Chapter 123 She Always Does
The bedroom door hadn’t finished closing.
"What was that?" Luna Margaret got most of a shout into a whisper. "You still want her back in this family? It’s done. It’s filed. The Winthrops have a seat at every table in this territory. What does Eira have?"
Alpha Roger pulled his tie loose.
"A federal contract, a medal."
"She’s wolfless, Roger. She grew up in an Omega home. She can’t scent a room, she’s got no bloodline, she’s got nothing to put on a form."
"And she has a face that opens a federal building." He hung the tie up. "Mine doesn’t. Yours doesn’t. Sebastian’s doesn’t. Hers does."
Luna Margaret stopped.
"You didn’t watch the interview."
She didn’t answer.
"That certificate isn’t a prize. It’s a door." He sat down on the end of the bed. "Whoever partners with her on the follow-on work goes straight into the federal defense chain. Not as a vendor. Inside it."
"Then we buy in. We have the money."
"There’s nothing to buy. She picks the partner." He looked at the carpet. "Sterling’s name went next to hers at four o’clock."
Luna Margaret’s mouth closed.
"Four years she ran this pack. Every funeral, every dispute, every ledger, every elder who called the house at midnight. On nothing." He said it slowly. "And the whole time she was holding the only key to the room we’ve been trying to get into since my father had this house."
"She never said one word."
"She wasn’t allowed to." Alpha Roger’s voice went flat. "And I’d bet the house she was going to hand it to Sebastian anyway. That’s what all of it was for."
Luna Margaret sat down on her side of the bed.
She followed the math fine. She just couldn’t get her throat around being sweet to that girl. Four years of holding her nose, and now she was supposed to pour the tea.
"Alpha Sterling already has her."
"Alpha Sterling has one contract. Sebastian has four years." Alpha Roger pulled his shoes off. "The boy apologizes, she comes back. She always does."
"You think it’s that easy?"
"She’s never once asked us for anything." He turned off the lamp. "Go to sleep."
--
While Alpha Sebastian and Serena spent the night coming apart, Eira slept like a rock.
Best eight hours she’d had in a month.
Alpha Sebastian, blocked. His parents, blocked. His sister, blocked. As of four o’clock yesterday afternoon she was done with the Hales, and she was done with him.
Serena was sitting in federal custody. Davies wouldn’t have to step aside for her after all. Her name was off the roster, and years of everybody’s work wasn’t getting handed to somebody who hadn’t earned a line of it.
Everything landed right where it was supposed to.
She slept straight through it.
Sun came across the bed sometime after nine.
Eira stretched, took her sweet time getting up, brushed her teeth, washed her face, and made herself a real breakfast instead of drinking coffee over the sink like a person with somewhere to be.
Then she decided to do absolutely nothing.
She threw on a shirt three sizes too big, dragged the couch over to the window, and put the cardboard box on the floor next to it. Letters and drawings from the kids at the Omega home. She’d been saving them for a day like this.
She stretched out and her back hit something hard.
Her phone. She’d put it on Do Not Disturb before bed and buried it under a cushion.
The second she flipped that off, the thing lost its mind. Buzzed so hard she almost dropped it. Notifications came pouring down the screen and just kept coming.
Miss Gwen was pinned at the top. Eira called her back first.
Miss Gwen had seen it. She’d rounded up the whole house in the common room to watch it together.
Eira let her talk and went through the drawings while she did. Crooked handwriting. A pinecone wind chime somebody had put together with way too much glue.
"Miss Gwen." Her voice shifted a little. "Turn down the year end donation from Hale Group this year."
Silence on the other end.
"I’m funding the home myself from here on out."
"Honey, that award money is yours. You hang onto it."
"It’s not just the award. Licensing on the pre award patents comes to me. That’s the bigger number."
Miss Gwen’s voice went serious. "You sure about this?"
"Dead sure."
They talked a while longer before they hung up.
Then Eira went back to her messages.
The loudest by far was the Sterling Group chat.
It had gone off like a car alarm the second the interview posted and apparently never quit.
Eira: what’d I miss
Natalie: MA’AM
Natalie: MA’AM.
Kate: my mother called me. my actual mother. she saw the segment and asked if I’d ever met you. I said I sit eight feet from you. she hung up on me
Natalie: there was a FEDERAL SEAL behind you. an actual seal. on the wall
Kate: and you came into the office monday and asked me where the good stapler was
Eira: it’s a good stapler
Eira: and it’s Eira. don’t you people have jobs
Kate: not today we don’t
Miles: Mr. Sterling is in an outstanding mood. Bonuses hit at ten.
Natalie: I checked twice. then I logged out and checked again
Kate: I’m getting the tires done. I’m finally getting the tires done
Miles: Dr. Crawford, we’re putting together a celebration dinner. We’d like your whole team there. Does that work?
Eira: let me run it by them
Miles: Appreciate it. If they’re in, I’ll bring the invitations over myself.
Kate: I volunteer as tribute
Natalie: SAME
Kate: Miles I have a car. Miles the car has new tires
She ran it by the team. All eleven of them were in inside of four minutes. Davies sent back a thumbs up and then, thirty seconds later, a second thumbs up.
Eira: Number Nine, Southridge Estates. Drop them there and I’ll hand them out.
The three dots came up in the chat. Sat there a while. Went away.
--
Back at Sterling Group, Natalie and Kate spun around in their chairs at the same time and gave Miles the puppy eyes. They hadn’t gotten to tag along yesterday. Surely today.
Miles shook his head before either of them got a word out.
"Number Nine, Southridge," he said, "is not a delivery any of us are making."