“Now,” Killian began, “Let’s?—”
“Eli!”
Eli thought he was hallucinating. But no, that was definitely Olivia’s voice. His heart slammed into his chest as he saw her leaping from the back of the white van parked by the containers and running toward him. She stopped a few feet away, her violeteyes wide, her jaw nearly to the floor. Eli guessed the very same expression was on his face.
Olivia was here.
It had been three months—ninety-four days, to be exact—since he last saw her. Since that night everything had blown up and the sob he’d heard as he walked away buried itself in his heart, torturing him like a stuck thorn he couldn’t pull out. He had played it in his head every day, wondering how he could have prevented it and what he would say to her in this moment. He scrambled for the words, found a few, then promptly lost them when his gaze dropped down to the obvious bump in her belly. The only thing he could think of was how she had grown even more beautiful.
“For God’s sake, Livy!” Killian cursed. “I said you could come if you stayed in the—” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “You know what? That was on me for believing you.” He let out a long, drawn out sigh, then replaced his exasperation with a serious, no-nonsense mask of professionalism. “McCall. Okay, you were right. Now tell us everything, from the beginning.”
Garret looked at Eli. “This is for you, not them. But they should hear it too. I found out you were alive from the pre-trial documents. The High Council listed you as a witness. Eli Blake, Lone Wolf Investigations and Security.” He let out a breath. “I knew you’d changed your name.Herfather’s name.”
It was the first time Garret ever acknowledged Marlene’s existence. “Get to the point,” Eli said.
“In the facility, I had contacts. Russians, mostly. They ran information between the Lycan prisoners and the outside.”
“Wait, Russians run information in Lycan prisons?” Jacob asked, baffled.
“They run information in all prisons. And where the hell do you think the mainSiberianfacility is located, kid?” Garret continued. “Then word came back that O’Grady’s death didn’tadd up. Russians swore it wasn’t their work, and it definitely didn’t seem like the Italians. So I started asking questions.” He rubbed at his jaw with his fingers. “I figured out he’d faked it. And I knew if he was alive and hiding, he was planning something. O’Grady always wanted to run things, and with Ronan gone, there was nothing stopping him. Then I heard that Eli was in Boston and that everyone was floating his name to be the next Alpha, which painted a target on his back.”
“So you broke out,” Sloane said.
“I broke out. I went to the Lone Wolf office first, hoping to find some information in the personnel files, anything that would tell me where he was. I couldn’t get past the lobby security systems, so I set a fire to trip the exit doors.” He shrugged. “Not my best work.”
“You could have called,” Jacob pointed out. “A phone. Simple.”
“And say what? ‘Hi, this is the convicted felon you’re about to testify against, I’d like to help’?” Garret shook his head. “No one would have believed me. I had to find him myself.”
“Then what?” Killian pressed.
“I went back to Boston, heard about the incident at the diner and I knew my instinct had been right. So I stayed. O’Grady didn’t know I was out. I watched, listened. Overheard him talking to Mickey and Danny hiring some Lone Wolves and sending them out to Kentucky to kill Eli. Apparently, they had a tracker on your car the whole time.” He looked at Eli. “I followed them. Arrived at that bar just in time.”
Bo’s words from that night came back.Who pulled those men off you?And now with the scent … it all clicked into place.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” Eli asked.
“Would you have let me help?”
Eli didn’t say a word because the answer was hell, no.
“Didn’t think you’d come after me, though. You’re like a damned bloodhound.” Garret snorted. “Chasing me up and down the eastern seaboard for weeks. When I finally shook your tail in Vermont, I headed back to Boston. Figured O’Grady wasn’t done with you. Found out about this next plan to lure you in. I knew I couldn’t take them alone. Six men, plus O’Grady. I needed backup.” He paused. “So I found your mate.”
“You approached a pregnant woman on the street,” Killian said, his tone dangerously even.
“Dad,” Olivia put a hand on her father’s arm. “It’s fine.”
“I dropped a pouch near her feet. Old trick. I told her who I was, what was happening, and where Eli would be. I told her to call whoever she needed to call.” He met Killian’s glare. “I didn’t touch her. I wouldn’t.”
Eli stared at his father. The man who’d beaten him and turned him into an enforcer for a criminal empire. But there was something else that didn’t seem right. He’d been thinking about it since his run-in with Margaux Featherstone.
“You knew,” Eli said. “What she was. What I am.”
“I knew.”
“And you never told Ronan about us. And you stayed away.”
“If Ronan found out what you could do, what do you think he would have done?” Garret met his gaze. “He would have turned you into something terrible. He would have turned you intome.”
