Otherwise they were in serious trouble. Michael had spent years diligently deleting his call history and every trace of information from his CEG phone, but the last few days he’d been lax. Would Isaac have remembered? If not, Simon had the numbers of nearly every alpha involved in this.
“Fuck!” he yelled, startling Sam who’d come to stand beside him. “Let’s get inside. We need to contact everyone because we don’t have the luxury of two days to plan anymore.”
He stalked towards the house, everyone else hurrying after him. His phone rang as they neared the door and Michael snatched it out of his pocket, instantly recognising the number. “Jacob?”
“They have Isaac,” he whispered, and Michael wondered where he was making this call from.
“I know. Where are they holding him?”
“In the secure flats for now. Simon wanted to take him straight to the interrogation rooms, but Baker overruled him. He was fucking furious. They both were. For a minute I thought Simon was going to issue a challenge there and then, but he backed off in a fucking rage. I haven’t seen him since, and that can’t be good.”
“Goddess help us.” Michael blew out a frustrated breath. “What have they charged him with?”
“Nothing, as far as I know. They arrested him and brought him in for questioning because of his ‘suspicious behaviour.’ In fucking handcuffs.” Jacob growled.
Michael’s grip on his phone tightened, his other curling into a fist. “Don’t they need alpha approval to arrest another alpha?”
“That’s what I understood, but either Simon has some serious backing on the alpha council or he’s lost his fucking mind. The lack of respect he’s shown Baker is verging on treasonous. But Michael, he doesn’t give a fuck. We need to be prepared for him to make a challenge for pack leadership any moment.”
“Fucking hell.”The last thing they needed was Simon with more fucking power than he had now. “We’ve run out of time.”
“I think so.” Jacob’s heavy sigh mirrored how Michael felt. “We need to act now before we miss our chance.”
Just when he’d thought they might actually pull this off. “We’re not ready,” he murmured.
“Well, we need to get ready, because if I know Simon, he’s gone to get himself council approval to interrogate Isaac. And if he gets it...” Jacob didn’t need to finish that sentence.
Isaac was strong. He wouldn’t break easily, but Simon had tools at his disposal that would make it nigh on impossible for Isaac to resist in the end.
“How are things in the pack?” he asked.
“About as good as we’re going to get. I’ve approached everyone I could without jeopardising things. My team are on board as are about fifty per cent of the pack. The majority of the others could go either way at this point. Even Simon’s HRU are starting to question his behaviour. But he still has die-hard followers. Too many for this to be easy.”
Michael let out a bitter laugh. “I never expected it to be easy.”
But I did expect to have Isaac by my side.
“Warn who you can that things are moving sooner than expected. I’ll be in touch. Be safe.”
“You too.”
Jacob ended the call and Michael kicked at the gravel. He didn’t need to relay the conversation. Everyone had heard it for themselves.
The screech of tyres sounded on the drive, and everyone looked up to see Isaac’s SUV barrelling toward them. It skidded to a halt, gravel spraying in a wide arc, and no sooner had the engine stopped when both doors flew open and Callum and Alice climbed out.
They must have broken all the speed limits to get back so quickly, but Michael had never been happier to see them.
“Have you heard anything?” Alice asked, eyes wild and panicked as they ran over. “We didn’t want to leave him, but there was a full HRU waiting outside the building. It was sheer fucking luck they didn’t notice us.”
“We couldn’t help him,” Callum added, a touch defensive, and Michael recognised guilt when he saw it.
“No, you couldn’t,” he said, stepping forwards and gripping both their shoulders. “I need you here, not locked away in an HRU interrogation room or a cell. Come on.” He steered them towards the house with everyone else following.
Once they were all seated around the kitchen table, Michael set his phone down and tried to clear his head. Eight people were looking at him for the answers, and if there was ever a time for him to act like the alpha he wanted to be, this was it.
Grabbing a pen and paper left over from their planning yesterday, he carefully wrote down the numbers for the ten alphas Isaac had met with and the human resistance members that he’d met earlier.
He pushed the paper into the middle of the table and tapped a finger on it. “This is what we’re going to do.”
