Page 17 of Escalating Alpha

“We could get lucky and it could be nothing.”

“Thomas, you are amazing at your job, but one thing you are is never lucky.”

“Hey, that’s what I said!” I mocked, shrugging when everyone gave me a range of looks.

“Spit it out before I get an ulcer,” he grumbled. He tried to hide his cussing when we told him. “Thomas, the First Lady will have a field day with this. You will lose—I don’t even know what this will do to the court case you just filed against my ex-wife, and I need you to win so I get full custody of my kids.”

I shared a look with Eva and she nodded. “Scott, are you worried about the safety of your kids?”

“Physically? No, but I’m—my son has made a few comments about giving up hope. My daughter… I’m afraid she might already become my ex-wife and I missed the warning signs. I didn’t know she was this fucking nuts though. She just seemed too jealous and rigid. I didn’t…”

“Close your eyes and I will make sure things go well,” Eva promised. “From one parent to another who missed too much about their own children trying to protect too many people. I understand your pain and regret. More than you know. Close your eyes and let me help.”

Knowing she carried that pain and Galvin was now hurt, but seeing that she said it while keeping Mauro’s gaze was—there weren’t words for it. I saw some of his pain heal right there. Not a lot. It had been too many years, but I saw some of it heal.

“I’ll take it because I’m not being self-inflated when I say this country cannot take me stepping aside when I’m holding the dam together,” he muttered. “I always believe the position is bigger than one person, but—things are too far gone.”

I agreed with that. So did Brian. We needed Eva to handle this.

This one time we could cheat.

Gods forgive us when we swore to uphold the law, but it was to do the right thing by kids… And Eva hadn’t made that promise.

5

“Your mother killed Igwe,” Helmer told me Monday at lunch.

“What?” I gasped.

“It gets worse,” he warned.

“Oh, I’m sure it does,” I chuckled darkly, slowly sinking to sit. “I need a minute. I’m overloaded.”

I’d been waiting for the call to tell me what was going on. Instead, the ancients with the FBI came racing to my office and told me that I had to step outside so we could talk.

Which went over really well with everyone who heard that. No, of course not, and I was sure someone was going to catch wind of this in DC, but there was no way we should discuss a lot of issuesinthat building. It wasn’t remotely as safe as the non-human FBI office.

Plus, they were also lax on security since they relied on being supes so much.

I let out a slow breath. “Igwe ordered the hit on me, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Helmer answered, realizing this was going to be more twenty questions as I processed. Normally, I handled news better than this, but I was overloaded and their worry was practically slapping me all over, so I knew this got bad.

And was going to overload me more.

“Did she make sure the hit will be called off before she killed him?”

“Yes.”

Well, that was good. Okay, good. “She get me any of the other hitters or issues?”

“Yes.”

Even better. “He assumed she wasn’t all of the hype and would never catch special awesome vamp him with his extra large penis or whatever bullshit and she walked right in and busted him, right?”

“Yes.”

I snorted. Of course she did. Alena was awesome like that. I blew out another slow breath. At least the hit would be rescinded. We had sensors and cameras on those rooftops now. We had cameras pointing at them as well so we could check anytime we wanted.

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