Page 60 of Escalating Alpha

“You are too fair sometimes,” Summer praised? No, probably chastised.

“I have nothing to hide. Just because I won’t let people inspect me doesn’t mean I’m hiding things. No one just lets others inspect without a valid reason. It’s stupid.” I gestured to the wolves from NYC. “For now, one of my other packs sent help to stabilize the pack until we can get teams from Greece here in the short term. From there, we will decide the long-term plan.”

“You mean put in another Alpha like you have in multiple packs,” Summer clarified.

“Yes, and I’m very particular who I will let be the leader andshieldto wolves who now are mine,” I said firmly. “It took months and months to find the right fit in South Dakota. Dozensof interviews and background checks—both here and in Greece. There were several possible Alpha families I considered.”

“I don’t think people knew that,” she admitted. “I didn’t.”

“Too many don’t care, and others fill in the blanks or give answers for me that are incorrect. That’s why I wanted you here. I want you to see first-hand how this all goes down. I want you to see the process and how many problems we’ll uncover these wolves didn’t deserve. And my people will clean it up and handle it—help in their free time.”

“I thought the FBI brought in a team last time?”

“For the crimes part, yes,” I clarified. “The harassment and more we’ll find. But a lot of it—the FBI can’t afford all of the hours. The non-human office has put incountlessextra hours to help their fellow supes—fellow citizens who have been unfairly treated. Even the regular FBI. Several offices have helped us. It’s why Chicago also always helps them.”

“I’ve heard whispers that your office is the office to go to when any sort of intelligence translation is needed.”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but we help other offices with transcripts and interviews. I have ancient vampires who receive no extra pay or monetary compensation but immediately video call in and translate for witnesses and more. That’s a community, and we do it all for the right reasons. Not corruption. Not money. Not—whatever the lie is this week.”

Something hit me and I sighed, looking over at Harris who was coming in for the FBI side of this. He nodded. “I already left a message with IA that they’d need to interview you and get it out of the way.”

I opened my mouth to say something snarky and to not kid himself that it would be one of our nice Chicago IA agents and not someone from DC. “Since I did this as Alpha Sera, Special Agent in Charge Harris will be handling the FBI part. I do notplay both sides and use my badge to enrich myself. I have a life besides the FBI. I can’t help that.”

“No, but you do your best to make sure that everyone is crystal clear they’re being treated fairly and much better than a lot of us have in our lives, Alpha,” Harris said firmly. “I do need you to walk me through what happened and she can record and we’ll see if it will get cleared later.”

“Even the gore?” I checked. I shrugged when he nodded. I couldn’t say he was the one in charge and then overrule him.

And Harris had wanted us to do something like this for a long,longtime. He hated the way I got beat up all of the time. He said I tried too damn hard to always take so much abuse.

I was a very blessed woman with a lot of good friends.

Except I realized that I didn’t have a good excuse as to why I’d killed the Alpha. I mean we weren’t going to tell Summer either way, but… I kinda needed one for the FBI. Either way, it was legal through the council.

But for my sanity, I needed a real fucking reason besides I had a bad temper.

Reagan held off Summer for a minute and brought Harris and his team off to the side with Freddie and the council guys. “The Alpha was being ridiculous and sounded so unhinged—”

“It was really disturbing,” Freddie added. “But it was when he threatened the Alpha’s son that she killed him. He said he was going to come to Chicago and take him to be raised under a real Alpha so he could grow up a man, not a pussy. She killed him then.”

Had that been what he’d said? Did I even realize that?

No, but my wolf had. She filled me with the same anger I’d felt before I’d killed the Alpha.

There were perks to having other sides to me. They paid attention when I needed to tune out.

“Sera?” Harris checked.

I opened my mouth but then sighed. “My wolf is saying yes. Me, Sera—it was like my ears were ringing and—ya know?”

Tanner snorted. “Yeah, we know.”

Summer came over and I walked them all through what happened from taking the Alpha’s heart to what happened with the six Betas. Mostly.

I looked at Reagan and Freddie a few times. “You get that guy or me?”

“If they’re tossed that far away, you did, Sera,” Freddie drawled. “I’m not that coordinated to punt a person.”

Good to know. Though I thought he was being modest.

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