Chapter 245

“I’d worried when I had heard you were in the hospital,” Alpha King Hayes said through the phone. “You should have called me and told me of your condition. I would have done everything in my power to have helped.”

Oh, what a cruel, vicious man. How I would love to give him the verbal thrashing of a lifetime. But, with Archer’s warning fresh in my ear, and his hand on my arm, physically pulling me backwards away from the phone, I am quickly reminded that I need to keep my mouth shut here.

“I believe I experienced some of your specific kind of help, Father,” Neil says. “One of the doctors was very generous with the drugs intended to keep me in a coma.”

“My oldest son wouldn’t actually believe that I had anything to do with that,” Alpha King Hayes said.

“I wouldn’t?”

“Not the dutiful son you used to be. I suppose you have changed in the past few months. You’ve become a man I cannot recognize. A man who does not respect his father, and therefore earns little respect in turn.”

“Did you respect him when you put the silver in his chest?” Beau snaps. His face is skewed in anger. “You call, ever the doting father, but you are the one who caused this whole mess!”

“Ah, Beau,” the Hayes patriarch says, his voice cool and calculating. “Are all of my boys there in the room?”

“What do you care?” Beau shouts. Looking at him, at his hatred and desperation, I wonder if he was the child who always tried so hard to gain his father’s attention, only to be ever denied. Is that why he is always so rebellious? He’s still trying to get his father to notice?

“Quiet, Beau,” Hayes says through the phone. The word is sharp and icy. It silences Beau as if on reflex. Beau lowers his head.

Archer starts to growl. “You didn’t call to share platitudes. Get on with what you want.”

“Archer. It’s good to hear your voice, even if you are my most intolerable son.”

Archer doesn’t even flinch at the dig. He stands tall as ever, frown etched on his face. His hand on my arm does squeeze for a moment however, though it doesn’t last.

“You heard Archer,” Neil says. He gives Archer a supportive look. How curious that these brothers who were at each other’s throats not ten minutes ago are now supporting each other so intensely.

I am honestly relieved. I wasn’t sure if my words alone would be enough to beat some sense into them. But I hated that it was their asshole of a father who was helping to bring them together.

“There’s no need to stretch this out,” Neil says. “Tell us what you want.”

“I heard the most interesting rumors,” Hayes says. Whether he’s listening to Neil or Archer’s request remains to be seen… or heard, I suppose. “Apparently there was a terrible car crash down at the construction site of one of my buildings. Yet when the authorities arrived, no bodies could be found.”

A car crash at the construction site with no bodies recovered? He has to be talking about the crash with Carrie and me, when Carrie had been trying to deliver me to the Hayes patriarch’s doorstep. What a disappointment for him, that Carrie and I both found ways out of that situation.

“What does this have to do with us?” Neil says, voice carefully calm and reserved.

“You know as well as I whose bodies were supposed to be in that car. I want to know what happened to those girls. I want them delivered to me.”

“What makes you think we know anything about that?” Beau snaps, having found his courage once more.

“Do not play games with me, you worthless brats,” the Alpha King says. His voice has gotten lower and colder. I instinctively shiver in fear and disgust.

How can a man talk about his sons like this? Especially when those sons are as smart and talented as these four men in this room with me?

It makes no sense. Though I also know that underappreciating his sons is likely the least of his many terrible flaws.

“I have allowed your recovery, Neil. As I allow your continued presence in this city. You think you have any reputation to stand on without me? You think if I were to disappear that your lives would continue on as they have always been? Pampered? Spoiled.”

“Y-you don’t know what you’re talking about!” Steven shouts, albeit with a tremble here and there.

“I don’t even know which son that was. What was your name again?”

It’s a cruel cut that has Steven take a physical step backwards.

My hands curl into fists. Archer sees. He yanks me behind him, like his physical presence will protect me from a voice on the phone. It’s sweet in a way, but it’s pointless. I can still hear just fine.

“We don’t know where the girls are,” Neil says. “We don’t have anything you want.”

“Bullshit,” the Alpha King says. “You may have pawned off Carrie to some poor sap. Don’t worry I’ll track her down again soon enough. But we both know you would never put your precious Nanny out to pasture. I’m willing to bet that she’s there right now. Aren’t you? What’s her name? Oh. Yes. Chloe.”

He knows my name. That’s enough to startle me into silence. Archer’s whole body tenses in front of me.

“We don’t know who you mean,” Neil says, and though his voice is careful calm, I can see the panic in his eyes.

“Hello, Chloe,” the Alpha King says, ignoring his sons. “We haven’t met yet, but I deeply look forward to our first meeting.”

I stay quiet. We all do.

“You see, the boys’ futures depend on you, Chloe. They have it in their head that if they go to war with me, they stand some kind of chance of winning. I’m hoping you will be able to convince them otherwise.”

“She’s not here, asshole,” Archer growls. “Get over it.”

The Alpha King continues to ignore the others, speaking only to me. “I’ll send a car for you soon, Chloe, and you should do your best to be in it. If you want my sons to remain unharmed, you had best come willingly.”

Beau pounces forward, a growl escaping his throat. “Fuck you, dad. You don’t have any kind of power over us anymore. No one is going to follow your orders now.”

“No power, you say?” the Alpha King laughs. “Funny you should say that.”

Suddenly, all the lights turn off. I gasp. The brothers tense as they look around. Were it not for the dim light coming in through the windows, we’d be in total darkness.

Steven immediately brings out his tablet and begins rapidly flicking and typing on the screen.

Archer turns toward me and yanks me hard against his chest. “Stay close,” he whispers.

“What the hell?” Beau says.

“What have you done?” Neil demands. His cool cracks, and his anger shines through.

“Showing you who has all the power and who has none,” the Alpha King says. “Learn from this.”