Page 119 of The Alpha's Pen Pal

“Oh, perfect. Just the future alpha I was hoping to see.”

I stopped on the threshold, looking around the room and taking in the occupants.

On one side of the table, my dad sat with Reid and Sebastian, their heads turned to look at me. On the other side of the table, Alpha Timothy Pierce of the Amber Forest Pack sat with his two oldest children, his twins Benjamin and Nicole.

Timothy smiled at me, his sharp light blue eyes locked on me after finishing his statement. His blonde hair and beard had more flecks of gray in it since the last time I’d seen him, but it did nothing to soften the ever-hostile look he wore on his face.

“Alpha Pierce,” I said, closing the door behind me. “To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?” I asked, taking a seat next to my father.

“A proposal,” he said, his smile unwavering. “Your father has been asking for an alliance for a while now. I finally thought of a way to guarantee positive cooperation from both sides and ensure a prosperous collaboration.”

I nodded, glancing at my dad out of the corner of my eye. He tapped the papers in front of him, the contract proposal I assumed Timothy had brought with him.

“I told him I needed to think about it and discuss it with everyone,” Dad said to me.

“Let me see it?” I asked.

He pursed his lips, and Reid and Sebastian exchanged a look. “We’ll discuss it later. In my office,” he replied, picking it up and sliding it back into the manila folder.

“Let the boy see it, Alpha Stone,” Timothy said. “He’ll be taking over your pack soon, after all.”

Dad stared at him over the top of the folder, unblinking. Benjamin and Nicole stayed stoney-faced, as they had been since I walked through the door.

It had been several years since I had seen them, when I was a senior in high school, and they were juniors. I did not know if either of them went to college or if they stayed in their pack all these years. We’d never been close, but Benjamin had always been cordial to me. Their younger brother, Oliver, was nowhere in sight, but it was the middle of the week, so he was likely at school since he was a senior this year.

“What’s going on?”I linked Sebastian, but he just shook his head at me.

“Here,” Dad said, handing me the folder without breaking his eye contact with Timothy. “Just remember, nothing needs to be decided now.”

I nodded as I took it from him and started reading through the alliance proposal.

I read each page slowly and carefully, making sure to not skip any section, making sure I understood all the phrasing and the nuances of the proposal. I kept my face stoic and indecipherable as I read, not letting anyone in the room get even a hint of what went through my head.

I finished the last page, then turned it back over and lifted my hand to rest my chin on my fist. The wheels in my brain turned and spun as I thought about what Timothy was asking and how we could use it to our advantage. How, if we agreed, we would gain access to what we needed to take him down.

We’d had our suspicions for years, had ideas of how they became one of the wealthiest packs in the region after being almost bankrupt for over a decade. But we’d found no proof. However, this contract would give us an in, give us access to their accounts as we prepared our packs for the alliance and the combining of assets, as long as we all played our parts. As long as we were all believable.

And then, once we had our proof, we could hand it all over to the king and his council. They would remove Timothy from his position. The contract would be void since Benjamin wasn’t the one who signed it, and it would be as if none of it ever happened.

“Wesley, you don’t have to agree to it,”Dad mindlinked, including the other two in our conversation.

“But it will give us the in we need,”I replied.

“We can find another way. One that doesn’t involve you.”

“What about Haven?”Seb asked.

I frowned and clenched my jaw.“We… had a fight. She asked me to give her some space to sort everything out, and I’m going to respect her wishes, so right now is the perfect time to move forward with this agreement. With my plan.”

“But her birthday is on Tuesday,”Seb reminded me.

“And we’ll likely have this wrapped up and taken care of by the end of the weekend. Monday at the latest,”I said, and Dad gave a half nod, half shrug.

“I don’t imagine it taking longer than that,”he confirmed.“But it could.”

“It won’t,”I declared.“I’ll make sure of it. I won’t let it take longer than necessary.”

“Are you sure this is what you want to do?”Reid asked.

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