Chapter 17
Sabrina
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Looking over my shoulder, I find Slade amongst the rest of the grim-faced men gathered in the dining room. “Care to do the honors?”
His eyes widen slightly before he automatically conceals the action out of habit. “I’ve barely done anything, you should have the satisfaction.”
Rolling my eyes, I beckon him over. “Oh, please, like you haven’t fantasized about destroying them all for years. You’re far more emotionally invested in this than I am; I’ve already filled my petty heart to bursting over the last few weeks by orchestrating their various demises. The fun for me is in the planning and watching it all play out, not the actualdoing.”
He comes up behind me and leans forward, caging me in between his body and the table. An involuntary shiver snakes down my spine that I try to suppress, though by the small smile accompanying the lingering kiss he presses to my temple, I failed miserably.
His fingertips skim down my arm in a teasing caress. “What do you need me to do?”
Clearing my throat, I return my focus to the task at hand. If we start down this road now, there’s no way we’ll get out of here in time.
“It’s not nearly as exciting as a big, red launch button, but whenever you’re ready, press the enter key.”
Slade’s finger hovers above it, and the entire room falls into collective silence. One push of a button. Such a simple, innocuous thing, and yet it’ll change all of our lives forever. At this stage we can still back out, call the entire thing off. Nothing major has to happen; Stonewood received their shipment, so there haven’t been any more setup attempts since Jenna’s death, and the guys managed to dispose of the body before the police ever became involved. The tentative alliances they had before I came into their lives have been strengthened slightly by the connection from Emmy’s mates, and the three foreign alphas backing them now that rumors have spread from Kaige’s display of ability. Theoretically, we could keep on keeping on now that the dust has begun to settle, adjust to our new normal and see where things go from here.
But then it’s only a matter of time until the next issue arises. None of the surrounding families respect the Hawthornes, and that isn’t going to magically change without a significant display. We’ll carry on walking on eggshells, always waiting for the next blow to come, while playing a political dance that we all despise simply for the sake of tentative peace that can be shattered in an instant. If we do this, there’s no taking it back, so we need to be sure, and ultimately, we all know it should be Slade’s decision.
“We’ve come too far to turn back now,” he whispers, and something in his tone makes me pause, turning to face him.
“Not really. Technically, we could hold onto all of this indefinitely, so long as there isn’t a statute of limitations against any of the particular crimes that would result in part of the evidence being disregarded.”
His throat bobs with his rough swallow, staring at the screen of my laptop instead of me. “Things went a bit off script in our negotiations with Thatcher. Ultimately, we got the new identities necessary for Lizzie, Emmy, and all of their mates to start over in Alaska. There are no ties to any of us in case we’re all murdered by your fathers so that it won’t lead back to them. We got the backups for ourselves on the off chance that we need to abandon ship and go off grid as well, but,” he trails off, taking my hand and bringing the back to his lips with a defeated sigh, finally meeting my eye.
I’d rather he didn’t when all I see in those hazel depths is raw, unmitigated pain. Not regret, not longing for a different life, and even anguished doesn’t come close to describing the look in his eyes. It’s the culmination of so many raging emotions that picking them apart would be an injustice to whatever’s going on in his head right now, each feeling building upon each other to create something indescribable.
“We can’t come back, Sabrina. Even if we don’t go through with this, Pack Hawthorne has been dissolved,” he whispers, and I swear, I canfeelthe way his brothers go rigid with the declaration. “The paperwork is already finalized and under way; the house and property will be officially in Andrei Thatcher’s name by the end of the month. And the name change has already been submitted everywhere necessary for the five of us.” A rueful smile twists the corner of his lips, my stomach filling with lead at the sight as the weight of his admission fully registers. “So you’re officially a Kincaid now, along with the rest of us, unless we need to utilize the emergency identities to run.”
“Slade, what the fuc-”
He cuts off my outrage with a hard kiss, and when he pulls away, presses the enter key while stubbornly holding my wide-eyed stare. A hint of challenge lights up his face, as if he’s getting off on that small act of defiance and daring me to do something about it. He looks at me like he won instead of as a man that’s lost everything.
Because of me.
‘You kill everything you touch.’For once, I don’t attempt to shove my mother’s words away. I absorb her words as the painful truth that they are, letting them soak into every fiber of my being. I took away their choices when I marked them, even if it was unintentional. I set them on a path that resulted in them losing their home, the last of their family, and themselves. And still, here’s Slade, looking like he’d make the same decision again in a heartbeat despite the only thing they have to look forward to is walking out of the lion’s den, and straight into the mouth of the wolf.
The best of intentions mean nothing if you keep hurting the people you’re trying to save. You simply become the villain wearing the mask of a familiar face, able to destroy them better than any of the threats they endured before all of your supposed ‘help’.
“Put it in the box with the rest,” Kaige’s voice murmurs in my ear, taking Slade’s place and gripping my shoulder in reassurance. “What’s done is done, and they’ve bet everything on this plan of yours. Don’t let that sacrifice be in vain.”
Damian gently slides my computer away, taking a seat in its place. Gentle yet firm, he captures my chin, forcing me to meet his hypnotic eyes. Adamantly, he declares, “They would have done this with or without you eventually. Slade was being crushed beneath the weight of responsibility for years, trying to resurrect a dying pack on borrowed time. Before you came along, they were planning on going out in a blaze of glory after their sister was in the clear, right? Butyoubrought life back to them, and that’s why it wasn’t even a question to follow you across the country and leave this place behind. Remember that, Sabrina. It’s about having a reason to keep moving forward; always has been, throughout the course of history. Laroque, Hawthorne, or Kincaid, it doesn’t matter. You remind us all what’s at stake if we stop fighting, simply by being you.”
A splitting headache is rearing its ugly head that I have no time for, not with everything we still have to do tonight. It’ll be the hardest part, the one that’ll make more of an impact than anything else we’ve done up to this point. Sure, we sicked the IRS on Ronen and Callahan with enough irrefutable evidence that they’ll never be able to buy their way out of trouble. Half of the men in Aldervale will be ruined once the news stations check their inboxes and promptly release the slew of video clips showcasing all of the prominent men in various states of scandalous or illegal situations. Rivers got a pass because of Nathan’s help, and Stonewood will be dealt with depending on how things go when I meet my ‘fathers’, but it’s our display tonight that’s the most important. It’ll serve as a warning for Thatcher not to betray us by revealing the new identities he procured for us to anyone else.
As if he can read my thoughts, Reid magically appears with a bottle of ibuprofen and a bottle of water. Damian releases my chin so that I can wash down a couple of pills, studying me intently as I take a few deep breaths to collect myself. Hell, they all are. I don’t need to look around to feel every set of eyes in the room on me, turning me into some spectacle on display. I despise being the center of attention, someone that people need to tiptoe around, or worry about setting off.
All their claims of love... it’d be more appropriate to call it what it is; fear. Fear of losing the rare chance to have a coveted female wolf, even if she’s a bit defective. Fear of upsetting me and scaring me off. Fear ofmenow that we’ve seen how easily I could kill them if I’m not careful. I don’t think you can actually love someone if you’re afraid of them. Even if it’s a sliver, that’s a small part of yourself that you’ll never be able to give them, because you don’t completely trust them. If you’re holding something back, you’re not all in, and love’s too all-consuming to claim it while keeping one foot out the door.
So I turn it all off. I don’t have time for worry, doubt, or self-loathing. I don’t have time to process everything that I want to, so it goes into a box for later, if I even make it through the night. It’s how I survived up until meeting these men, and it’s how I’ll survive them, too. One step at a time, choices based on logic instead of knee-jerk reactions induced by emotional overload.
As my headache fades away, I rise to my feet, kissing Damian’s cheek in thanks. Glancing around the room to include all seven faces showcasing various degrees of nerves, I offer an encouraging smile that I don’t feel in the slightest, and know isn’t fooling them either. Still, I make the effort. I try, because that’s the only thing left that I’m capable of.
Internally slapping myself, I shake my head, because that’s a weak-ass copout. This isexactlywhat I’m capable of, what I do best. I roll with the punches that I never saw coming, think on my feet, and adjust course. I make the best out of every bad situation, because I find myself in them time and time again without fail.
