonna stain. I refuse.”
They laughed, but it was forced. They were probably worried that this would upset me, and I was a little worried it eventually would, too. We’d find out when the adrenaline wore off and, unlike in the past, if it hit me hard, I wasn’t going to try and hide it from my mates.
An hour later, we drove to my old home to drop off the bodies. I insisted on coming, too, although I doubted they’d have let me stay home alone after what had just happened.
I called ahead and told Mark we had a package for him, and said it exactly the way he’d told countless others. He knew bodies were coming, but as of the phone call, he wouldn’t know which. Or maybe he did and was messing with me. Nothing surprised me when it came to him.
Mark stood outside, his men surrounding him, when we arrived. My mates tossed the bodies out in front of Mark before uttering a single word.
“We had a deal.” Cash was livid and didn’t hide it. “You sent your people for what is mine?”
“What the fuck?” Mark’s eyes fell to his mistress. Had he not seen her before then? “That’s—”
“Yeah, we know. She came to kill what was ours.” Cash wasn’t mincing words and I was there for it.
“But my baby!” For the first time in my life, I saw actual raw emotion on my ex’s face.
“There was no baby,” Lyon said. “You’re such a dumbass.”
“No baby?”
“None.” Lyon was enjoying this.
Mark took a second to digest the new information and, when he did, he was pissed. I didn’t blame him. Still hated his guts and wished he was in the pile of bodies, but he had a valid reason to be ragey, and my mate saw it as a way to negotiate.Go Cash!
The two of them talked, as we stood there, witnesses to the deal that was being struck.
Cash explained everything to Mark, my other two mates holding my hands. Mark’s eyes kept falling back to the bodies, seeing how mutilated they were. He didn’t know my mates were bears, and without that information, he was extra terrified.Good.
“We’re not leaving here until you make this right. Whether you sent her or not, these are your people. Do you deny it?”
