Page 54 of Shadow of Fury
“No. We’re going over there. I don’t care if he’s been drinking. I don’t care if he’s three sheets to the wind. Hell, maybe it’ll be easier if he is. I don’t know. What I do know is that we finally have a chance to destroy my father and I’m not about to let it slip away.”
“Okay. Yeah.” Dominic glanced back at the kitchen, “Can I finish eating first though?”
Logan glared at him and his friend groaned.
“Fine. Let’s go. But I’m taking my plate with me.”
He snorted, “Shoes first, plate second.”
Dominic smirked, “Want me to grab yours too?”
“Hell, bring the whole pot, maybe your dad could use some spaghetti too.” He grabbed his phone out of his pants and shoved it into his borrowed shorts. “Now, let’s go before that bastard figures out what we’re up to.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Wren had taken a shower and gone straight to bed after Logan left. She’d lain awake for a long time, alternating between being angry and crying. She’d regretted starting a fight with him but she’d felt so raw and exposed after their mating. She’d given in to the heat without demanding the truth from him first and she’d taken her anger at her own weakness out on him. She wanted to call him, to ask him to come back and talk to her, to hold her and make her feel whole again, but she didn’t even have his number.
Instead she’d pretended to be asleep when Raven came home, not wanting to face her sister or her judgment. She’d had another of those strange breathless moments that made her throat feel as though it was closing off and she knew they had something to do with the bond to Logan but no idea what they meant. She’d stared at the ceiling almost all night, trying to figure out what she should do next but when the sun had finally come back up she’d been no closer to an answer so she’d crawled out of bed, gotten dressed for work, and slipped out of the house while Raven was still sleeping.
She’d considered taking the day off but then she’d decided against it. The office would likely be empty. After all, the Queen of the pack had passed away the day before and the Alpha would undoubtedly be busy with preparations for her funeral ceremony. It was the chance she’d been waiting for, to be in the office alone again, so that she could continue her search for anything that might incriminate the Alpha in Lark’s death.
Logan had distracted her from her mission over the past few days but this was the opportunity she’d been waiting for and she couldn’t let it pass her by.
She had thought, however naively, that once she and Logan were bonded that he would have to tell her the truth of what happened that night. She’d believed he wouldn’t be able to keep his secrets once they were part of one another. But she’d been wrong and it had broken her heart to know that even if he was now her mate, he wouldn’t tell her the truth she needed to make a future with him.
He had admitted that he still thought about Lark. He’d said he still thought about what his life would have been like if she were alive, and as much as the words hurt she couldn’t fault him for them. She thought about Lark too, about how different things would be if she were alive. He had loved her sister once and she couldn’t fault him for that even if it made her feel like some sort of consolation prize.
That wasn’t how fate worked. She knew that. She was a born shifter, just like he was, and they both knew that you didn’t get a new fated mate just because someone died. There was only one person in the whole world who was the perfect other half to make your soul whole. If Wren was Logan’s fate, then Lark never could have been, but that truth didn’t soothe the sting that took up residence in the center of her chest.
The only thing that would, the only thing that could, was knowing for sure what had happened to Lark and why it had sent Logan running from the pack he was born to lead. She truly didn’t believe he’d killed her sister. Not anymore. But she’d meant what she told him when she said maybe that was simply the bond making her weak, making her want to see the best in him, especially since he hadn’t defended himself.
She had to know for sure and if he wasn’t going to tell her then she’d just have to find the truth for herself like she’d been trying to do for the past six years.
Wren let herself into the office and just to be safe, she locked the door behind her before retreating to her desk. She turned the computer on and slipped out of her flats and into her heels just as she would any other day. She didn’t want anything to seem out of place in case someone stopped in to ask about the Alpha’s family. She sat down and got to work answering the emails that had come in overnight and only once she’d completed that task and the office remained empty did she work up the courage to go back into the Alpha’s private chamber and begin digging through his desk again.
The last time she’d been in here had been the night that Raven interrupted her. It was the same night she’d discovered that Logan was back in town and that the magnetic pull of her mate’s scent belonged to him. Her world had changed so much since then. It had been turned upside down and inside out and she was still reeling from the roller coaster twist of it all. She had to get her life back on the tracks and in order to do that, she needed the truth that she hoped was hidden in this office somewhere.
She remembered she’d been looking for a key that night and immediately began searching through the desk. The middle drawer was still only full of office supplies and she sighed as she came up empty once again. She dug around in the top drawer that was still full of stacked mail but didn’t find a hidden key there either. She turned around in the big desk chair, trying to think of where the Alpha might hide a key, but as she did her knee knocked into the cabinet and she hissed in pain.
“Ow.” she muttered as she twisted back to grab her leg.
Her finger came away with a spot of blood and she frowned, realizing she’d cut herself on something sharp. She leaned down to get a better look at what she’d jammed her knee against and gasped. The corner of the drawer was sticking out the smallest millimeter, which was what had cut into her skin.
“Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.” she hissed to herself as she wiped away the blood with one hand and reached for the drawer handle.
She tugged and it slid open easily. She rolled her eyes at her own stupidity. She hadn’t even tried the drawer again to see if it was still locked. She’d just assumed it was and she’d been wasting her time looking for the key. The locking mechanism was engaged, as though it had been turned to lock the drawer, but it hadn’t shut all the way and the Alpha hadn’t noticed.
Neither had she and if she hadn’t slammed her leg into it, she probably wouldn’t have.
Her hands shook as she urgently began to scan through the files located in the now unlocked drawer. She couldn’t believe she was finally in. She tilted her head to read the scrawled print on the labeled files and her brows furrowed as she did.
They were names. Surnames of pack members to be exact. She flipped past a few fast enough to realize they weren’t in any sort of alphabetical order and scowled. She went back to the first file and started over again. The first file said Coffman and she pulled it out just to see what was inside.
The papers inside were confusing. There appeared to be an informational sheet for each member of the family with important information about them. Birthdates, anniversaries, political affiliations, employment history, even a family tree. Wren supposed if the Alpha wanted to seem as if he knew everything about his pack members then maybe this was how he did it. Wren hadn’t compiled the information for him but maybe her predecessor had. After all, the Coffmans had left Shadow Pines before Wren started working for the Alpha.
She paused when she noticed a hand-drawn star next to the name on one of the sheets. Chelsey Coffman. Wren remembered her. She’d been a year or two older than Lark. The photo of her on the sheet looked like the shot from maybe her driver’s license. She was a pretty girl and Wren wondered what had become of her. She flipped through the rest of the sheets but didn’t see anything of note so she returned it to the drawer and pulled out the next file.
This one said Stephens and held similar papers to the Coffman file. Biographies and histories of each family member were inside. She flipped through them quickly just to see if there was anything different about this set but she paused when she saw that hand-drawn star next to a name again. It was Shannon Stephens this time. Wren had been childhood friends with the girl but they’d grown apart as teens. She flipped to the next page, to Dana Stephens sheet of paper but there was no star next to the eldest sister’s name.