Epilogue

Lachlan

Three months later.

“Come on, you’re late for school,” I yelled through the house.

“Relax. We’re not even late,” Toby yelled back.

“But I have to drop you off and then get to the airport, remember?”

“I don’t know why I can’t just drive like a normal American high schooler.”

“I dunno. Maybe because you haven’t passed your driving test yet?”

“Whatever. I can drive. No one would notice.”

“Toby, just come on. Everyone else it already waiting in the van.”

Yup, it wasn’t a car anymore, no Jeep, or even SUV. I was not the proud owner of damn mini-van. Tilly loved that thing though and said it made her life easy when having to tote my siblings around.

After much debate and an extra month in Australia, many things had happened.

First, we worked with local police to ensure that the Raglan facility was shut down entirely. In the process the Collectors took a huge hit. There were several very high profile arrests and the remainder scattered to the wind.

Taylor had received an encrypted email that went out to the Collector community cancelling all future auctions. It wasn’t enough of a hit to completely shut down the Collectors, but due to the scandals they were all scared and in hiding now. We had the names of enough of them to do what was necessary to cripple them for a very long time. In some odd way it like the break we’d all been waiting for.

The Verndari had been notified of the Raglan resurgence. They genuinely seemed surprised to hear it and swore to investigate for any further concerns.

I wasn’t one that fully trusted the Verndari, but my buddy Chad from my college days was one of them now. The humans didn’t know he and his mate were actually squirrel shifters. That worked to our benefit as they kept eyes and ears from the inside.

Bravo team’s, Jake, and his mate, Alaina, were also members of the Verndari. They were both human though. She was a legacy that was recognized after she connected with her estranged father, Martin Kenston. It went a long way to ensuring the validity of the organization, but clearly not enough.

Egan Bridger was going to be behind bars for a very long time. But Helen Bridger had managed to escape. Notices were out around the world for her after her son had tried to make a plea bargain pinning the entire operation on his mother.

The odds of Helen making it out of Australia were very slim.

It hadn’t been easy dealing with all of that while mourning the loss of my parents. The boys had all fought me on selling the house. We tried living there for a few weeks, but no one was sleeping. There was too much haunting us all knowing that our parents had been taken from there so easily.

In the end, we agreed to sell the house and give the US a try. I think it surprised all the kids just how comfortable they were in San Marco. They all connected with other kids quickly. Tilly and I were cautiously optimistic that it would all work out.

And my mate had been brilliant through it all. We’d certainly been forced to get to know each other quickly. She was smart, down-to-Earth, kind, and seemed to have endless patience, especially when it came to the kids.

She still wasn’t much of a cook. I knew now that she had been raised with a lot of privilege, but she was determined to overcome that and learn. It was cute to watch her grow.

Tilly had been raised to be an Alpha. I could give that to her over the little Pack we’d created—our family.

Life wasn’t always easy, but it was ours to build together.

The horn blew.

“Toby!”

“I’m coming.”

We rushed out of the house to the others waiting impatiently.

“Sorry,” I said, leaning over to kiss my mate.

Hannah giggled.

Our parents had always been affectionate with one another so it wasn’t some shock to any of them that I was that way with Tilly too.

Tilly quizzed Hannah on her science vocabulary as I drove to the school to drop them off.

The boys piled out and took off in different directions to meet up with new friends.

“You’ve got this. Just relax. You know the information and are going to rock this test,” Tilly told my sister.

“Okay. Thanks Tilly.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

My heart melted at their open affection. I supposed tragedy such as we’d faced either shut people down or drew them closer. I was relieved that, for he most part, it had brought the six of us close.

We both sat there watching as Hannah ran off towards her classroom.

“She’s gonna do great,” Tilly said.

“Spoken like a true mama.”

“Just a proud big sister at the moment, but by the time the boys head off to college, I do fear I’ll suffer from some empty nest syndrome after all of this.”

“Then we’ll just have to fill the house up with pups of our own.”

Her head whipped towards me. “After basically raising four children through what many deem the toughest years of child rearing, you’d want to just start at the beginning and do it all over again?”

“You wouldn’t?” I asked, a little surprised.

“Of course I want kids. I just didn’t think you would.”

“Well, you thought wrong. I’m fine with waiting a bit. We’ve got a full house at the moment, but some day. Yeah.”

I glanced over and found her grinning from ear to ear.

It pleased me to know that I could make her that happy.

“You know, that just means we’ll have time to practice just to be sure we’re ready when the time comes.”

“Practice taking care of babies?”

“Practice making them.”

Her blush tipped the tops of her ears and I wanted to pull the van over and start practicing right then and there. But I knew we had places to be and we were already running late.

By the time we got to the airstrip, the jet was already touching down.

Tilly waited until I parked, got out, and ran around to open her door.

“I'm so excited.”

“I know, gorgeous. Come on.”

We held hands as we waited for the plane to land and unload. Though my impatient mate took off the second the stairs were rolled up and the door opened.

I heard the scream before Kayla stepped out of the plane and ran down the stairs to embrace Tilly. The two of them laughed, cried, and talked at the same time. I had no idea what was happening but I could feel nothing but pure joy flooding our bond.

For a brief second Kayla let go of my mate long enough to hug me. We'd met briefly in Australia but she had been busy helping her parents secure the King Tribe and I'd been consumed with work and family.

We'd have a full week to get to know each other and if all went well, she might even be sticking around longer.

“I have to heal d into the office today, so you have her all yourself,”

“Keen,” Kayla said.

“You're gonna love it here,” Tilly assured her as the two women locked arms and practically skipped to the van.

I drove myself to the Lodge while they sat in the back catching up. Once there they switched to the front while I said bye.

Tilly kissed me as Kayla obnoxiously cheered her on. I already understood that these two together could be trouble, but the harmless, fun kind of trouble.

“I catch a ride home and see you guys later.”

“Love you,” Tilly said.

“Awe!” Kayla sighed.

“Love you, too. Behave ladies.”

“Who us? You have nothing to worry about,” Kayla assured me. “So how weird it is to drive on the wrong side of the road?”

“Super weird, but I'm managing it okay.”

I shook my head as they drove off and I headed for the office. Inside and down the elevator, Archie and Jef were collaborating over something when I passed through security.

“You're late,” Archie said.

“Better hurry. They're already in there waiting on you,” Jef warned.

I wasn't that worried about it. Everyone knew I was picking up Kayla today. If I’d left that up to Tilly who knew where those girls would be by now, if my mate even made it to the airstrip to pick her up.

She was getting better around town and could even mostly handle the drive to the Lodge and back home.

As if thinking it somehow conjured her up, Tilly called.

I looked down at my phone and pulled up the tracker I had on her phone before answering.

“Make a left,” I told her once I did.

“Are you sure?”

“Where are you going?”

“Into town. Probably to Silver Bells for breakfast. I need to keep her today so she doesn’t spend the entire week jetlagged.”

I grinned knowing that was exactly what I’d done to her and the kids when we flew back.

“Still a left to head into town.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Love you.”

I hung up, shaking my head.

“What’s that look for?” Taylor asked as she left the shower room probably after a morning workout.

“Kayla arrived this morning.”

“Oh boy. You’re going to have your hands full.”

“Tell me about it. Tilly just called and they’ve only been gone ten minutes.”

“Lost again?”

“No, but she would have been if she hadn’t called.”

She smiled. “She’s getting better though, right?”

“I think so.”

“We’re all really glad she’s here. Last weekend at ladies’ night she fit right in. Everyone just loves her.”

“So do I,” I admitted like a sappy fool. I didn’t care. We were still very much in that newly mated stage.

Michael poked his head out.

“Come on already. We don’t have all day to sit around twiddling our thumbs waiting on your ass.”

I rolled my eyes and excused myself.

“I told you I was picking up Kayla this morning.”

“Oh right. I forgot. Did she get in okay?”

“Yeah. Tilly’s showing her around today.”

“Good luck with that. You put a tracker on her phone, right?”

“Yes. And one of the van too.”

“Good thinking.” He chuckled. “Alright, everyone settle down and take a seat. We have a few things to go over this morning. We don’t have much in the way of updates on the breach. We were able to finally get a sample of the serums used by Egan Bridger to force shifting. It took a lot since local police had it logged as evidence, but Archie finally pulled the right strings to get it. And the results are in.”

“It was ours, wasn’t it?” Tucker asked.

“No. Actually it wasn’t. There are very subtle differences, but it is not the same serum our people were able to create.”

“You mean there’s no breach?” Walker asked.

“None.”

“Wow. That’s crazy, but a huge relief,” Linc said.

“Turns out Helen Bridger was a lot more than just and administrative assistant. She hid that even from the Verndari, but Martin did some deeper background cheeks and found a whole bunch of shit she never told them and no one really thought to check for.”

“Okay. What about my phone?”

“Archie’s still working on that, but it’s looking like there was some sort of Malware picked up that left it vulnerable. At some point you could have just walked by any of them and they could have connected to your phone. Based on the history he was about to salvage from it, he thinks you were beached while near Campbell. Elliot’s team is working hard to ensure nothing like this happens again. Echo has a lot of takeaways after this mission.”

“How do they think the breach happened?” I asked.

“We used a local pilot who may have been the culprit. He passed screening at the time, but now there’s no trace of him left. We think it was most likely the Raglan trying to get a drop on Westin Force and you were the easiest target. It was never personal, though I know they made it personal.”

I considered that for a moment. “So basically, it’s all of your faults then.”

“What?” Colin asked. “How is it our fault?”

“The only time that scenario could work is while we left him after I tranquilized him,” Walker said, filling in the blanks.

“Exactly.”

“How many times have I said I’m sorry? Because I am sorry.”

“And you’re going to hold it over our heads for the rest of our lives, aren’t you?”

I pushed the thought of my parents away and shook my head. No good could come from me going down that rabbit hole or laying unnecessary blame.

“No. I need to put it behind me, and I think as a team that’s what we need too. It was all just a series of unfortunately event. Now it’s time for a fresh start.”

“I agree. Which is why we’re going on a team run now,” Michael said. “I think we all had moments on this mission where we failed to properly act as a team. That can’t happen again. All families fight and have issues, but we can do better. I know we can.”

I smiled and nodded.

An hour later we were hot and sweaty making a full perimeter run together.

We might be a bit dysfunctional at times, but we really were a family, united by something more powerful than blood. And despite it all, I couldn’t imagine going through life without these guys by my side—not that I was about to tell these arseholes that anytime soon.

*****

Thank you for reading part 2 of The Last Ultimatum, a Westin Force Delta novel .

If you’re new to my PNR World, and can’t wait for more, try starting at the book that began it all with Kyle & Kelsey in One True Mate .

Or jump right into Westin Force (Bravo team) starting with Grant & Taylor’s story in Fierce Impact .