Chapter 103

Third Person

Reid left the office like a man on a mission because, well, he is. He did not put on his seatbelt as he drove towards Chloe's house, the shabby little place in a low class neighborhood, far from the luxury that her and her family used to indulge in. He jumps out of the car and rushes towards the front door, his fists banging against the wooden material, rattling the door in its hinges.

“Chloe!” Reid screams, his voice strained and full of urgency. “I know you are in there! Get your ass out here right now!”

His yells and screams are muffled through the walls, but is still loud enough to be heard from deep inside of the small home. Chloe, who sits on her bed on the second floor, rushes toward the window and looks down at the scene.

Ever since her mother's plan to destroy Emily by using Jack failed, their family has been hiding away in shame, licking their wounds as they try to land on steady feet. Chloe has received the brunt of her parents’ anger, always being yelled at for the simplest of things such as forgetting to put her dish into the sink. It is a life that Chloe does not want to live, forcing the woman to try and find a new escape from the hell hole she has found herself in.

Her forehead comes in contact with the window, giving away her location. Reid looks up, their eyes meeting and he points at her. She can see the vein on his neck bulge out, his anger overtaking the entirety of his body.

“Get down here right now!” he yells. “We need to talk!”

A chill runs Chloe's spine. She pushes away from the window and rushes down the stairs, running into her parents on the way down.

“Who the fuck is that?” her mother demands.

“I’ll handle it,” Chloe groans, swinging the front door open, halting Reid from his constant bombardment of knocks and punches. Before he can say anything, Chloe raises a hand and glares at him, growling, “Not here.”

She grabs his wrist and drags him away from the house, pulling him towards the end of the street, stopping underneath the orange street light. The woman looks up at reading, crosses her arms over her chest, irritation prominent across her face.

“What do you need? Why did you have to show up like this and ruin things for me?” Chloe asks, impatient and annoyed.

“We need to try and stop my brother's wedding one last time,” he says, his voice demanding with a hint of desperation in its tone.

“Why?” Chloe asks with a scarf. She crosses her arms over her chest and narrows her eyes at him, trying to understand his true motivation for having such a demand. “Haven't you heard? My family and I are ruined. There is no stopping your brother and my sister. We lost—”

“No,” Reid shakes his head, “it can't be over. It can't be done just like that. We need to do one more thing, one last try, to tear Logan and Emily apart.”

Chloe scoffs. She rolls her eyes, not wishing to hear another plea from the man who stands in front of her. She, quite honestly, has given up on trying to ruin her stepsister's life. At every turn, she has been rejected, denied, or flat out, laughed at, embarrassed.

She simply does not want to go through that embarrassment all over again, especially if she is to fail miserably like she has in the past.

“Why are you so adamant in wanting to take your brother down? Did something happen between the two of you? Why did you show up like this?” the woman asks, taking a statin towards the man.

He takes a step back, keeping as much distance between them as possible, not wanting to make the same mistake as falling in the same bed as her. He sucks in a breath and looks down at the woman, thinking of over the words in his mind before he openly speaks in front of Chloe.

“When they get married,” Reid begins, “then Logan will officially be the Alpha. My father will endorse him to become the nation’s new Alpha King and I will be forever stuck with the shame of having failed to be the superior older brother.”

“Oh,” Chloe nods her head, amusement in her voice, “so this is an ego thing, right?”

“There is a pack networking event that my brother will be attending with Emily. If we go together, you can pull logan away while I keep emily distracted. You can finally have your chance to seduce them in public and show everybody how big of an asshole he truly is,” Reid speaks with venom in his voice, determined to take down his brother once and for all.

Chloe doesn't speak. She simply thinks over his words in her head, trying to find a reason to get out of his plans.

She can't think of anything, though. Every scenario that she comes up with always leads her into the idea of proving her parents wrong, into proving them that she is of use and does not need to be sidelined because of her previous fuck ups.

Her eyes narrow on Reid. He uncomfortably shifts in his spot, shifting his weight between his 2 feet. His hands fidget at his sides. He is the spitting image of a nervous man, somebody who is afraid of the future, and is willing to do whatever it takes to have things turn out in his favor.

“Fine,” Chloe begins to slowly speak, “I will help you out. We are going to hire somebody to take photographs of Logan and I. They will pose as photographers at the event so they will be hidden in plain sight.”

Reid hang onto every word. He nods his head, stepping forward, ready to begin the new plan that Chloe speaks into existence. He feels a newfound sense of purpose, that his future is not in shambles, but has opened up in front of him.

“I will pull Emily away and tell her that there is something wrong in the pack that she needs to know about,” Reid adds, wanting to help out as much as he possibly can.

“Sure, that works,” Chloe gives in to his words.

At the end of the day, Chloe knows that she is the one who is in charge. She knows that it is her who will be the one enforcing an enacting the plan, to be the one to put things into motion that her ex-boyfriend and sister cannot control.

“pick me up before the event, we will go together,” Chloe says. The man, ready to turn away before she stops him. “if you back out on me in the last second, I'll make sure that you're ruined just like I am, understand?” The man simply nods.

If they follow her plan to the tee, then they will receive everything that they want in life. Chloe will see Emily humiliated and living in shame while Reid can watch as his father chooses him over Logan, for him to become the Alpha of his family instead of his brother.

Everything just has to fall into its right place. There is no space for error nor is there any space for either of them to ditch the plan at the last second if things turn south.