27. Grey

27

GREY

M y final thread of control snaps. With a roar, I drop the blade and swing my fist at my former friend. Ramsey jumps back just in time, his eyes widening.

"Grey, wait?—"

I swing again, this time smashing my fist into his face, and he goes down, landing against the couch cushions before rolling awkwardly to the floor. The others crowd back in again after moving aside.

"Grey, stop," Mia calls, but I ignore her, my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

Reaching down, I roll Ramsey over and slam my fist into his nose. Blood erupts on his face, coating my hand.

"Wait a second," Ramsey yells. He covers his face with his arms, attempting to twist away from me.

He's not even trying to fight back, and that pisses me off more.

"Traitor," I yell at him.

My blood boils. I need an outlet for the fury that's been brewing the last few hours. A proper fight. Not this curled-up bullshit he's giving me.

"Get up," I tell Ramsey, stepping back to give him space.

He continues trying to collect himself but not fast enough. I kick him, and he winces, rolling over in pain.

"Get the fuck up," I say again.

"Give me a minute," Ramsey says, voice muffled now that he's face down on the carpet.

"You have ten seconds," I warn.

"Grey, fucking wait," Razor says. "We need to talk."

"This one's done talking," I say, glowering at Ramsey. "For good."

He looks up at me then, and I can see he's finally starting to realize how serious I am. "Okay, just hang on a fucking minute." He gets to his feet and faces off with me, his bloodied nose staining the lower half of his face. "There's something you need to know. Where's Lexi?"

I was starting to calm down, but her name from his mouth makes that impossible. When I lunge for him again, hands grab at my arms, pulling me back.

Furious, I struggle and strain until Mia steps in front of me, blotting out Ramsey's face.

"Get out of my way," I tell her.

"No," she says firmly. "We need to hear what he has to say. If you still want to kill him afterward, that's your right." Her eyes blaze with fury, and I can see she means it. She's just as upset as I am, but we need to know what information he's fed the enemy. And how badly it hurts us.

Fuck.

"There's nothing he can say that will change what he did," I snarl.

"You're right, but this is about what Franco knows," she says. "About you as an alpha. About our plans. About all of it."

I stop struggling and study her warily. The arms holding me ease their grip. Mia simply waits for me to respond. I glance past her to Ramsey, who's holding his hand to his bloodied nose and scowling.

Grudgingly, I cross my arms. "Talk fast."

"Franco approached me about a year ago," he says slowly. "He wanted information on your dad. I refused at first, but…" He looks away.

"But what?" I prompt. "You couldn't help but betray your own pack?"

His eyes flash. "You weren't fucking here, okay? You ran away and left us to deal with the fucking mess you left behind. So I did what I could do stop Vincenzo from making our lives worse."

"What the fuck, man?" Dutch says. "We were supposed to be brothers."

"Bullshit. We were barely speaking after Grey left," Ramsey says accusingly. "I stepped up. Did what needed to be done. Franco almost got an assassin into Vincenzo's bedroom because of me."

"Wait. That attack at the estate was you?" Mia asks incredulously.

"What attack?" I demand.

"Last year," she says quietly. "Your mom was the only one home. She managed to hide in the panic room until backup got there."

I look from her back to him. "You almost got my mother killed?" I snarl.

He glares at me, defensive and unyielding. "She wasn't supposed to be there. It was supposed to be the alpha alone."

"Wow, in that case, totally fine," Dutch snaps sarcastically.

"You're fucking dead," Razor says darkly.

"She's fine," Ramsey declares. "She wasn't hurt."

"But she could have been," I yell. "Because of you!"

"I'm sorry," he says, but the sullen look in his eyes says otherwise.

"You're only sorry we found out," Mia says. "Ugh. You disgust me."

"So, you've been pulling strings like some fucking puppet master for a year and then what? Then Lexi came to town, and you found a fellow rat to team up with," I say, my voice twisting with barely restrained rage.

"What? No." His expression is hard, but his words ring true as he says, "Believe me, Lexi wasn't my first choice, but Franco insisted. Actually, Dom suggested her, come to think of it, but the old man ran with the idea. I had no choice but to bring her in."

I'm glad all over again that I killed Dom tonight. "What did you and Lexi tell Franco?"

"Nothing," he says, shaking his head. "Or nothing that would hurt you."

"Bullshit."

"Look, I fed him stuff about Vincenzo for a while but nothing since you got back."

"Betrayal is betrayal," I say.

He snorts, shaking his head. "That's fucking rich coming from you. I know what you did five years ago, and it's no better than what I'm doing now."

Anger burns in my veins. "I tried to stop a monster who destroys lives," I snap. "I never betrayed any of you."

"You abandoned us for something better. Isn't that just as bad?"

I take a step forward, but Mia stops me. "Let him finish," she says grimly.

Ramsey sighs. "Look, when you got back, I stopped telling them stuff, and Franco got pissed. He compelled me, okay? I didn't have a fucking choice after that."

"And Lexi?" Mia prompts when I don't answer.

"They threatened to kill her if she didn't agree. Matter of fact, she still refused even then. She only finally gave in when they threatened to kill you instead."

Mia looks at me pointedly, but I don't react. I don't know how to feel about what he's saying. It's all too fucking much to process.

Ramsey. Lexi.

It's hard to separate who did what and why anymore.

Even if Lexi was forced, she could've come to me afterward. She could've trusted me.

"Why didn't you try harder to tell us?" Dutch demands.

He's pissed. I hear it in his voice. See it in the way he's trembling, trying to maintain his control. If he loses it, I won't stop him.

"I never meant for it to get this far," Ramsey says. "As soon as I realized something happened tonight, I came clean."

"You're still not saying much as far I'm concerned," Razor says in a hard voice. His hands are fisted, and I can feel the heat emanating from him.

He wants Ramsey's blood.

So do I.

"You want us to believe you didn't sell us out, give us something," Crow says with disgust. "Otherwise, you might as well be Franco's fucking lap dog."

Ramsey flinches. "Okay, okay. Last time I was at Franco's place, I overheard Santiago and Conrad talking," Ramsey says quickly. "They said the reason Franco abandoned Lexi to the human world was because his experiment failed."

"What experiment?" I ask.

"Franco has some research lab no one else know about. Years ago, he experimented on Monte somehow."

"Franco's son?" Crow asks.

Ramsey nods.

"What kind of experiment?" Dutch asks.

Ramsey shrugs. "Something to do with increasing his alpha power. I don't know. It didn't work, I guess, so he decided to try it on the next generation."

"Lexi," Mia says, her voice a mixture of horror and disbelief. "He experimented on her?"

Ramsey nods. "She was a baby, I think. Anyway, when Monte and Carina found out, they took Lexi and ran. Franco hunted them down, but he realized his experiment failed again, which is why he didn't bother to take her in."

"What exactly did he do to her?" I demand.

Ramsey shakes his head. "I don't know. None of it made sense to me at the time, and I honestly didn't see how it could be important if it had failed. But then the other day, I heard Dom complaining to Santiago about the Giovanni super-alpha gene. He said he could never compete as long as the gene was alive. That the only way Franco would ever name him as the heir was if Lexi was gone. Tonight, when I heard you weren't answering your phone, I got worried." He shakes his head. "I'm sorry, dude. I didn't want to keep this from you, but the compulsion?—"

"Stop talking," I tell him.

He goes silent, his expression tense.

"A gene," I say, turning it over in my mind. "A way to create a super-alpha…" I look at the others, who all look as mystified as I am. What's in it for Franco if Lexi's the powerful one? Other than securing his bloodline as alpha. It doesn't add up.

I look back at Ramsey. His nose has stopped bleeding, but half his face is stained with blood. The scent of it on the air only feeds my desire to spill more of it.

He's a traitor.

It doesn't matter that he changed his mind when I got here. I can't trust him anymore, and that cuts me almost as deeply as Lexi's betrayal. I've known Ramsey my whole life. We all have. This is so beyond fucked up.

The others are quiet, waiting to hear what I'll do next.

"Look at me," I say, wrapping my hand around Ramsey's throat and holding his gaze. "Who's your alpha?"

"You are," he says with more confusion than conviction.

"Say it," I snap.

He blinks, frowning, but does what I ask. "You, Jericho Grey Diavolo, are my alpha."

"You pledge your loyalty to me?"

"Uh, are you sure you want him in the pack?" Dutch starts.

"I think you need the blade if you're going to pledge officially," Razor says.

I look at Ramsey, ignoring them both. "Just answer the question."

"Yes," he says hoarsely.

"In that case," I say then lean in, whispering the words that will suppress his wolf, just like my father did to me. "Lupus Muto."

"What are you doing?" he asks, rearing away from me as his entire body shudders. He looks stricken now, bordering on panic. "Why?—"

"Dutch, Razor, get some zip ties from the kitchen drawer," I order without breaking eye contact.

I let him go, and Ramsey backs away, looking past me at the others with mounting fear. "What are you doing?" he demands. "I told you the truth."

"I know," I say, because even if the hex blade hadn't broken the compulsion, the moment he pledged himself to me as his alpha, my wolf could sense it on him. Even without the full oath, our connection is that strong. But it's not enough to erase what he's done.

"Then why are you doing this?" He keeps moving back until he hits the wall.

Crow crowds in on my other side, probably to make sure he doesn't run for it. Not that there's anywhere for him to go. We'd be on him in a second.

"Because in this pack, we don't tolerate rats," I tell him.

The fear in his eyes burns bright with acceptance. "I didn't hurt you."

"Yeah," I snap, grabbing his shirt and jerking him forward before shoving him down, "you did."

He stumbles, landing hard on his ass. Still, he hasn't tried to fight me. Part of me hopes he will, but if he does, I'll kill him, and I'm not sure I'm ready for that. Not after the night I've had.

Dutch and Razor appear with zip ties in their hands.

"Wrists and ankles," I say, nodding at Ramsey on the ground.

He doesn't even struggle as they bind him.

When they're finished, Mia comes up next to me. She looks down at Ramsey then over at me. I wait, wondering if she's going to advocate for the asshole. For all her shit-talking, she has a huge heart.

"You're dead to me," she tells him viciously. Then she turns away.

"Put him in my room," I say. "Turn music on maximum volume so he can't hear us. And someone needs to stay with him to guard him."

"I've got it," Crow says, stepping past Dutch and Razor. He grabs Ramsey by his shirt and hauls him up. Then he shoves Ramsey toward the master bedroom.

I whirl and head for the fridge, snagging a bottle of water and chugging the entire thing. By the time the bottle is empty, my bedroom door is shut and music's blaring from inside.

I return to the living room where Razor, Dutch, and Mia are all watching me with concern. For a moment, I think it's about Ramsey's confession.

"Where's Lexi?" Mia asks. "Does your dad know she was spying? Did he do something to her?"

My chest tightens. Ramsey and Lexi's betrayals are a double-blow that has me barely hanging on. I don't want to care about either one of them. Still, I ball my hands into fists as I think about her locked up at my dad's estate. "No. He doesn't know. But after what I did to Dom, he's keeping Lexi at his place until the wedding."

"Hell no," Dutch says, shoving off from where he'd leaned against the back of the couch. "I don't care what Franco forced her to do. She can't stay there."

"Dutch is right," Mia says. "Lexi deserves a chance to explain."

The two of them look ready to storm the estate with or without me, so I hold up a hand. "She already confirmed it."

"Wait." Mia blinks. "You knew she was spying already?"

"Dom told me."

No one says anything as my words sink in.

"No wonder you fucking snapped," Razor mutters finally.

Mia looks at me with an intensity that's hard to bear. "She's still your mate," she says. "And she's in danger with him."

"My father wants this wedding to happen, so it's in his best interests to keep her alive."

Mia's eyes widen. "So you're okay with her being locked up there?"

Exhaustion sinks all the way into my bones. I run a hand over my face. "Nothing about this is okay."

"No shit." Razor glances toward the bedroom then back to me. "Do you think Ramsey's story is true? About Franco's experiments?"

"My wolf tells me he's not lying," I say quietly.

"Do you think your dad knows about it?" Mia asks suddenly.

I frown, remembering how weird he was in the suite earlier. And all his questions about Lexi's medical history. "It's possible."

"If Franco experimented on Lexi's wolf, it would explain why he kept her alive," Mia adds.

Franco.

The asshole's been playing me from the beginning. Using me. Since day one.

Here I was looking outside the city for someone who might've helped Lexi's parents escape. Instead, I should've been looking at why they'd run in the first place. The answers were right here inside Indigo Hills all along.

"What are we going to do with him?" Mia asks, jutting her chin toward my bedroom.

"Take him to the warehouse. Make a schedule to keep an eye on him. No one else in or out. No one can know we've broken the compulsion."

"What do we tell your old man?" Razor asks. "You don't think he'll notice a general's son's missing?"

"Charlie knows Ramsey's a fucking mess. He said so at the church," I say. "No way the generals are going to invite him in. Besides, after what happened tonight, they have their hands full with a coverup, so they won't notice if he's not around the next few days."

"What about his aunt Sylvia?" Mia asks. When none of us answer, she says, "I'll go over and tell her he's staying with me for a few days to grieve."

"Thanks," I say, walking around them and dropping to the couch. "Wake me up in a few hours, would you?" My eyes immediately fall shut.

"Grey?" Crow calls softly. "What are you going to do about Lexi?"

The others are silent. I don't bother to open my eyes or face them as I consider his question. I could reject her. Let my father have her and the title when the time comes. But giving Lexi up doesn't stop the corruption. And it doesn't erase what my father's done. What he'll do if I don't stop him.

No matter what Lexi did to me, I can't let my father win.

But that's not what he's asking.

We all know I'm determined to beat him. He's asking if I still want her.

"Honestly," I say, my insides hollowing as the loss burrows deeper inside me. "I have no fucking clue."