Page 68 of Wulf's Pack
She doesn’t finish that sentence, but she doesn’t need to. “We did as much as we could,” Skylar says, swallowing a lump of emotions.
I hug her again, knowing she wishes she could have saved all of Samuel’s prisoners. I don’t think she blames herself for not being able to bring the bear or the coyote back, but I know she hates that she couldn’t. “You did more than we could have asked for. Try not to dwell on what we couldn’t control.”
Skylar nods and tries to focus on the present. “You wanted to show us some plans?” she asks Matt, as if she needs the distraction to keep her from thinking dark thoughts.
Matt happily jumps in. He motions to Preston, who moves his laptop, making room on the small card table for Matt to unroll his drawings. “Here’s what we’ve done so far.” The first paper is an outline of the floor plan of the main floor of the warehouse. He points to the offices we’re standing in that are located beneath the upstairs apartment. “This office and the one next door were already in good shape. We figured this office would be a good Alpha office, and the one next door could be for the pack secretary.”
I nod. I hadn’t thought about needing a pack office, but he’s right that I do. He’s also right about needing a pack secretary. We definitely need one of those.
Matt points to the conference room next. “Obviously we knocked out walls between the other three offices to make the conference room, but there was a storage room behind them that was easy to knock out as well, so we were able to extend the room back another twelve feet to make it a bit bigger. It’s a good-size space now.”
“Great. I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”
Elise laughs. “More than you know.” She waves off my curious look. “I’ll explain in a minute. In fact, you should pull upa couple of chairs. I’m going to need you to stick around for a while.”
Now I’mreallycurious, but I hold back my questions and grab a couple of chairs for Skylar and myself. Matt doesn’t bother to sit, but he waits for us to settle in before continuing with his plan.
“You know the office near the front of the building where you’ve got your security system set up in right now?” he asks, pointing out the space on the drawing.
“Yeah.”
“I’d like to convert that space into a welcome/reception area for when we have guests. And then there’s room over here to expand the locker rooms. Thought that might be a good idea if you’re going to keep the gym open for pack use.”
His insight is impressive. I wouldn’t have thought of that, but those locker rooms are small, not much more than a bathroom with a shower and a changing bench and a couple lockers. When I had the place renovated, I planned for having the odd guest, but I never expected I’d be accommodating large groups. “Good thinking. If we’ve got the room, let’s do it. But don’t we need the office up front for a security office? Carl’s going to need a place to set up.”
Matt shuffles the drawing of the main floor, replacing it with another floor plan. “We can leave it there if you’d like, but you’d have more room if you move it to the basement.”
I look at the new drawing and recognize it as the basement. “It would be a bit of a project,” Matt says, “but if you want to finish out the basement, you can almost double your square footage of this building. This could be the new security office, and we could add a small vault and a holding cell. It would be back out of the way here, and we could make it secure with a reinforced door so that only authorized personnel could go in and out. Then, here, we can create a few more offices. We’llneed an accounting office, a maintenance office, and probably one or two others that I haven’t thought of. We can also put in a couple of guest suites. And finally, this area here could be a huge entertainment/recreation room with a kitchen and eating area. This could be a really great pack house.”
I blink down at the plans, feeling a little overwhelmed. It’s an amazing setup, but looking at it really makes the fact that I’m an alpha with a pack to run hit home. Pulling my shoulders back as if fortifying myself to not collapse under the weight falling on them, I take a deep breath and nod. “I like it, but I’m not sure how much of it we can do right now. We don’t exactly have the funds for it, and we’ve really got to focus on getting living accommodations set up first.”
“Well…actually…” Preston says, hesitating with a sheepish expression.
When I wait for him to finish, he slides a glance at Elise. She shrugs and gives him an encouraging smile. He makes a face that seems to say,Okay, then, and meets my gaze. “We received an anonymous donation two days ago. It was deposited directly into our new pack account.”
My brows fly up. “Money just showed up in our account?”
Preston nods slowly. “Even the bank didn’t know where it came from. It was almost like the account was hacked.”
Suspicion creeps in, and I narrow my eyes. It’s not a coincidence that I have a brand-new pack and somehow someone randomly deposited money into my bank account when I haven’t even registered the pack with the FUA yet. Only a handful of people would know there is a pack account at all, and several of those people are obscenely wealthy and extremely loyal. Another one of those friends just happens to have the computer skills to pull something like that off. “How much?” I ask, almost afraid of the answer.
Judging by the strange look on Preston’s face, I’m not hiding my wariness very well. “Um…” He scrapes his teeth over his top lip. “Three million dollars.”
I choke. “Three million dollarsjust showed up in our bank account?”
What the hell am I supposed to do with that? It could only have been Terrance, Illren, or Parker. Or maybe the three of them went in on it together? A million apiece? I know that’s hardly a drop in the bucket for any of them, but how can I possibly accept such a generous gift?
Preston, still biting his lip, nods. “We haven’t touched it. We didn’t know what you’d want to do with it. But I’ve looked into it and spoken to the bank. It’s a completely anonymous donation, and it’s already in our possession. And since it just appeared, we can’t return it. There’s nowhere to return it to.”
My gut fills with irritation while my heart fills with gratitude. “Those idiots,” I growl.
Matt, Elise, and Preston all exchange small smiles. Elise clears her throat. “I asked your clan about it, but none of them fessed up.”
I snort. “I’m sure they didn’t.”
“What would you like me to do, sir?” Preston asks. “If you don’t want to keep it, I can turn it over to the FUA or find a charity.”
I sigh. “No. We need the funds, and as much as I want to strangle them, they did it because they care. I don’t want to reject their generosity. Just make sure it’s all legal or whatever. We don’t want to be flagged by the IRS.”
