“Do you want to see your clients defeated and impoverished?” Salisbury went on.
I gasped. “He’s still hanging that over your head?”
Jack looked guiltily at me, then nodded tightly.
I couldn’t have been prouder of my alpha if I’d tried. He’d been willing to give me up to save others. Not that I wanted to be given up, but knowing he’d done it not for the family money and prestige, but to save all the people he’d helped over the years was a beautiful thing.
My smile vanished and my heart dropped.
“We can’t do this,” I whispered, realizing how complete Salisbury’s trap was. I looked up at my alpha, grief in my heart. “Jack, we can’t do this. If he’s going to hurt all those people…. We can’t seize our happiness at the expense of all those others.”
“I—” Jack looked stricken. “We can make it work somehow.”
Salisbury grinned and crossed his arms like he knew he’d finally won.
Except something else was wrong. A ton of people had gathered around to see what was going on, and they were all murmuring and whispering and staring at Salisbury. A few of them had newspapers in their hands. A bunch of others had their phones up and were reading something.
“You’re Senator Salisbury, right?” a random guy in the crowd asked. “And Chester Monk?”
“Yes, that’s them,” the woman who had come in with Jack said. “Senator John Salisbury, one of the wealthiest and most influential members of high society ever. That’s his son, John Salisbury, Jr. We were supposed to have lunch today, but I think he’s in love with that omega instead. And—oh! This is so exciting! That’s the omega Chester Monk is supposed to marry today! The one who, rumor has it, he doesn’t want to marry at all. Chester Monk is filthy rich because of his tech innovations, but there are other rumors that he actually stole all the ideas and doesn’t have an original idea of his own at all.”
“Gretchen,” Jack told her warningly.
“Hey!” Chester shouted, face beet red and eyes shifty. “That’s a lie. I borrowed those ideas, I mean came up with those ideas fair and square!”
“So you and Senator Salisbury are in cahoots,” a beta woman in the crowd said. She was one of the ones holding a newspaper.
“What? What are you saying?” Salisbury said, marching toward her. “What does that say?”
He snatched the newspaper out of her hand and read it.
His face went white.
“Slander,” he hissed. “Hearsay and gossip.”
“What’s going on?” Papa asked as he and Dad moved around Chester to come stand with me and Jack.
“It’s all over the news,” the man who had originally spoken said. “The story just broke everywhere. Senator Salisbury and Chester Monk have colluded to defraud their investors and to manipulate the results of the upcoming gubernatorial election.”
“This is so exciting!” Gretchen squealed.
“Do you want to see?” a third person from the still-growing crowd said, bringing a newspaper over to us.
There it was, taking up the entire front page. “Fraud and Scandal in Salisbury’s Inner Circle”. There were pictures of Salisbury and Chester together, some of them from theTech Expo, some from other events. Several different articles showcasing different elements of the scandal blared out from the page.
Of course, the main detail that I noticed was the name attached to the byline. Adam Schubert.
“The Schuberts always get their man,” Jack said in an awed voice. When I glanced questioningly up at him, he blinked out of whatever thoughts he was having and looked right back at me as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He tapped it a few times, waited, then blurted, “Imogen, what is this?”
I couldn’t hear what Imogen, whoever that was, said, but Jack’s confused look turned to a smile, and that smile turned into a look of victory.
“I knew it,” he said at last, then, “Thanks, Imogen. I’ve got to go, but I’ll circle back with you shortly.”
He ended the call, put his phone away, then shifted to face me directly, hands gripping my arms.
“Adam Schubert,” he said. “German’s assistant. He’s actually an undercover investigative reporter who was researching corruption between the media and politicians. He recorded everything at the expo, then followed those leads to discover, well, everything.”
“He did? That nerdy little beta?” I couldn’t believe it. I was in absolute shock, but coupled with absolute joy.
