Page 45 of Targeted By Love

“It’s mostly speculation. We have no evidence.” Ezra tucked the tablet under his arm. “What do you want to do?”

“I’d like to speak to some of our police contacts.”

“Alpha would not be pleased you bypassed him.”

Boaz would be furious too. “Who says I am?” Alpha had to be informed, as he dealt with Germaine and the other Alphas regularly. And I had to fess up to Alpha about my other job. I doubted he’d tell me to stop, just to be more circumspect.

“Good luck. I’ll make myself scarce.” Ezra made to step away, but I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck.

“Who are you more afraid of? Alpha or Boaz?”

Ezra’s flared nostrils and his lips snapped shut gave me my answer. Our brother was one scary dude sometimes.

“You’re coming with me.” But rather than meet at pack headquarters, I invited Alpha to our apartment. I’d kept many secrets from my mate, but this was his brother. He had a right to be part of the decision-making.

Nervousness flowed through our bond as I told my mate about what we’d discovered, followed by relief when he understood that the chaos would be a thing of the past. The meeting wascalm, facts were discussed, and assumptions were understood to be just that.

And while Alpha raised a brow when I detailed how I killed people for a living, he said, “Watch your back. I can’t help you if there’s ever any blowback.”

He was silent for a moment. “Was that you… in the park… the guy whose bike was found but not his body?”

I nodded, hoping Alpha wasn’t annoyed.

“And you had help disposing of the body?”

Again, I nodded.

“Hmmm… he was a bad dude. I might have to hire you myself one day.”

When everyone left, my mate and I were the only ones still in the apartment, and the air was lighter than it had been since this all went down.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“That I should think less horribly about my brother, but also, that he deserved my disdain.” He shoved his hands in his pockets.

I felt for him. My brothers and I sometimes fought, but at the end of the day, we loved each other. That wasn’t true of my mate and Seb.

“You don’t have to forgive him because he might finally be doing what is right.” And we weren’t certain that was the case.

“I do have to forgive him. Not for Seb and his husband, but for me. Still don’t like him, though.” He shook his head. “Don’t think I’ll ever get there.”

“And you never need to.” I imagined he’d have some similar confusion when it came to his mother also. She was the worst of the two, allowing Seb to treat Rhodes the way he had and being less of a mother than my mate deserved.

“Thanks for not judging me.” He leaned into my chest.

“Oh, I judge you plenty on your food choices. I don’t have time to judge you on the rest.” His cravings were off-the-charts weird. The foods were all good, but the way he combined them… yikes.

“Speaking of cravings, now that things are worked out, can we check out that new Korean corn dog place?”

“The one next to the rolled ice cream shop?” They had every flavor combination under the sun.

“I was thinking we could go there, too. I think the cotton candy ice cream would go well with the sausage and cheese rolled in ramen corn dog.”

“Anything you want, omega mine.” Safe to say I wasn’t going to be having that combination… ever.

23

RHODES