Chapter 282

The Alpha King gathers his goons and together, which each of them favoring their various wounds, they hobble out the door. The one from upstairs is already lying face down in the grass. He groans. He isn’t dead.

They gather each up and pile into the sedan in the driveway. The Alpha King is the last to enter the car. With the car door open, he shouts, “You boys should expect to hear from your mother.”

That’s enough of a threat to quiet everyone.

The Alpha King closes his door. His car backs out of the driveway and disappears down the street. Neil, Archer, Wyatt, Isaac, Mom, and I watch out from the front stoop. As we all pile back inside the house, with the door shut behind us, Isaac turns to Neil.

“Someone better explain to me right this second what this was all about,” he insists. When Neil hesitates to answer, Isaac swivels his gaze at me. I never really had a dad, but Isaac carries the air of disappointed father so well that even I feel ashamed.

“Isaac,” Mom starts to say, but when Isaac shakes his head at her, she falls silence. He doesn’t want to hear our reasons from her. He wants them from the source.

“The brothers are at war with their father,” I say. “You saw how he handled Mia. He doesn’t like her at all, Isaac. He’s not as good a person as he makes himself out to be.”

“No offense to you Hayes boys,” Isaac says, nodding again at Neil. “But what happens in your family is what happens in your family.”

“His issues potentially could affect the entire nation,” Neil says.

“I have yet to see proof of that. His lack of childcare knowledge does not make him a faulty leader.”

I want to argue, but I’m not sure how. He seems determined not to listen to us.

That is, until Wyatt clears his throat. “Dad, this isn’t something that just affects the Hayes family. I’ve seen it too. I’ve… dealt with it.”

Isaac faces his son. His brows start to raise. “You…?”

Wyatt hangs his head in shame. He hasn’t told them the full truth of his dropping out of school and returning home, then. I suspected that was the case, but there’s no disputing the evidence of it now.

“I…” Wyatt sighs. He stops and starts many times before he finally admits, “I didn’t return home because I failed out of school.”

Isaac’s brow pulls together. “Why would you want us to believe you failed?” The question he really probably wants to know is, What could be so bad that you thought failing out would make for a better excuse?

“I’ve hated Chloe since the moment I heard she existed,” Wyatt says. Mom gasps. Wyatt ignores her. He doesn’t say to her face that he hates her too, though I know it’s true. Maybe he’s grown more fond of her lately, or maybe he knows saying that allowed would create more turmoil with his father than he wants.

I don’t know. But he doesn’t mention my mom at all.

“When she came to live with the Hayes brothers as Mia’s nanny, I hated her even more. I was their Beta. I had to work and slave for that position. Here Chloe was, a nobody, coming into our family and taking over my life without having to hardly try.”

I do not like the implication that I did not work for myself, or that I had it so easy. Wyatt himself knows how much of a hard time I had with the Hayes brothers when I first arrived at the Pyramid. It wasn’t some cushy job. I was basically a live-in servant.

Someone for them to verbally abuse and jerk around.

It’s only recently that their attitudes toward me have slowly shifted. Though, at times, even these relationships seem like they dance on the edge of a cliff, ready to topple over at any moment. I know that all too soon the brothers will cut me out of their life and move on none the worse for wear.

“My anger was stronger than my sense,” Wyatt explains to his father. “At first it seemed as if the brothers were on my side. No one seemed to like Chloe at all. But then that changed... And I started to feel like I was the only one who hated her.”

Wyatt swallows hard. His gaze drops to the ground. “Until then, I only received communication from the Alpha King from one of his advisors. He wanted me to report now and then on the brothers, while also keeping my eye out for some woman he was looking for…

“Yet as my hatred for Chloe grew, I began to be more accepting of some of the advisors suggestions. Instead of just keeping an eye on the brothers, I needed to collect more detailed information about their habits. And Chloe’s.”

“Why would the Alpha King care about Chloe’s habits?” Isaac asks.

“I didn’t know at first, but then I quickly learned. I met the advisor in the usual place, but this time it was the Alpha King himself there to meet me. He told me that he hated Chloe as much as me. He said she was corrupting the brothers, and that to save everyone, she needed to be ‘out of the picture.’”

“Wyatt,” Isaac says, voice laced with disappointment. Wyatt sinks farther into himself.

“I had no reason to doubt him. I already hated Chloe. He played off that, he convinced me to challenge her. He promised me a bright future if I went along with his plans. But… when I was ultimately defeated, I returned to the Alpha King and he pretended as if he had never seen me.

“He made me believe I could have a future if I tore my own family apart… Then he dropped me like I didn’t mean anything.”

“You were manipulated,” Isaac says.

“My father uses people,” Neil replies. “He always has and he always will. My brothers and I are no different. Neither is your son.” Neil pauses. “Neither are you, Isaac. Tonight was a threat to all of us. That we somehow managed to survive does not devalue that threat. He will be coming for all of us now.”

“Even me,” Isaac says, understanding now. He looks at Wyatt a long moment, then, sighing, pulls him into an embrace. “I’m sorry, son. I failed you.”

“It’s my fault, dad.”

“You didn’t feel as if you could come to me about any of this. That is my failing as a father.”

“And I failed you, as well, Chloe,” Mom says to me. She doesn’t have to. None of this is necessary. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about him.”

I shake my head gently. “It doesn’t matter now,” I tell her. We’re all on the same page now, that’s what counts.

We hug each other a bit longer, until I remember that Beau and Steven are still upstairs.

“I’ll go get them,” I say, after I remind everyone else. I’m eager to get away from such a sentimental moment. I really don’t want to make my mom cry.

So I take the stairs two at a time and rush to Mia’s door.

I throw it open and rush inside. “Guys!”

I dive just in time to evade Beau’s kick. His foot smashes into the door frame, shattering a piece of it. Splinters fly everywhere.