Page 18 of Mated into the Mob

But I lied, saying I was sick. I sent him a bottle of the best cognac to smooth his ruffled feelings and had my brother, Ranger, take the meeting.

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Son. I can almost taste your lies,” Dad huffed. “I heard there was trouble last night at the club.”

I sighed. Rumors were the lifeblood of the pack, but coupled with my disappearance, I’d have to stamp them out or my ability to head our wolves would be questioned. “Mmmm.”

”Out with it, or maybe you can’t.”

We were both using an encrypted app, but my dad was old-school and wary that the technology could be hacked. Not that the police were interested in my private life. But if another pack hacked the app and discovered there was gossip about my ability to lead La Luna Noir, they could use that information to destabilize my role as Alpha, weaken the pack, and encroach on our business.

“Perhaps…” I was dithering, as Tony had accused me of. And it was his fault. My head was full of images of him, my nose scented him in the living room and entryway. I ran my fingers over my shirt where he touched me, and there was a reel going around in my head of his bloodied nose and split lip, wishing I could make it all better.

“Are you still at the house?”

Had I said that? Nope. My dad had a network of people who kept him up to date on my comings and goings. Spies, the lot of them!

“Yes.”

“I’m coming over.”

“Please come alone, Dad.” I could cope with my dad, but not my brothers and my uncle all trooping in, everyone talking at once over the top of one another.

“That bad, huh?”

I ended the call. Ahhh, not only was I failing as an alpha, astheAlpha, but also as a man, and my dad was coming to the rescue. He’d scent Tony as soon as he walked in. There’d be questions and more questions, he’d ask me why I hadn’t put an end to this mess.

Waiting for him to arrive, I wandered into the den and studied the photos lining the wall. The rest of the house was mine, decorated how I liked it, but the den remained as it had when this was first my grandfather’s and then my father’s home. The dark walls and curtains and the old leather couch gave it an almost hallowed atmosphere. As a kid, I’d crept in here and studied the photos on the walls.

Now I removed the one of Tony’s father and took it to the window. Everyone was smiling, including Papa and Dad and my grandfather. They had their arms around one another. Anthony was a trusted member of our pack. My brothers and I sat in front of them. I must have been about five, my brothers three and eighteen months.

I ran my thumb over the images of Grandpa and Papa. My life would have been so different if they hadn’t been killed. Taking on the responsibility for the pack in my early 20s was a huge burden. It still was.

But that was the past and this was now.

How had Anthony been able to mate a human? Maybe my dad would tell me. Emilio’s mind was brimming with pack history, but I’d wait for Dad to fill me in.

The house was strangely quiet, and I wished I could see what Tony was doing. There were cameras in the basement,and they’d been useful in the past as part of my interrogation process, but even with my finger on the app, I couldn’t do it. Invade his privacy.

My wolf rolled his eyes and asked to hunt.

After Dad leaves or tonight. We had a shifting and hunting schedule, but from the moment I caught Tony’s scent, I couldn’t think of anything but him. And I seesawed from wanting to hold him close, so our hearts beat in unison, to wanting to shake him and remove his snarkiness and sass. He made my blood boil.

Sounds nasty.

But if he became a shadow of his former self, he’d no longer be Tony, the guy I… I didn’t fall for. Humans did that, gushing about someone they just met. Shifters didn’t gush, they scented, sighted, and marked one another and loved with their entire being.

My phone beeped. My dad had arrived. I opened the app connected to the security system and studied the car coming up the driveway. He was at the wheel, the bodyguard beside him, his face ashen. I grinned ‘cause Dad was a terrible driver, and I should have forbidden him from driving. Fuck, if I made a list of all the things Ishouldhave done but didn’t, I’d question if I was the right person to lead the pack.

“My darling.” He placed a coffee carrier and cake box on the table and turned my face to the light. His brow furrowed. “It’s worse than I thought.” He didn’t sniff, but he couldn’t hide his slack-jawed expression.

He was dressed in a black sweater and jeans but topped it with a purple-and-aqua knee-length coat. He loved to make a splash, though Papa had frowned at his flamboyant dressing habits. He’d suppressed his love of color while Papa was alive and for a year after his death. But slowly he added a touch. A kerchief, scarf, hat, sunglasses, until eventually he’d thrown off any inhibitions and dressed how he pleased.

As children, my brothers and I had rolled our eyes at the clothes he wore at home when he dressed how he wanted, but when I grew older, I understood how he’d kept that part of him hidden for his mate when in public.

“In the den.”

His brows shot up. We always sat in the light-filled living room, so my suggestion told him something was going on. But he knew that already. He settled himself on the sofa in the den, grabbed a donut and coffee, and said, “Shoot.”

Just as well Tony wasn’t within earshot.

---