Page 1 of Secrets and Ruin

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CHAPTER ONE

APRIL 17TH, 2023

It was four in the morning when the alarm started going off. With a groan, I reached out and hit it, knowing I wouldn’t be able to keep my eyes closed until the next one went off. The man next to me, my fiancé, was already rolling out of bed, as if he had been summoned to war or some emergency was happening.

There was no war, at least not today. There wasn’t an emergency, either. I was sure of it.

No, today was an early morning because we were driving Dirk to the airport, and I wasn’t ready for that. If I could keep sleeping and pretend it wasn’t happening, I would.

“Jacky, he’ll be here any minute,” Heath murmured in my ear.

I growled into my pillow but pushed myself up. Bleary-eyed, I looked around the room. My eyes landed on him, the black-haired, blue-eyed werewolf I was going to marry one day. Somehow, he was already dressed.

“Did you go to sleep in that?” I was almost certain he hadn’t.

“The alarm went off thirty minutes ago,” he said, smiling down at me.

Groaning, I knew I needed to get moving. He was right when he said Dirk was going to be here any minute. I got into the shower quickly, not fiddling with the temperature. Cold water would wake me up, which was what I needed. Hissing and moving fast, I got myself clean enough to get through the trip to the airport. I put my hair in a wet ponytail and stalked through the bedroom and closet until I found something acceptable to wear.

By the time I made my way downstairs, I could smell food. Dirk was already there, his suitcases in my living room, and there were bags of fast food.

“Thanks for doing this,” he said, smiling at me for a moment before it disappeared. “Bad morning?”

“Early morning,” Heath said, chuckling. “She stayed up a bit too late. I tried to warn her.”

I went for the bags, finding bacon, egg, and cheese things to devour while they stood around. The moment I had those in hand, Heath pushed coffee at me, and I took it with me to sit down.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I explained as I unwrapped the first breakfast sandwich. “Thanks for the food.”

“I wasn’t going to show up empty-handed,” Dirk said, sitting across from me with his own food. “Seriously, though, thanks for driving me today.”

“Landon didn’t want to see you off from here?” I looked around but couldn’t smell Heath’s son. It worried me a little because he and Dirk were in a relationship and lived together. Was this going to cause some sort of fallout?

“He said goodbye to me when I left earlier. He’s trying not to follow me. It’s the same reason he’s not taking me to the airport.” Dirk chuckled softly. “He doesn’t want to test his strength of will. If we give him a chance, he might buy a ticket to follow me.”

“You brought his keys with you, right?” Heath reached out as he walked by, and Dirk handed them over. Heath hung them up with our keys, then sat beside me.

“Well, now we know he’ll have to walk if he wants to go anywhere,” I said, shaking my head. Like that would stop Landon if he really wanted to get to the airport to follow Dirk to Germany. He was trying to support this trip for Dirk and do it from afar instead of pushing himself into the situation, which was a positive. I knew what was at stake with Dirk’s trip, and Landon following him there could be the spark for the powder keg.

“I’ll give him back his keys once you land,” Heath said to Dirk, ignoring my comment with a smile. “He’ll be in a better place once you land, and we know Niko hasn’t killed you on sight. You still have a plan for trouble, right?” We had gone over every variation and possibility. There were backup plans for the backup plans.

“I have a ticket just in case it doesn’t go well,” Dirk said, chuckling sadly. I could smell his fear. “If there’s any sign he and I can’t talk about this, I’ll just turn around and get on a plane back.”

“Yeah, he won’t attack in an airport,” I said softly, the reality of this weighing heavily on me. I wanted to keep him here and protect him from even the possibility of Niko rejecting him. I wanted to send him home and tell him to go back to bed with Landon because it was too early. I wanted to go with him to make sure Niko couldn’t get the wrong idea.

In my heart, Dirk was mine. My head told a different story as logic warred with emotion. He was Niko’s. My brother had raised him and loved him as a father loves a son.

There are some things I can’t protect him from. No matter how much I want to, I can’t protect him from Niko. I have to trust both of them. And Zuri. Zuri said this would be fine, and I have to have some faith in that.

Dirk’s identity as a werewolf was too big to keep a secret forever, so this trip had to happen to free him, me, and so many others from the potential of exposing it in the wrong way. Dirk needed his father to support him, and every time it was brought up, I could see on his face that hewantedhis father’s support.

We finished breakfast and loaded into my vehicle. I didn’t drive. Too tired to want to be behind the wheel. It was a long drive to the airport.

“While we’re at the airport, do you finally want to make a decision about the private—”

“No,” I mumbled, shaking my head as I cut Heath off. “It can sit in whatever storage it’s taking up for now.” There were a good number of things I had won in my ‘war’ against the Dallas pack a year ago. Their private plane was one of those things, and one I wasn’t sure what to do with. I knew I could sell it, but I didn’t pull the trigger. After we defeated the pack, I asked Heath to make sure its paperwork was updated with me and him as the new owners, but that was as far as I got.

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