Page 37 of Torn By The Alpha

Zac pulled her close to him for a few minutes and then kissed her nose.

“You should probably get cleaned up so you can get to work on time. If you don’t show up, Sean is going to send out headhunters. He’ll be worried.”

“I’d rather lie here with you, but I guess that doesn’t pay my bills,” she said.

Zac kissed her before she jumped into the shower to wash the scent of sex off of her. She felt the tension go down the drain with the water. She hoped she’d made the right decision to stay.

Sean smiled and nodded when she walked into Howlers’. Jade rushed over to her and hugged her. “I’m so glad Zac got you to stay.”

“Are you pissed at me for telling Zac your story?” Sean asked.

“No, but why did you tell him?”

“I was looking out for you because I care about you. I was also taking care of the others. If anything happened to you, regardless of where you are, Ian, Zac, and I aren’t going to just sit by and do nothing. You are family now, and we would know if something happened to you.”

“Thank you, Sean.”

“You can’t spend the rest of your life running away from your problems. Sometimes, you have to stand and fight. You’re lucky because you don’t have fight alone,” Sean said.

“I appreciate that, but I’m scared. You guys have no idea how bad Declan can get. He’ll destroy anything and anyone in his way to get what he wants.”

“Let him try,” Sean said.

14

Zac

“Ian, come in and shut the door, please,” Zac said.

“Uh-oh, Alpha. Did I fuck up? I feel like I did in high school when I got called into the principal’s office,” Ian joked.

“Which time? Was it when you wedged the principle’s Volkswagen bug in the front doors of the school, when you beat up Jake for picking on that little girl, or when you and the PE teacher got into a fight because he pushed you?”

“More like when me and Cyndi were caught kissing and other things under the stairs.” Ian laughed. “Seriously, though, what’s up?”

“I had you close the door because I don’t want Tami overhearing us,” Zac said. “That would be a sure fire way of making sure that everyone in town knows at least a version of the story, whether it is accurate or not.”

He told Ian the story that Sean had relayed to him about Olivia.

“Poor Olivia. She must have been terrified. I can’t believe that something like this would happen.”

“She confirmed it. I caught her this afternoon as she was about to leave town because there are a couple of guys from Nebraska, looking for her. I haven’t spoken to them, but I would guess they are here on this Declan guy’s behalf,” Zac said.

“Why was she going to leave? We would have her back,” Ian said.

“That’s what she was afraid of. She didn’t want anyone getting hurt because of her,” Zac said.

“Do you want me to find out more about him?”

“I already did,” Zac said. “Olivia wasn’t exaggerating when she said that he was a bad dude. There have been several accusations of sexual assault, assault, intimidation, and other sordid activities. It seems that people in the area are terrified of him. I managed to dig into some police reports and news articles. A few people have mentioned things about it on different social media sites.”

“I can see why his pack doesn’t do anything, but what about the mundane folks?”

“It seems that he has friends on the police department and in the district attorney’s office. Any charges brought against him get dismissed,” Zac said. “A couple of the women who wanted to continue pressing charges for the sexual assault cases have disappeared.”

“No wonder Olivia is terrified of him.”

“I was looking around on his social media. The guy has an ego a mile long and thinks the world is enamored of him. He does mention a specific problem he has. Nothing is said about directly killing Olivia, and she isn’t named, but he has said that there is one person who needs to be taken off the face of the Earth. He has said that her blood seeping into the ground as an offering would lift the curses that have been placed on his pack and him, personally,” Zac said.

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