Shit. Mac clenched his jaw. He’d hoped no one would notice it before it had a chance to fade.
Chapter 9
Deltta
“This way,” Tarymn’s house manager said as he walked him to where the alpha was waiting for him. When he finally managed to connect with him, Tarymn insisted he visit him; apparently, what he had to say couldn’t be said over the connector. That had piqued Deltta’s interest; otherwise, he wouldn’t have come. Tarymn abandoned him like the rest of them. And now he wanted to see him.
For What?
This had better be good.
“Master Tarymn is in there,” the beta said, pointing to a private room. Deltta entered the room to find Tarymn having lunch with his recluse twin. Deltta’s eyes fell on the other alpha. He looked like Tarymn, but he was slightly bigger. The first time he met the twins, Deltta couldn’t tell them apart, but he'd come to know that they were as different as the two suns that hovered above their planet; one was blue, while the other was red. The former burnt hotter than the latter; while Tarymn was brazen and calculating, his twin brother was aloof and ran hotter than most alphas. Deltta was tame compared to Hym.
“I see you’ve arrived,” Tarymn said, not bothering to get up. “Care to join us?”
His anger ticked up another notch.
“No. I wasn’t under the impression you would want to share a meal with me. Considering…” Deltta trailed off, leaving him to fill in the blanks. He might have wished for Tarymn to remain at his side when everything imploded around him, but he chose to save himself. Deltta understood why. They couldn’t all go down, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t angry with him. He thought they were friends.
“Right.” Tarymn got to his feet. “Let’s get this over and done with.”
Great, Deltta thought as he followed Tarymn and his twin out of the room to his office. Tarymn made his way to his desk while his twin perched himself on the arm of a couch. Deltta looked from one to the other.
“What did you want to tell me?” he asked.
Tarymn placed a data reader and a chip on the desk.
“What’s this?”
“Take a look,” Tarymn said.
Deltta stared at him for a few seconds before he picked up the data reader and inserted the chip into the slot. The device booted up and displayed encrypted data that took a second to be readable. The data was dated five years ago and a few months before the incident.
“What am I looking at?” Deltta scanned through what looked like financial information.
“Do you remember what you asked me to do before the incident?” Tarymn asked. Deltta shook his head. He couldn’t remember what happened. It was all a blur.
Tarymn glanced at his brother. “That’s what I feared. He was trying to make the enquiry into his affairs disappear. Not only did he remove you from office, but he also made sure to get all investigations against him dropped.”
“It worked,” Hym commented darkly.
“What? Who are you talking about?”
Tarymn walked around the desk to stop in front of him. He grasped his shoulders. “You thought I abandoned you, didn’t you?”
Well...
“I didn’t, my friend.” Tarymn squeezed his shoulders.
What was he talking about?
He was never there when he needed him; no one was. Deltta swallowed the words that tumbled into his mouth to choke him. He took a deep breath.
“It had to seem like I abandoned you, but I didn’t.” Tarymn blinked rapidly, letting him go. He cleared his throat and stepped behind his desk. “We’ve been trying to uncover the truth, but we couldn’t do it publicly because of what happened to you.”
Deltta stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate.
“A few days before everything went to shit, you asked me to investigate alpha Pharyi. You suspected him of embezzling funds, but you couldn’t prove it. Before I could investigate him, he poisoned you and your omega assistant. I’m not sure if he intended for things to go down the way they did, but everything worked in his favor; I couldn't continue with the investigation, and he went on to embezzle more money.”