Lincoln nods. “Yeah. She’s Cora’s mother.”
“Jade,” Everett says.
I nod. “That’s right. I… she…” It’s so hard to know how to say it, but I have to get it out. “I wasn’t the only one in a relationship with an Alpha who didn’t deserve my time. Jade was with one too. His name is Geoffrey, and he was… terrible. Just a real pieceof shit. He ran with violent people, and I tried so fucking hard to get Jade out of there. To get her to see who he was and realize he was never going to do right by her. For a while, it was like she couldn’t see it. Or—or like she didn’t care? I don’t know. She just didn’t want to leave for whatever reason. But eventually, I got her to agree to run away from him. To let me help her get out.”
“She didn’t leave?” Everett asks. His voice is low and grim, like he’s heard this kind of story before.
“She tried,” I tell him, staring down at the table. “She just wasn’t fast enough.”
The three of them exchange a look at that.
“He stopped her?” Cash asks.
I lick my lips. “I’m still not sure how it all went down, I guess. He knew she wanted to leave, but he was also involved in so much bad shit. Drug trafficking and hurting people.” My eyes flash to Everett, knowing he’ll understand what kind of person Geoffrey is. “All I know for sure is there was a conflict, and she ended up dead. Shot. I think the bullet was meant for Geoffrey because Jade got in the middle of something, but I also think that he would have rather killed her than let her leave.
And Cora—” My voice breaks a little, thinking of my little, silent niece. “All I knew was that I couldn’t leave Cora with him. I couldn’t get Jade out in time, but I could save Cora. So I took her and we ran.”
“And that’s when your old pack rejected you,” Lincoln murmurs. He’s not saying it to be cruel, I know, just completing the timeline, but I still flinch a little at the reminder.
“Yes.”
Cash reaches for my hand, taking it in two of his larger ones. “You’re safe here,” he says. “You both are.”
I shake my head, pulling away so I can put the note on the table. Everett takes it and unfolds it, reading it quickly. His eyes darken with anger when the words register.
“Where did you find this?”
I tell them about the feeling I’ve been having for the last few days, like I’m being watched and someone is lurking. I tell them about the footprint in the garden and the note under my windshield.
“I’ve been running ever since my old pack rejected me,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to stop running, and I thought maybe this was far enough away even still, but—” I wrap my arms around myself. “I don’t know. I guess he found us.”
And it’s a horrible thought. I remember Geoffrey and his anger, his twisted attitudes about Omegas, and how he viewed Cora as his property. If he’s coming for her, if he’s here, I don’t know what to do.
I’ll die before I let him take her, but…
The guys are reacting around me, not even bothering to hide their own anger and anxiety. Cash gets up and starts pacing, his hands clenched into fists. Lincoln’s jaw is so tight it looks like he might break his own teeth. Everett is in full protective sheriff mode, folding the note back up and getting up from the table.
“He’s not taking her or anyone else,” he declares. “I’m putting patrols on the house. We’ll upgrade the locks, install motion activated cameras, whatever we have to do. I’ll get some deputies to do regular sweeps of the area. If you have a picture of him or you can give me a description, I’ll have people keeping an eye out for him. If he’s as much of an asshole as you say, we can get him detained.”
It’s not surprising that they want to do this in a way, but it feels like too much, and I tell them so. “I can’t ask you to do all that just for us. I never meant for this to interrupt your lives or turn into a whole thing.”
“You don’t have to ask,” Everett says, cutting me off. “Because we’re doing it whether you like it or not.”
Chapter 41
Everett
For the first time since we moved into the place, I’m starting to regret how sprawling our house and land are. It’s nice for our comfort and projects and for making space for Harper and Cora to be with us, but it’s proving to be fucking frustrating when it comes to securing the area.
I sit at my desk at the station, reviewing the security logs and going over every camera angle and patrol route again, even though by this point I know them by heart.
It doesn’t seem to matter how many extra layers of security I add, it never feels like enough. We have deputy patrols, motion sensors, checkpoints on the road out near the house, but there’s always a new gap to be found. And every time I imagine something slipping through, I think of Harper and Cora, and something tightens in my chest.
I can’t fuck this up. I can’t leave them unprotected.
I’ll just have to figure out a way to close the gap and make sure there’s no opening for anyone or anything to get through. I start at the top, going over everything again.
“Sheriff Kane,” Adam, my receptionist, calls out. “You have a?—”