Chapter 63

Zane POV

I had been in the smoking room at the Rotary Club before and been asked to admire its hunter-green walls, leather furnishings, and original Pierre Testu and Paul Rubens. I had been offered, and refused, fine cigars and been offered, and accepted, the world’s finest scotch, and I had sat in one of the leather armchairs and contemplated my life and my role as pack alpha.

The room was an old friend, as was Rob Shanton.

So why was I so uneasy? Why did I turn down the scotch this time and insist I wanted him to get to the point of this meeting so I could go back to the room, Sarah, and my children? Why did I suddenly want to punch the wolf in the face?

Well, I could answer that last question. Rob was sitting in the armchair across a small table from me, enjoying two fingers of thirty-year-old Macallan and looking incredibly smug. He seemed to be waiting for something, some cue that he could begin his latest performance.

“Rob, really, I need to get back to my girls,” I finally said. “What’s on your mind, and where is this after-party you all but demanded I attend?”

“Oh, now, this is the after-party.” He smiled wider.

“This is you and I sitting in chairs while I don’t want to be here. Not much of a party.” I shook my head and got ready to stand. “If that’s all you—”

“I’ve been doing some digging into ancient history,” he said. “Five years ago, exactly.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I found out quite a few interesting details about your orphaned goddess-mother to your children and just why your daughter was taken and then left with her in a little wicker basket like Moses without the Nile.”

“And you’ll tell me these interesting details or I’ll snap your neck,” I told him.

His brows rose. “So hostile! I did all of this as a favor to a friend, and this is how you react?”

“I’m waiting.”

Rob took a sip of his scotch, savored it, and smiled again. I figured I’d break his nose before I snapped his neck.

“Ella, Olivia’s twin sister, you must have realized all their lives she’s been jealous. To be so beautiful, so talented, and yet be outmatched by her alpha twin, think of the mental torment that was to her. Think of the resentment it must have fostered.”

“I’m not kidding about killing you in a minute.”

He put his glass down and stopped smiling. “I know you’re not, so listen to what I’m saying. You, the prized pack alpha, never took a second look at Ella, not that way.”

“Ella always knew she wasn’t an option for me, not as a beta.”

“What we know and what we feel are two quite different things. I’m only saying that if we discover Ella had some sort of role in Chloe’s disappearance, well, one could hardly blame her.”

“So you don’t know anything about Ella,” I growled. “You’re just wasting my time.”

“I don’t know anything about Ella yet. But, now, that Miss Sarah Astor, she has proven nothing but interesting. Did you know already that she doesn’t have a clue who her parents were?”

“Yes, and I’m about out of patience.”

“Did you know no one, and I do mean absolutely no one has a clue who her parents were?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean a little baby showed up on a doorstep once in a little wicker baskets with a baby blanket and a little note revealing only the infant’s name and birthdate.”

“Sarah already told me about finding Chloe.”

“Ah, but I don’t mean Chloe. I mean Sarah Astor.”

I frowned at him. “Sarah was left the same way Chloe was?”

“Yes, though she wasn’t as fortunate. The human woman who found her took her to an orphanage and firmly dropped her there. After that, the baby was in foster homes until she was allowed to age out of the system.”

Rob leaned forward then, his eyes gleaming. “But a little more digging on my part discovered that this method with the basket, blanket, and note is actually something of a tradition for unwanted pups.”

“Sarah is human.”

“Yes, and what an extraordinary human our little Sarah is!”

“She’s not ‘our’ Sarah.”

Rob shrugged. “She could be. She could be quite something of ours indeed.”

“Tell me exactly what you know about Sarah and then leave her alone forever,” I said in The Voice, tired of the games.

“Take that tone with me again and I’ll never tell you another word,” he said. “You’ll never find out what happened five years ago, and you can shove your Alpha Voice up your alpha ass.”

“I think I really will snap your neck.”

“Oh, you mustn’t do that,” drawled an unwelcome voice, and I turned to see Scott had entered the room. He looked around possessively then crossed the room to pour himself a scotch.

“The dancer with the knives,” he said as he poured. “She available?”

“Sadly, no,” Rob said. “You had your chance, and I know you were bidding on some of the lots.”

Rob turned around and leaned against the wall to take a sip of his scotch. “You’d have made her available to Zane,” he said.

“Of course I would have.”

“What are you two talking about?” I stood to scowl at them both, my hands curling into fists.

“I think we were going to talk about Sarah,” Scott said. “Has Rob made his offer yet? I believe it’s quite generous.”

“You interrupted too soon,” Rob said with a little pout.

“You took too long.” Scott threw me a wink. “Besides, I just heard all about the lovely human delivered to a mutual acquaintance of ours upstairs.”

“What?” Rob snapped.

I strode up to Scott and shoved the drink out of his hand. I couldn’t help noticing he reeked of recent sex.

“I really don’t think you have time to kill me first,” he drawled. He looked at the broken glass on the floor. “What a waste of scotch.”

“You’re dead anyway if something’s happened to her,” I told him, meaning it. Then I turned and walked out while he chuckled to himself. The only “upstairs” I knew about was administrative offices and storage rooms.

I took an elevator up anyway, but yes, there was nothing I hadn’t seen before. I looked into another elevator, but the control panel was the same. Could “upstairs” really mean “downstairs”? Was there a subbasement?

I went to the elevator in the back and saw a beta attendant standing inside one; an odor that curled my stomach clung to him. I stepped into the car and crowded him against the wall.

“Hold on, chief,” he said with a smug smile that reminded me of Rob Shanton. “I’ll get you to the party on time. You have an invite?”

“Either take me upstairs, or I will rip your heart out.”

He looked at me, eyebrows raised, and then he took a key out of his pocket.