“Whoa! Looks like the old man was holding out. He’s got Macallan Black single malt here!”
“Are youreallyrobbing our father right in front of us right now?”
“Are you really gonna have an apoplexy about it?”
“Big word there. Did you read that on the back of a liquor bottle?” Chris sputtered, face darkening. “Things are going to change once I’m alpha, and if you think that?—”
“Onceyou’realpha?” Jack spat back, his eyes glinting with rage. “Already chomping at the bit when our father’s body isn’t even cold yet and Luther’s body is in a lab right now being puzzled out from the rest of their security detail! Are you fucking serious right now?”
“Jackie, Chris,” Penelope tried. “This isn’t?—”
“Of course I’m fucking serious! Unlike you, I’ve had to be serious my entire life, instead of fucking off to try getting wasted with whatever hole or drug of the day!”
“Enough!” I roared, louder than I had been in a really long time. There was no peace, serenity, or control anymore. There was just the tangled mess of feelings in my gut and the future stretching out like an endless, dark cloud.
I stood there, breathing raggedly, and my two warring siblings at least had the wherewithal to look shocked.
“Sorry, Paul,” Jackie began, but I held up my hand for him to stop.
And yet, even with him falling silent, I found I wasn’t ready to speak yet. That white-hot, burning surge of energy was still pinging around me, chewing up any civility I had and whisperingthat everything would be better if I just madethemhurt like I was hurting.
I took off my glasses, which I mostly used to look more professional since I didn’t technically need them, and cleaned them on my shirt. The simple task kept my hands busy and allowed the real Paul to get back to the helm.
Unsurprisingly, it was my sister who spoke first. “Are you okay, Paulie?”
“I will be fine,” I said, although I wasn’t quite sure that was the case. Chris’s declaration about becoming the alpha had the more logical part of my brain trying to cast itself into the future. Our family line had been the alpha of the Marchendi pack for at least ten generations. The Marchendi pack was spread across seven states and contained thousands of members who looked to us for guidance, occasional financial and legal support, as well as social connection that wolf shifters were supposed to crave. While Chris and I were both of the alpha designation, that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be challengers among those thousands.
Complications. So many complications over something I’dneverever been trained or wanted to think about.
“I’m leaving the case,” Penelope said calmly, which pulled me back to the present. “I’ll book the first flight out of here.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Paulie…”
“I don’t mean don’t come back ever, just not right now. Continue to work on justice where you are, maybe bring some good into this world, and once we have all the details of the funeral arrangements, you can come home. We’ll all be together then without having to worry about all that planning or details.”
“Are you sure, Paul?” Jack asked, and he did look a little guilty. Good. Although he was generally harmless, and I understood his tendency to need a lot of extra time to processstrong emotions, his behavior had hurt me too. Hurt Penelope. Probably hurt himself.
“I am,” I said with a long sigh. “Our father and our brother are property of the morgue, and we need to inform the security detail’s families why they won’t be coming home tonight, so we aren’t even to the funeral step. One thing at a time.”
“Yeah,” Jack agreed before taking a swig of whiskey. I hadn’t even realized he’d opened it. “I know, uh, knew, Jacobyn and Fiona personally, used to cut class together back at boarding school. I’ll call their wives.” He paused, looking down at the bottle. “In a couple of hours, when their kids are down for the night.”
I nodded. As horrified as I was that he’d lost a pair of friends as well, I was glad he was stepping up. Before I could thank him, a noise distracted me.
I couldn’t say why it did, or even what was unusual about it. Maybe my nerves were simply so frayed and raw that an errant tire streak from outside could have set me off. My eyes flicked to the origin of the sound, focusing on the heavy, wooden rafter above Jackson’s head that supported the transitional hallway.
And it was cracking.
“Jackie!” I cried, leaping forward with all that shifter speed I rarely used.
“Wha-oooph!”
We collided, hitting the floor outside the hall just in time for theextremelypointed tip of the pillar to fall down, balancing precariously before toppling into said cabinet and sending liquor and glass everywhere.
“I-I-I…” Jackson sputtered. If he had stayed standing there, I had no doubt he would have been impaled.
Not even an alpha could come back from that.