Page 36 of Escalating Alpha

A second US president was arrested and kicked out of office by the twenty-fifth amendment. Oh, but his wife was arrested this time too.

The best part? The ultimate best part? They were going to the shifter council prison since it was a crime against me and the son of an Alpha. I was almost panicked then, but Eva gave me a look that I was silly.

“What am I missing?” I muttered, my heart racing too fast.

“That everyone involved wants that man gone, Seraphine. You are too honest and good, but the rest of us will play dirtyevery single time when our family is involved. Plus, Alena spoke with the council on her plans for Igwe’s money. It’s all for shifters, and they will be grateful when we could have kept it for our family. The vampires are for making someone else take the blame.”

Brian showed up at my door later looking conflicted.

“I know,” I said quietly. “But they would have had no problem with someone killing Topher. I can step aside and let them take out a threat like that against our son.”

He bobbed his head as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m more upset that I’m okay with this. I think I need to hear if this is—am I like this now because I’m a wolf?”

“No, because you’re a father,” Eva said from the kitchen. “You got your ‘papa bear’ instincts as I hear it called here. That has nothing to do with your wolf. Your wolf will simply help you settle with your conflicted side.”

I was glad when he accepted it. I would have to as well.

“You want to stay?” I asked when he didn’t seem like he wanted to leave. “We’re just going to talk about Tasha Perez and the idea—how to make it work. We can’t—Perez is in limbo and—”

“Everything is a mess,” he sighed. “Thanks. I just can’t take sitting in my apartment right now and staring at the wall while thinking about this. I’ve already worked out. My wolf had a run. I’ve cleaned. Topher’s sleeping. I just need…”

I nodded. I knew the feeling. I was honestly a bit jealous and bitter that he didn’t have stacks and stacks of too much to go through like I did and his promotion was so much less work for him.

Which is how he got stuck reviewing a bunch of bullshit for me and actually thanked me for the distraction. That worked out well and in my favor.

Laila liked the idea of having a human in charge of our non-profits and definitely stepping up on them. We needed to get the message out and do more. We should be having more fundraisers and—all of the stuff we never had enough time for. A face for it all that wasn’t constantly mine or hers because we were also leaders.

She wanted to meet Tasha first and I thought that was more than fair. She promised no court games and asked to visit so we could just have a nice time, see the setup in Chicago better, and make sure the fit could work.

Again, more than fair.

We talked salary and benefits. I wanted to structure the whole thing so she could have a week in Chicago or where we needed her and a week where her husband was at whatever office he was working on renovations and updates for. There was no reason she couldn’t work out of the hotel room or even get cleared for a spare FBI office to make this work.

Or hotels had business lounges and extra perks for travelers.Something, right?

Laila agreed and thought it was a good way to get her some meetings with local supes. People didn’t want to meet with her as the big boss or even me with how much power I had or being in law enforcement. I was tight with members of both councils and my mom ran Greece—queen of the wolves to most.

We were intimidating. Tasha would not be, so while we needed to protect her, she could get us information that we could use to promote this and that about local packs and areas. It was a smart pitch and way to make it work.

We went back and forth on salary. I was shocked that Laila was being cheap, but it turned out she thought the use of our private jets for all of the travel Tasha would be doing was included, plus we were going to give her security.

Then her salary was generous. Very. I was good with that because it was sort of an all-in job and there would always be piles of work to do. It definitely wasn’t a typical forty-hour work week, and she would be getting so much off the ground that it would be migraine-inducing.

By then it was time for the joint full moon event and we headed out. I called Tasha on the way and told her where we were at, being honest about the compensation even and our ideas how to make this work. She was honest that she hoped there was a way it could be worked that she could have more time with her stupid,stupidhusband since they didn’t have kids.

Yeah, Perez was going to be in the doghouse for a long time.

I really didn’t blame Tasha, but it also wasn’t Perez’s fault. Galvin needed to grovel. For real. Did he want everyone around him to be miserable because his marriage blew up? That was his burden for picking a psycho.

Fine, I was salty.

We were doing a cookout since the first day of the lunar cycle was on the weekend. Nothing big or like the huge catered parties we’d had. No, we had a ton of grills and smokers in one of the sheds now, so we just brought them out and everyone brought food to share.

Well, noteveryone.

I felt the tension when I arrived and it took me two seconds to understand why. I went right to the “Alpha” of the pack from Springfield. Normally, I didn’t look down on packs or leaders, but calling it a pack was a bit much when there were two dozen of them… At most.

When it was wolves at least. Fine, that was the normal pride size for cats, but for us, that was just wolves living somewhere.

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