Chapter 171

Tony’s POV

I was so annoyed after that egregious display in the hospital waiting room that as soon as enough time had passed to not come across as suspicious, I made my exit and drove straight to Olivia’s hotel to vent. I’d already been texting her, so she wasn’t totally caught off-guard when I walked into the room.

“Can you believe that asshole uncle of mine was also feeding her wolfsbane? That incompetent, fumbling oaf tried so hard to ruin everything!”

Olivia was sitting on the bed, with her back against the headboard and her legs outstretched in front of her. She was wearing a short shirt, with her long legs bare. It distracted me for a moment, during which she smirked at me.

“I’m serious,” I said, ramping up my anger again. Sexy legs were not enough to dampen my annoyance this time. “If they caught Uncle Peter, then that means they are watching the place. Do you have any idea how much more difficult it’s going to be to get into that room and make sure Aunt Gloria’s mind stays soft?”

“You don’t realize how lucky you are,” Olivia said. She wasn’t looking at me, but at the television on the desk on the other side of the room. It was muted, but she’d rather watch that courtyard drama than deal with my problems, I guessed.

She should have given me her full attention. This affected both of us, and our plans moving forward. This only increased my anger and annoyance.

“You need to take this seriously,” I growled.

Olivia’s eyes sliced to me. “And you aren’t listening to me,” she said. “If your uncle hadn’t been the first one to be caught, then they would have caught you instead. He took that bullet for you so now you are still in the clear.”

“Until Aunt Gloria’s mind returns to her and she tells everyone the things I’ve been planning,” I snapped.

That was the biggest problem facing our plans. My Aunt Gloria became suspicious about me, especially in her son Julian’s absence. She was a shrewd woman who paid more attention than she needed to. She could see how I was maneuvering, taking steps to usurp Julian and become the new Alpha.

She had not been a fan of that action, and made threats against me. She had been ready to tell not just Julian about my plotting, but the entirety of the pack.

I wasn’t as popular yet in the pack as I needed to be. At least, I wasn’t as popular as Julian. Until I could rectify that, it wasn’t time to move forward with my plans yet.

So I had to poison her, feeding her the wolfsbane to keep her mind foggy, to stop her from outing me to the rest of the pack.

I hadn’t wanted to hurt her, but she hadn’t given me much choice. Unfortunately, death was a side effect of the poison long term.

“Well, if you need to silence her, maybe it’s time you finally pull that trigger,” Olivia said, almost bored in how she said it.

“You want me to kill her?”

“She’s dying anyway,” Olivia said. “Maybe, at this point, it’s more merciful to simply make it a quick death.”

I didn’t like the idea of murdering my aunt in cold blood, but Olivia had a point. And silencing her permanently would give me a type of security in my plans.

The only other option I could see was to push forward with my plans to take over the pack.

“Don’t be a coward,” Olivia said.

I started growling at her accusation. Finally she looked at me.

“This is my family,” I said. “I will not take this decision lightly.”

She shrugged. What did it matter to her?

“You make the decision then,” she said. “But don’t continue to come crying to me when she remembers everything and you get exiled.”

The threat of exile made me sick. I would not be caught in the same web as Olivia, who had fallen from grace so far, she was still waiting to hit the bottom.

I would move forward, be successful, and become Alpha.

And if I had to leave a few bodies in my wake, maybe that was a price I would have to be willing to take.

Amber’s POV

Back in the office, I had arranged the video feed from Julian’s mother’s room to go directly into the monitor on my desk. As I sat there, half-watching, I also flipped through the familiar textbooks, hoping to discern some secrets from their pages that might lead me to some new conclusions about Alice’s condition.

The day was fading away, with night coming in, and my eyelids were starting to feel heavy. They were also sore from watching the screen.

Since catching Uncle Peter, the supervisor had been ready to put a pin in the whole investigation, believing the culprit had been caught. But I knew the differences in those dosages, which likely meant Uncle Peter wasn’t the only culprit.

The supervisor didn’t call me paranoid to my face but I knew he had thought so. He put me in charge of watching the monitors now, which I was taking seriously, while I also researched.

Behind me, the door opened. I glanced and saw Julian come in. Alice was here with me in the office, asleep on the couch along the wall. She’d wanted to help me research, but her eyes were even more heavy than mine. I was certain she couldn’t make much sense out of the book I had given her to read. Quickly, she had fallen asleep.

Julian glanced at our sleeping daughter and then back to me. Keeping his steps light, he approached me.

Not wanting to look away from the screen for too long, I turned back to glance at it.

“Most of my family has left for the day,” he whispered, keeping his voice light so as to not wake Alice. “We should go home as well.”

“I can’t,” I said. “But you should take Alice. She deserves a better bed than a couch.”

“And you deserve better than a chair.”

“There’s too much work to do,” I said. Though a bed sounded nice, I couldn’t chance missing something.

Julian hummed. Then, his hands found my shoulders, just on either side of my neck. His thumbs traced small circles and his palms worked the muscles of the back of my neck and shoulders.

Immediately I closed my eyes, overwhelmed by just how good this massage felt.

He continued his ministrations, making me relax so much that I was little more than putty in his hands. His hands were magic and I was instantly under his spell.

A few minutes later, when he had finished, he asked, “Are you sure you won’t come home?”

Gods, I wanted to, but no. Right now, this had to come first. Everything else could wait.

“I just want to stay a little longer.”

Julian didn’t like it, if his frown was anything to go by, but he respected my wishes.

“Don’t be too late,” he said. Then he went to the couch, picked up Alice, and headed to the door. “Call me if you need anything.” He glanced at the monitor. “Or see anything.”

“I will,” I promised.

An hour later, the hospital was mostly quiet. All of Julian’s family had left, which only left the night staff on duty. And me, in this little office, trying to read and look at the monitor at once, while my eyes kept threatening to close.

But then, I saw movement on the monitor…

Someone was entering Gloria’s room!