Chapter 32: Jamie

32

JAMIE

T his feels so wrong.

My wolf pleads with me to go back upstairs before someone finds me down here, and I get myself in a whole load of trouble. Again. But realistically it’s already too late for that.

He locked you in here. He’s strung you along. It’s his own fault, I tell myself. But that annoying voice inside, my conscience, says I should have just made myself a snack and had that nap because I’ve ransacked the place, and so far, it’s all been for nothing.

Panic bubbles up inside me. There’ll be no coming back from this.

I flex my fingers by my side to dispel the nervous energy building up inside me. My entire body trembles.

Filled with self-loathing, I’m unable to stop myself, driven on by the insatiable need to find something to prove he’s a horrible person hiding a deep, dark secret about my mother. That he’s the bad guy here, not me.

This might be our last chance to find out something about what happened to her, because Dean sure as hell doesn’t seem eager to help.

After Maya left, I’d just about convinced myself that Dean was a good man, and that whatever reason he had for keeping my mother’s location a secret, must be a good one. I’d give him until the end of the games, hard as that might be, and then judge him based on what happens.

Maybe she still needs to be protected. Maybe she’s in a hospital getting long-term care. We’d waited years to see her, a few days more wouldn’t be the end of the world.

But then, I saw it. A picture sitting on a side table, of three smiling siblings, one peering out from a face looking strikingly similar to a young Wyatt.

And then, the truth hit me like a sledgehammer. I was so stupid, allowing myself to believe that I belong here. This isn’t my pack, and these people aren’t my friends. And that man is most definitely not the kind I should be pining for.

For as long as I can remember, Graham Reynolds was the boogie man. He stole our mother, kept her from us, maybe even killed her. Then, I realised it was Dean keeping her from me.

But now I know it’s not just about my mother.

I’ve spent years alone. Wyatt is the only person I have, and if he wins this damn competition, I’ll have to share him. But it’d be worth it because we’d gain so much more. A new life. Friends. A community where we’d belong again.

But right here, in Dean’s pack, kept secret from me by the man who made me come just mere hours before, are more members of my real family, that I could have been with all this time. And he fucking knew. The entire time. And he kept it from me.

I have a brother. A half-brother, but blood, nonetheless.

Closing my eyes, the betrayal cuts deep.

Finding my family is all I've cared about for so long, and he’s keeping them from me. I can’t let it go.

My wolf whimpers, still wanting to cling to the version of him we were falling for. But Dean knows me and Wyatt did nothing to deserve becoming outcasts, that we’re good people, and still, he kept his mouth shut.

The pain in my chest is crushing. I curse myself for letting him get under my skin. I’m nothing but a filthy rogue to these people, what else did I expect? He probably doesn’t want his brother’s name to be tainted by being related to us.

Reformed pack, my ass. He’s just as bad as his father.

In a rage-filled frenzy, I keep searching while I have the chance. Dean could be back at any minute, and I need to know if he’s hiding any more dark secrets.

Alpha Steel is going to know just who he’s left in charge here. I’m going to prove that it’s all an act.

Or that was the plan when I started tearing through his house.

Laughing bitterly, I step into Dean’s lair. His scent is so strong, that my wolf immediately sits up and starts to pay attention. It’s ingrained in every surface. He clearly spends a lot of time hidden away down here. I remember back to my time in his official packhouse office and how faint his scent was.

That one’s for show. This is where he really works.

There are photos on the walls of him and Maya, some serious and tense looking ones from when they were younger, with a woman behind them who must be his birth mother. Her arms stretch around them protectively, and I see spirit in her eyes. She died not too long before Alpha Reynolds met my mother. The questions hanging over her death were the reason my mother left us behind, or so we think.

Graham Reynolds insisted she was a troubled woman who took her own life. Seeing how things turned out, I sincerely doubt that was the case.

Pausing at Dean’s desk, I smile at a photo of him at a BBQ, surrounded by friends, a genuine smile on his face, as he laughs at something a younger man beside him is saying. It’s an unguarded moment, captured by someone who cares for him. It’s a picture of him and my younger brother.

Taken while I was probably sleeping rough or in some shitty motel.

With shaky hands, I open the back of the frame and pull the picture free, holding it like it's the most precious thing I have. Does he know he doesn’t have the same mother? Maybe he’s a victim in all of this too.

But as I stare at it, tears swimming in my eyes, my gaze moves to Dean. For a moment, I feel a deep longing to see him like that, happy and carefree, but then I remind myself that I hate him. He had the chance to put my family back together again and hasn’t taken it.

My anger is fuelled by all the years of being left out and looked down on.

What I need is a smoking gun, proof that my mother’s here, kept locked away by Dean. Then I’ll go to Alpha Steel.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Doubt is getting the better of me, but if I go back upstairs now, it's all been for nothing. He’ll know what I’ve done the second he gets home. I’ll be off Reynolds’s territory, and I'll never know what happened to my mother.

“Just do it, Jamie,” I mutter to myself, my fingers resting on the top drawer of his desk. He doesn't deserve your sympathy or consideration. In fact, he deserves anything but.

And yet, something inside my brain resists despite his gruff demeanour and blatant lying. Nothing since we've arrived here has shown him to be cruel or uncaring.

His pack has had every opportunity to leave since he reopened the borders, but none of them have. Blake is walking around chatting freely to everyone he meets. Nobody has begged for him to save them and take them away from this place.

Okay, so maybe Dean's villainous reputation is unfounded, but that doesn't mean he never does the wrong thing.

I wipe my sweaty hands on the front of my leggings and lift up the contents of the drawer, checking for anything hidden among the usual mess of stationary, pens, and keys. A photo of her. Her jewellery. The password for his computer. Anything.

Growing more and more frantic that I find whatever is here before I get caught, I cross to his filing cabinet, not sure what kind of paperwork would be kept about the whereabouts of the pack's former Luna.

Pulling out files listing the contact details of the pack, I scan down the list. Accommodations are assigned to each member, and I find a few first names beginning with M, but no Margaret or Maggie. Sliding the list back into the folder I pulled it from, I curse. Employment records similarly turn up nothing, and I’m starting to get angry. This can’t all be for nothing. I’m going to get discovered, there’s no way he won’t know I’ve been in here. If I have no evidence, I can’t force him to tell me.

I kick the cabinet as I slam the drawer shut, and turn toward the shelves, pulling out book after book.

I leaf through the pages, lift trinkets, pressing anything that could be a button to some kind of secret hidden lair beneath this secret basement. Increasingly desperate, I tear through the space, needing to find something that will give me some answers.

Out of breath, I stand there, hands on my head, wondering what to do next, a sob of despair wrenching from deep inside my gut. Should I ask Wyatt to come and help me search? But then, he’ll be in trouble too.

My mind is spinning, my thoughts crazed and disordered, when I hear footsteps on the stairs, and I know for sure that I'm screwed. Thoughts suddenly calm and quiet, I assess my situation. I'm at the end of the corridor, basement level. This room has no windows, nowhere to escape, and definitely nowhere to hide. He's already picked up my scent.

It was sloppy coming down here, but deep down, I knew that this had to happen, that realistically, having it out with Dean was going to be the only way of finding answers.

Dean is not a stupid man. He was never going to leave a confession note sitting around on his desk for me to take to Blake, or photos of them together dated after her supposed death.

We were always going to have this confrontation, and it looks like it's going to happen right now.

The door to his office flings open, banging hard against the wall behind it, and Dean appears in the doorway, face impassive, a cold hard look on his face that I've never seen before.

This is the face that garnered him the angriest alpha reputation. There's nothing behind those dead eyes. He stares at me without saying a word, assessing me and his ransacked office, and somehow, that’s more menacing than any growl.

Fear slithers up my spine as I wonder what he's going to do next. I've been cocky because he hasn’t been downright aggressive with anyone that I’ve seen.

Do I really think he doesn't have it in him?

“Jamie?” Dean says quietly, taking a step inside before slamming the door behind him so hard that I flinch. “What the hell do you think you're doing?”

When I remain stubbornly silent, he sighs and turns back to the door, flicking the lock.

He seems to grow bigger, his huge frame taking up most of the room, and goosebumps break out across my skin as he shakes his head sadly.

It looks like I'm not going anywhere.