Filed to story: Claimed by My Ex’s Alpha Brother
“Lina, we’ve found something,” Matthew said in way of greeting. He was wearing slacks and a pale blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal strong, ink-stained forearms. Matt was tall, with kind sky-blue eyes, but his usually comforting tone was a little strained.
“Is this about the Ashford Pack?” I asked.
Magnus’s Blackthorn Corporation was finalizing a deal with Evervine Industry, a human company, replacing the distribution network they had with the Ashford Pack. My team and I had debated leaking this information to the Ashford Pack to sabotage Magnus but had held back. We weren’t ready to take Magnus down.
Matthew frowned, shaking his head. “Emily.”
My stomach clenched. Ordinarily, Matthew was the talker. The fact that he was turning to Em for help set off alarm bells-a fact further reinforced when Em left her keyboard.
“Have a seat,” she said, coming over. She had on her usual work attire-a band T-shirt paired with black jeans, a suit jacket, and dark hair swept back into a long braid.
“Okay,” I took a seat. My eyebrows shot up as she passed me the mug she held. Clearly, they’d been waiting for me. She’d made me my favorite almond milk chai. I set it down on my desk, narrowing my eyes. “Just spit it out,” I demanded.
“Your mother’s alive,” Matthew blurted out.
“Christ, Matthew!” Emily exclaimed. “I thought we were going to lead into that or-“
“What?” I demanded, the word sounding torn from my throat. Shock crashed over me, an electric wave of disbelief that sent my heart skyrocketing. I gripped the arms of my desk chair, my knuckles whitening. Hope fought with grief. “How do you know? Are you sure?” The questions spilled out in a frantic rush, desperate for clarity as my pulse thudded in my ears, thrumming with the urgency of unresolved pain.
Matthew’s eyes were wide as he said, “We’ve seen her on Blackthorn security footage. “She’s alive, Lina.” His words were steady and sure, cutting through the fog of shock that enveloped me.
With his assurance, the world around me shifted, tilting off its axis. My mother, who’d always been my rock, whose absence made me ache every single day-was alive. The astounding realization filled me until I felt lit up-my mom-was still with me.
Now it started. The avalanche of words flew from Matthew in a way that was far more natural. “Remember the USB drives we planted in Blackthorn Corporation through Rufus at Hardwire?”
Hardwire was one of the tech companies Matthew oversaw to manage our tech infrastructure. Rufus was the head of the team and was a good mate with Matt. He’d had a contract setting up tech infrastructure across a number of Blackthorn Corporate offices and planted a bunch of malware in their network to monitor their communications there.
I nodded, expectation tightening my chest.
Emily slumped into her huge swivel chair in front of the wall of monitors. With a few quick jabs of the keyboard, she said, “Here. With our bugs planted, we were able to download the surveillance footage, too. We’re not sure which building she’s in yet because of the way the footage is stored centrally, but with time, I’ll figure it out.”
It was a fuzzy image, but sure enough, my mother, Miriam Silvermoon, was framed on the screen. I blinked at the grainy video of her pacing across a small, spartan room. A few seconds later, she sat down on the single bed. I expected to feel like I’d break, but instead, a blaze of fury roared through me. I wanted to destroy something-preferably someone he loved.
At the thought, Stephen came into my thoughts. And with him, a dozen feelings fluttered through me. When I’d escaped that day of the attack, I’d kept picturing the way Stephen had shielded me from the rogue wolves. Then, six weeks later, when I’d still been reeling from my parents’ deaths, I’d been rocked to my very core when I discovered I was pregnant with Stephen’s child.
She’s not his. She’s mine.
For a long time now, I’d seen Betty as only mine. I was the one raising her. I was all she needed. Stephen knew nothing of her existence, and I was damn well going to keep it that way.
Yet still, I couldn’t deny that Stephen had always been with me. It was impossible for him not to be when every time Betty’s earthy scent washed over me, it seemed like a whisper of Stephen’s own. The thought of seeing him again had my stomach clenching and my heart fluttering.
But I quashed the thought.
“I need to get my mom,” I stated firmly, my voice cutting through the quiet of our office, my gaze hovering on my mom’s picture.
My heart squeezed at the thought of her being there all these years. Suddenly, I saw her walking through Central Park with me, a steaming cup of coffee in hand as she listened attentively. We used to do a coffee catch-up every few weeks, even when I’d been at Harvard. There hadn’t been a month in which I hadn’t had her comforting, loving presence in my life until she was just…gone. To think of all those moments Magnus had stolen from me had my burning hatred toward him soaring higher.
“We agreed we’re not ready to attack Blackthorn Corporation yet,” Emily cautioned.
I nodded. “I know, but I can reposition myself in New York and Blackthorn until we are,” I said confidently, already formulating a wild plan.
My mother’s alive.
My heart hurried with relief and hope for the first time in years.
“There is a banquet on at Blackthorn Villa, hosted by Magnus himself,” Matthew said.
An image of Blackthorn Villa flashed through my head, its grand hall decorated in white linen and dozens of bouquets of flowers. Then, the totem-marked wolves attacking, my father’s wolf fighting, and my mom on the floor, blood seeping through her pale dress.
“That’s tomorrow!” Emily exclaimed, looking skeptical. “You don’t have to go so soon. There’ll be other events.”
I shook my head, squeezing my hands into fists. “I can’t wait now that I know he has her.” My gaze crept back to the monitor, every ache that I’d been feeling since losing my mom resurfacing, leaving me feeling more fragile than I had in a long time. But I did what I always did-I focused on covering the rising tide of emotion with the fire of vengeance, always flickering within me.
“I can’t let this opportunity slip away. I need to go tomorrow,” I said, feeling a newfound urgency ignite.
Matthew nodded, his expression a mixture of determination and concern. “We’ve got your back. We’ll figure this out.”
As my heart raced with anxious excitement, a sliver of doubt crept in. “Will you two be okay with Betty while I’m gone?”
“Of course,” Emily replied, her voice steady and reassuring. “She’s used to spending a night or two with us. It’ll be fine.”
Em was right. Every few weeks, when I had a big client meeting, I left her with them. Both Emily and Matthew had rooms here in the villa. They had apartments in Philadelphia, too, but split their time between the city and here.
“You can count on us,” Matthew reassured me, watching me with his kind, blue stare and looking as if he wanted to say more.
I smiled. “I know I can. Thank you both,” I said, picking up my chai tea to prevent Matt from hugging me. If he did, I didn’t think I’d be able to hold myself together.
But I knew Betty was in the best of hands. My two colleagues and best friends were pros at grey-market dealings and running my business empire but also at feeding time, bedtime, and everything else in between.
I took a deep breath, trying to calm the fluttering in my chest. Before I could overthink it, we fell to concocting a plan.
After an afternoon of planning, I had a harder job to do. I sat with Betty on the living room floor, surrounded by her colorful toys. She looked up at me, her big blue eyes so like mine and my mom’s that I felt again how important it was to go to New York and save the woman who meant the world to me and who I wanted my own daughter to have the chance to know.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?