Page 44 of The Alpha's Second Chance Mate

“I don’t like that tone in your voice. Something wrong?”

“You could say that,” I said. “Get here as soon as you can.”

“I’m on it.”

He arrived ten minutes later, still in his work clothes.

“What’s the big damn hurry?” he said as he walked in to join us in the living room.

“You know how the pack finances are shit?” I said.

Trent nodded, brows furrowed. “Yeah. What’s up? Did you figure out why?”

I proceeded to tell him everything. Dad’s gambling, the loan, my theory that he’d leveraged the pack businesses, and my fear that he was going to do something dangerous to force us to pay up. He took in the information in a much more stoic way than Farrah had, simply nodding along while eyeing the floor.

“This fucker needs to be dealt with,” he said.

“That’s what I think,” I replied. “We can’t pay him. There’s literally not enough money for that. Fuck, I had to pay Maria Blankenship’s electric bill with my own credit card today. The problem is, I have no idea how to find this guy to negotiate.”

“Let me work on it,” Trent said. “Do you have a description?”

“Ugly, around forty years old.” I shrugged. “Call Avery. She’s the one who spoke to him in person. She’ll have a better description.”

“Got it,” Trent said. “Kyle Alexander.” He spoke the name as if rolling it over in his mind. “Gonna find your ass, my man.”

“Just be careful,” I said.

Trent pointed at me and Farrah. “You two are the ones who need to be careful. My last name isn’t Garrett.”

I glanced at my watch. It was almost noon. “Damn! I gotta go. I’m supposed to pick up Ash in a few minutes. I’m taking him to Al’s diner for lunch.”

“See you later,” Trent said. “I think you’re okay. Those two had barely gotten out of bed when I showed up a couple hours ago, and they weren’t moving too fast when I left.”

I rushed out to my truck and headed for Avery’s house. The entire trip, I thought about when we’d spoken a couple of days before, and the look I’d seen in her eyes. As much as I didn’t want to get my hopes up, I wanted to make the best of the situation.

When I got there, I was happy to see the camera Trent had installed above the front door. It made me feel a little better about Ashton and Avery’s safety. I knocked, and it took a few moments for Avery to open the door.

“Hey,” she said. “Sorry, I almost forgot the code Trent gave me to disarm this thing.”

I smiled at her. “That’s fine. How do you like it? Trent wasn’t too intrusive, was he?”

She ran a hand through her hair, and I noticed she wasn’t looking me in the eyes. “It was fine. He was only inside for twenty minutes. The rest of the time, he was outside installing cameras and in the crawlspace, doing some wiring or something.” She turned and called into the house. “Ash? Come on, Cole’s here.”

“Be right there,” he answered.

“Are you guys having a good morning?” I asked, trying to make small talk.

She finally looked at me and smiled. “Summer. We slept late. You’ll probably need to feed him. Between getting up late, the security system, and some work I had to get done this morning, we haven’t had time to eat breakfast.”

I suppressed a grin, seeing my chance to be a good guy and also take care of her.

“Go get dressed,” I said. “I’ll take you both out for lunch.”

“Sweet,” Ashton said as he emerged from the hallway. “Where are we going?”

Avery, looking flustered, shook her head. “Oh, no, you guys go. I’ll have some toast or something.”

“Nah.” I grinned at her. “You deserve a nice, hot meal. Let’s go. I insist.”

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