Werewolf ceo 4, p.8
Werewolf CEO 4, page 8
“We should head back to Lunar Corp. and see if we can find anything else until it’s time for the meeting,” Mia said.
“Yeah, we should probably head to work, too,” Hallie said with a defeated sigh. “Joy.”
“I thought you had a riveting article to write about me?” I teased.
“That’s the only thing making me want to go in,” the brunette reporter said as she flashed me a wink. “I’ll see if I can find anything else on this ‘Mitch’ guy on my break, though.”
“Sadly, I’ll just be pouring coffee for the next few hours,” Emily said with a wince. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” I said as I stood up from the desk and kissed the top of her head. “We’ve got more than enough eyes on this thing.”
“Alright. We’ll see you guys later?” Emily asked.
“Yeah, we’ll see you later.” I nodded. “But be on your guard until then. I don’t want this Mitch asshole seeking you guys out.”
Even though I knew he was just targeting me right now, I didn’t want them to let their guard down. The last thing I wanted was for my girls to get caught up in the crossfire of something that I made happen. And I’d happily take every hit this guy could throw at me with his weird little drug patches if it meant they were safe.
“We’ll be safe, Josh,” Hallie said in a reassuring tone, and she leaned up to kiss my cheek. “See you later. And good luck with your meeting.”
“Thanks, Hal,” I said with a small smile as they started to leave the office.
I waited until I heard them leave before I looked around the office. My eyes fell to the bar cart in the corner of the room, which was still fully stocked, and I grabbed the bottle of Macallan whiskey that Arlo had offered me when I first came here.
I twisted the cap off, pulled a crystal glass from the shelf, and poured a couple fingers. The woody and fruity aroma immediately filled the room, and I placed the bottle back on the rack as I brought the glass to my lips.
“For old times’ sake?” Mia asked with a raised eyebrow.
“For old times’ sake,” I said as I downed the sharp liquid in one. “Rot in hell, Arlo Whitlock.”
I placed the glass back on the cart and reached out for Mia’s hand. She intertwined our fingers, and I walked us out of that room without so much as looking back.
As we passed through the main room, I paused in front of one of the glass cases. Without even second guessing it, I slammed my fist through the glass and pulled out the most expensive-looking silver watch with a black face, just as an extra fuck you to Arlo.
Once I had the watch in hand, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough, and I shut the door behind me and headed straight for the car as I clasped the watch around my wrist.
We made it back to Lunar Corp. in good time, and I handed over the laptop to Victor on arrival. Mia gave him the vial we’d found and the clear tab in the Ziploc bag, and I gave him a brief overview of what we’d learned from the videos.
Victor had no idea who the hell ‘Mitch’ was, just like the rest of us, but he said he’d get the lab to test the vial and the patch right away. He left us to our research, which turned up nothing just like it had the day before, and we were still at the exact same place we’d started.
Eventually, noon rolled around, and the treaty pack leaders started arriving, one by one. Victor called up to us once everyone had arrived, and he made sure to comment that even August, the leader of the Angel Pack, was there, too.
As soon as I put the phone down, I stood up from my desk and smoothed out my suit.
It was time to realign the treaty packs.
And it was time for something new.
Chapter Six
Mia and I walked to the elevator and headed down to the meeting room floor. When we entered the room, all of the pack leaders were sitting at the desk where the board usually sat.
It felt kinda weird being the one hosting this meeting. The original treaties had been made up of the people sitting in this room, as well as Hamish Russo and Arlo Whitlock. My parents had been a part of the treaty, but when they died, it was automatically passed on to me.
All of the territory in Midtown, as well as the Lunar Corp. territory which had technically been on Russo’s land but acted as its own standalone entity, had fallen to me. And now, I was the one who was paving the way for another treaty.
One that wasn’t going to just be a piece of paper with no meaning.
Grizz, the leader of the Black Tooth Bears, gave me a wide, toothy grin as he spotted me, and he waved his meaty hand at us. Lady Dame gave us a polite nod as she rested her hands on her cane, and Stefan and Antonio turned from their conversation with each other to give us a small wave.
August, the leader of the Angel Pack, and the only leader who’d refused to help us stop the Guild, was sitting in the furthest chair away from mine at the head of the table. His long blond hair was no longer perfectly straight, but slightly frazzled and sticking up at odd angles. He had a scarily youthful disposition for a sixty-something-year-old, but his eyes looked more sunken. Light purple bags hung under his light blue eyes, and it was clear this guy hadn’t got much sleep.
His almost transparent eyes snapped to me as I took a seat at the head of the table, but he quickly looked away.
Victor cleared his throat from the back of the room, and I could tell he’d noticed the Angel Pack leader’s disheveled and awkward state, too, as he looked at me and nodded.
“Thank you all for coming here to Lunar Corp. today,” Victor said as he started to walk across the length of the room over to me. “I’ll pass the meeting over to Josh now, but if you need anything, I’ll be--”
“Right here,” I cut him off as I looked up at the gray-haired wolf. “You’ll be right here, Vic.”
“Joshua, I don’t know if I have a place in this meeting,” Victor said quietly to me.
“You do,” I said with a shrug. “You’re the Chairperson of the Board of Directors at Lunar Corp., and you’re one of my advisors. Even if we weren’t having this meeting here, I’d still want you present. So, sit.”
Something like gratitude flashed in Victor’s eyes as they softened, and he nodded before taking a seat beside me.
Mia’s lips quirked up into a proud smile before she turned to the rest of the treaty packs.
“It’s good to see you all again,” I said as I leaned back in my chair and turned to them, too. “And I’m glad you all made the effort.”
My eyes flickered over to August, who straightened his spine but didn’t look back at me. I mentally growled in annoyance before I looked at the other leaders.
“The reason for this meeting is to create a new treaty,” I said. “The old treaty is outdated. Not only does it still have the names of the bastards who planned to take over New York on it, it also represents the past. We need to move forward now.”
“Hear, hear,” Grizz said in his deep, gruff voice.
“Chen will write down the negotiated terms,” Lady Dame said as she gestured to a young Asian man who was sitting beside her with a thick piece of parchment in front of him on the table. “And whoever chooses to agree will sign the treaty and bind it with blood.”
“With blood?” I furrowed my brow in confusion.
“A pinprick,” Antonio said as he held up his thumb. “A sign of sacrifice.”
“I thought we were moving on from the past,” Stefan said with a smug smirk. “That sounds like a pretty old-world tradition to me.”
“These traditions are not part of the problem, Stefan,” Lady Dame scolded in a light-hearted tone. “The blood binding is an important representation of our commitment.”
“That didn’t matter to Whitlock or Russo,” the Bonetti leader scoffed.
“And they are rotting in hell for their betrayal,” Lady Dame said gravely. “Just as whoever dares to betray us again will.”
Her black eyes darted to August, who stared down at the wooden table in front of him like he was in a hypnotic trance.
“We will bind it with blood,” she said after a moment of tense silence. “Do you have a problem with that, Stefan?”
“No, ma’am,” the usually cocky Alpha said in a quiet voice as her dark eyes shifted to him. “None at all.”
“How about we start with some ground rules?” I suggested in order to move the conversation along. “I’m not trying to completely change what the treaty covered before. It’s important we keep the same amount of respect for each other’s territories, and we don’t do anything that could jeopardize each other’s claim or power.”
“Do you wish to keep that verbatim from the previous treaty?” Lady Dame asked.
“I think that part should be fine to carry over.” I nodded. “But we need to add stipulations.”
“Such as?” Tony asked.
“We can’t push out one pack just because they’re different,” I said as I looked at Grizz. “The Black Tooth Bears are just as much a part of this treaty as the rest of us. And just because they aren’t wolves doesn’t make them any lesser.”
“Yes, your words the other day about how you felt have stuck with me, Josh,” Lady Dame said before she looked over at the bear shifter. “I extend my apologies to you again, Logan, for how you have felt the past few years. Especially after what happened to your mate.”
“Water under the bridge,” Grizz said with a wave of his hand. “We’re here now, right? That’s more than I could ask for.”
“So, the stipulation is that we all have equal voices,” I said. “An equal say in any problems or matters that require all of our attention. No one feels pushed out because we are all on the same level.”
“Sounds more than fair.” Stefan nodded.
“As for bringing up those problems, I want us to be able to hear each other, rather than feeling like we can’t speak up,” I said. “When the problem with the Guild first reared its head, I felt like I was on my own. Even though I had taken over my parents’ spot on that treaty, it still felt like I wasn’t a part of it.”
“We were all blind, Josh,” Victor said as his thick gray eyebrows tugged down into a frown. “Fearful and blind.”
“But no more,” Lady Dame said firmly as she raised her chin. “Might I make a suggestion?”
“Go for it,” I said.
“The shared territory you suggested, the land that belonged to Russo and Whitlock, apart from the Upper West Side,” Lady Dame began. “I think we should allocate a building as a common meeting space. Perhaps in Harlem?”
“Victor, can you help source a building?” I asked. “I’ll buy it outright, but it will be a shared space.”
“Certainly.” Victor nodded.
“The shared territory,” Tony began. “What are the conditions for that?”
“Casual business only,” I said. “We check with each other if we want to set anything up or conduct business there.”
“Mutual agreement.” Lady Dame nodded. “Fair.”
“Any werewolf-owned properties already on Whitlock and Russo’s old territory run the same,” I said. “Free jurisdiction on that property, as long as we’re not secretly trying to expand for ourselves.”
“I think we’re way beyond that,” Stefan joked. “My dad had a few shipping depots up North, though. So, it’s good to know it will be the same.”
“Like I said, I’m not trying to completely change what you had before,” I said. “I just want to make sure we don’t have another repeat of what happened.”
“Speaking of…” Grizz grumbled under his breath and darted his dark eyes over to August, who was trying to make himself look as small as possible.
“There is one more thing we should bring up,” I said as I turned my attention to the blond Alpha.
His light blue eyes shot over to mine, and I heard him swallow the lump in his throat.
“What?” he asked sharply.
He was nothing like the calm and collected Alpha I’d seen when I first went to his territory before we took out the Guild. All of his zen was gone, even if that was an act back then.
I didn’t know if he was a loose cannon or if he was just letting the guilt of not joining in the fight get to him. Either way, we needed to figure out where this guy’s head was before he became a real problem.
“You’ve been awfully quiet for a guy who refused to join in the fight,” I said as I narrowed my eyes at him.
“I have nothing more to add,” August said through gritted teeth, and he clenched his fists on the table.
“Is it still ‘the Angel Pack stick to themselves,’ or are you going to make an effort now?” I asked. “We haven’t forgotten how you refused to help, August. But there’s no way you can make this right by just sitting there.”
“I gave you my reasons for staying out of it,” the long blond-haired wolf snapped. “My pack was almost wiped out of existence the last time we fought the Guild--”
“All of our packs were!” Grizz suddenly shouted and slammed his meaty fist into the table. “I lost my goddamn mate last time, but you didn’t see me cowering in the corner with a face mask on.”
“Grizz,” I cautioned as I saw him start to get heated.
His bare, hairy chest heaved up and down, and his bottom fangs were poking out between his lips. If this kicked off into a real fight, we’d be in trouble, and I really didn’t want to have to get this meeting room redecorated again.
“He is right, though, August,” I said as I turned to the Angel Pack leader. “Everyone lost a lot the last time the Guild attacked. You were the only one who sat back this time around. We can’t change what’s happened, but I don’t feel comfortable with you just sitting there after what went down.”
“What do you want from me? A formal apology?” he cried out. “Fine. I’m sorry I didn’t join in the fight. But you all did just fine without me.”
“That is beside the point, August, and you know it,” Lady Dame said in an eerily calm tone as she leaned forward. “We needed you there.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, am I supposed to take advice from a woman who’s not even a real Alpha?” August snapped his head to her with a mocking laugh. “You know, Lady Dame, you do a real good job at pretending to be something you’re not.”
“I could say the same about you,” Lady Dame hissed and flashed her fangs at him. “I may only be an Alpha in title after my husband died all those years ago, but I have earned that title a hundred times over. You, on the other hand, are a worm. You dare try and insult me when I was on the battlefield, fighting against Russos and Whitlocks as hard as I did during the massacre. And where were you, Alpha?”
August swallowed hard, and I could see tears shining in his eyes as her words hit him. Lady Dame was not holding back, and I didn’t blame her. This guy had struck a low blow, calling her out like that. I had no idea Lady Dame wasn’t even a real Alpha. The way she came across was so confident and so in charge that I’d never second-guessed it, but then again, I’d never heard of a female Alpha before, so I guess it made sense.
“You have no right to question her authority,” Grizz said in a low warning. “Not after everything she’s done for this city.”
Lady Dame sent Grizz a small nod of gratitude, and the werebear gave a nod in understanding back. The friendship between them that had blossomed was sweet, and I was glad we’d rebuilt some of the bridges that had been burned after the last massacre.
It was just a shame August was still being an ass.
“This treaty isn’t going to work if you’re insulting its leaders, August,” I said sternly. “We all need to be on the same page.”
“And I’m supposed to just sit here and take this shit?” the blond wolf asked with wild eyes. “No, no way. I’m out.”
He suddenly shot up out of his chair, so fast it tumbled to the floor with a thud. He readjusted his creased baby-pink suit and tried to smooth out his messy hair, but he still looked like a sack of shit with legs.
“You’re out?” I asked with a frown. “What do you mean ‘out?’”
“The Angel Pack are out of this goddamn treaty,” he said with venom. “We will be an independent party. And you don’t need to worry about us branching out. We’re perfectly happy with what we’ve got. And that includes your precious ‘shared territory.’”
“August, if you opt out of this peace treaty, you lose the mutual protection we have,” Tony tried to reason with him. “You know how important it is to have this thing. We would never have all survived if we didn’t have it.”
“It will get messy, August,” Lady Dame added. “You will become a target.”
“To who? You?” The Angel Pack leader laughed sharply. “Try it.”
“I don’t mean me,” the old Asian woman said with a shake of her head. “Once word gets out that there is one pack in all of New York that no longer has the protection of the peace treaty and their joined forces, you will be singled out. Plucked from the apple tree sitting right outside the orchard.”
“I’d rather risk that than bind myself in blood to you sons of bitches,” August growled before he started to storm toward the door. “Enjoy your treaty.”
“August--”
“Leave him, Joshua,” Lady Dame said before I could protest any more. “He has made his choice. One he will regret, yet again.”
I turned around in my chair and sighed as August stormed down the hall and into the elevator. He angrily smashed the button over and over again so the door would close, and the last thing I saw were his angry blue eyes before the silver doors shut.
“God, he was always so dramatic, wasn’t he?” Tony asked with a disapproving shake of his head.
“He’s an idiot,” Grizz grunted.
“He’s put a target on his back, and willingly,” Stefan said in disbelief. “And all for what? Pride?”
“He’s embarrassed,” Lady Dame said with a small smile. “Typical man. Instead of facing the consequences of his actions, he wants to run and hide from them. Another foolish mistake.”
“Damn, Lady Dame, you’re not holding back.” Grizz let out a hearty laugh.
“He insulted me,” she said with a shrug. “He deserves everything that is coming to him.”
