Page 81 of Understanding Fate

“I know it’s probably not the news you were hoping for, but I know you will find a way through this. You have your dad's moral compass. You’d never allow people like that to win,” he says before bowing his head slightly and exiting my office.

I may not allow it, but I have no idea how the hell I’m going to stop it from happening. Especially now.

Dante: Pres, I need you in my office. Now.

I'm not bothering with pleasantries. There isn’t time for them. We need solutions, we need options, we need my dad.

My heart sinks, knowing I’m not him.

A few minutes later, she walks in. No music is playing, and her pink cat-eared headphones are absent from her outfit.

She falls into the chair rather than just sitting in it and opens her laptop before looking up at me expectantly.

“Well, hello to you too," I say, trying for humor but missing the mark.

“You summoned, I’m here. What can I do?” she asks, exhaustion evident on her face.

Before I answer her, I pull on my bond with her and clench my jaw when I feel her shield blocking me.

“If you want to know how I’m feeling, you could just ask,” she says, irritation seeping into her tone.

“Sorry, Pres. You’ve just been well, not yourself lately,” I say as an explanation.

“We’re about to be at war, D. That doesn’t exactly feel like unicorns and rainbows from where I’m sitting. Our shipment of motion sensors we added yesterday has been delayed, and the order I attempted to add on after the meeting today won’t be shipped for another week at the earliest. And if that wasn’t enough, you should have seen the smug look on stupid Keith’s face when I asked him to oversee our client division. You’re lucky I didn’t punch his perfectly straight dumb nose, or we’d probably have a lawsuit pending too,” she finishes with a huff, and it's nice to see a bit of her fire come back, even if it is through violence directed at an employee.

“Well, thank you for controlling yourself. I’ll be sure to have Quinn send over a gold star for your efforts in that regard. As for the shipment, we will figure it out. Let's focus on what we can control. I need information on a drug the Amatos are running,” I say, shifting from big brother to Alpha.

Her attention drops to her lap, and she begins clicking and typing.

“What’s it called?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I reply, her fingers slow as she looks up.

“Can I know what it does?” she continues, squinting her eyes as if I’m intentionally being obtuse to make her life hard.

“The description I was given was ‘steroids for wolves,’ and apparently, there's been a new development in it,” I say, giving her the only information I have.

She looks back down, and her typing resumes. Her head nods, and she scans the various pages she's been runningthrough. I sit watching her, not wanting to interrupt her flow, when she stops, purses her lips, and pulls them to one side.

“So, at first glance, there isn’t much activity for Maimi at all, which is suspicious by itself since it's such a large city with a huge wolf presence. But digging a bit deeper, I found a discussion post that may be relevant. It's focused on something called F-4110N, and it's vague but mentions that someone is looking for more because it wears off more quickly with each use. That wouldn’t usually cause any reason for suspicion, but one of the replies mentions a new development in the formula which allows for twelve-hour boosts.”

She pauses, tilts her head, and then types again.

“That could be anything. Why would that point to the Amatos?” I ask, and she looks up at me.

“The Amatos are the only game in town, and the name of the drug is bugging me. I haven’t heard of it before, and it's literally nowhere on any server,” she says.

“F-4110N? It could just be a random lot number,” I say.

“It could, but do me a favor, maybe have Elijah and James reach out about it,” she says. I grab a pen from my desk drawer and write it on a piece of paper so I can pass it along. The minute I put it down, I see it.

F4110N

Fallon.

“Pres,” I say, realizing.

She looks up at me, seeing the word written out, and her eyes become saucers.

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