Chapter 122 Too Late to Hide the Truth

This time he heard it clearly.

Dissolution certificates.

He came around the corner with his coat still on, frowning. "What dissolution certificates?"

Luna Margaret’s mouth shut. She wouldn’t look at him.

Alpha Roger cut a look sideways at his wife that said everything about what he thought of her volume control.

Alpha Sebastian’s jaw set. "Last time it was bonding certificates. Now it’s dissolution certificates. Somebody tell me what’s going on in this house."

Luna Margaret looked at her husband. He knew what she was asking without a word.

They had to tell him. Eventually. The Mate Bond Dissolution Certificates had already been issued. There was no hiding that forever.

Just not tonight. Maybe in a day or two. When he’d had time to breathe.

Alpha Roger looked at what nine hours in that building had carved into his son’s face.

"The one I told you," he said. "There’s no thirty year ceremony. The Elders aren’t hosting anything. I said that because your mother was standing right there and I wasn’t going to do it in a hallway."

Luna Margaret’s head came up.

He’s using that?

"Your mother and I filed. That’s what she’s talking about."

Alpha Sebastian stopped where he stood. He’d lost count of how many times today somebody had said a sentence he had to hear twice.

"What?"

"We went down to the registry. It wasn’t for anything to celebrate." Alpha Roger’s face didn’t move. "We were filing."

Luna Margaret sat very still with her heart going. You don’t say that out loud. Not in this house, not as a joke. Every older female she knew would have told him the same thing.

But she’d never won an argument with her husband in thirty years, and in this house he made the calls.

Alpha Sebastian didn’t buy it. "That was a few days ago. There’s no way you’d have certificates yet."

"We don’t have them. We’re in the cooling-off period." Alpha Roger didn’t blink once. "Your mother’s been trying to work out how to tell you when it’s over. That’s what you walked in on. Why we got here is between the two of us."

"You told me you were solid."

"I told you a lot of things that week."

Alpha Sebastian let out a long breath through his nose. The exhaustion was all over him.

Luna Margaret got there fast. "Nothing’s decided. We’re taking the time, that’s all. That’s what the period is for."

Alpha Sebastian sat down on the couch and looked at the floor.

"You two work it out. I’m getting in the shower."

--

When he came out, his parents were still sitting on the couch waiting for him.

They wanted to hear about today. He could see it on them.

Alpha Sebastian sat down and took a handful of crackers off the tray, ate them without tasting anything.

If Eira were here there’d have been a plate. She’d never once let him come home to nothing.

Then he remembered she’d blocked him and he didn’t know what city she was sleeping in, and the rest of it went dry in his mouth.

"Dad. Mom. One of you call Eira."

Luna Margaret’s forehead creased. "Why would I be calling her?"

Alpha Sebastian took a second with it.

"Sterling used me and Serena to blow up the bid this afternoon. He did it in front of the room. Eira was in that building. Whatever’s going around, she’s heard it by now, and she’s not answering me."

Alpha Roger leaned forward. "You know who she is now."

Alpha Sebastian nodded. "I knew she worked for Thorne. I didn’t know she was cleared at that level."

Luna Margaret set her cup down hard. "She let us think she was nobody. Four years. Serena’s in the same field and she never made a mystery out of herself."

"No," Alpha Sebastian said. "She sure didn’t."

His mother took that for agreement and kept going. He let her get two sentences out.

"Mom. Listen to what you just said. Serena told us everything. Which program,whose name was on it. At your table, on a Sunday, with the staff walking in and out."

"I don’t see what—"

"Serena was never read into that program. Eira was." He put his glass down. "Eira signed a federal nondisclosure her first week. That’s why we never got a word out of her. She wasn’t playing games with this family. She was staying out of prison."

"Sebastian—"

"The Bureau picked us both up this morning."

Luna Margaret went still.

"Nine hours. Two agents, no windows. " He rubbed his eyes. "Serena’s still in there. They brought in Dr. Winthrop too."

She got halfway off the couch. "Did you have counsel with you? Tell me you didn’t sit in a federal interview alone."

"I had counsel."

"Thank the Moon." Then her face reorganized itself. "What was that girl thinking, dragging you into her mess?"

Alpha Sebastian let it go. Two months ago Serena started bringing him things she had no business having, and his mother had called her ambitious. Said it twice at that same table.

He looked at his father. "That’s what cost us the contract."

"Nobody hands a federal award to your competition over a girlfriend." Alpha Roger’s brow came down. "What am I missing?"

Then he remembered the name his son had said thirty seconds ago and answered himself.

"Alpha Sterling."

"I underestimated him." Alpha Sebastian was already back on the only thing his head wanted. "Dad. Call her."

Alpha Roger dialed. It never rang. Recording, then dead air.

Luna Margaret tried. Same three seconds, same voice.

Alpha Sebastian opened his mouth to say Isabella should try, and his father beat him to it."Don’t bother putting Isabella on it. She’s blocked all of us."

Alpha Sebastian heard the shape of that sentence and never caught what was wrong with it.

Normally he’d have caught it. Tonight, it slid right past him.

"She’s angry at me. Why would she block you?"

Neither of them answered.

Two weeks ago Luna Margaret would have been on her feet over that. Alpha Roger would have told him a man who can’t keep order in his own house has no business running one for four hundred people.

They sat there.

He was too far gone to hear it.

"Tomorrow, after the company, I’ll go find her."

"And Serena?" Luna Margaret said. "You’re going to let that girl sit in a federal building all night with nobody in her corner?"

Serena was the one door still open, and she meant to keep walking him toward it.

"Jordan’s got it. Gallagher’s office has somebody on the way."

Alpha Roger had gone the other direction entirely."Let the Winthrops handle their own. They’ve got more pull downtown than we do." He said it evenly. "Tomorrow you go find Eira. And don’t send anybody to do it for you."

"First minute I’m free."

"Good." Alpha Roger clapped him on the shoulder, stood, and gave his wife a look."Upstairs."