SWNOVELS Chapter Tables are turning
Alpha Vincent looks down at his mobile, cancelling the incoming call.
Growling quietly, he taps out a message before sending it to the last number
‘Can’t talk, busy’
Before he can put the phone back down it chimes letting him know he has a reply
’You have five minutes, don’t make me wait”
This time, he slams his phone down on the desk cursing the day he took that first call.
“Yvonne, I need coffee, strong, five minutes ago” he shouts out
Yvonne is a mousey brown-haired thing, not much over five feet two (160cm), small for a wolf, with delicate features and brown eyes, she’s a pretty wolf, the main reason Alpha Vincent picked her, but she is timid and compliant, traits Alpha Vincent approves of.
Within minutes she was in his office with a steaming mug of coffee, when she was first asked to take the job, she’d felt honoured that she’d been picked for such an important role within the pack, now, well, she couldn’t resign, but she really hopes he’ll find someone to take her place once her pup was born.
“Put the office phone straight to voice mail”
He glances up and the clock
“And go home early today, lock the office doors behind you so I’m not disturbed, I have paperwork to catch up on.”
“Yes Alpha”
She rushes out punching the code into the phones and grabbing her bag, in the six years she’s worked for the Alpha, he’s never let her leave early, so today she’s not hanging around in case he changes his mind.
As Alpha Vincent watches her leave waiting until he hears the outer door lock, before letting out a stream of expletives as he closes the inner office door, effectively soundproofing the room.
Five years.
Five long years and he was no closer to finding out the identity of this ‘Benefactor’ and that frustrated him more than anything else.
His phone started ringing once more, and he let it ring a few more times before he answered, it was a small power play, but it was his only one at the moment and it made him feel more in control.
“Don’t make me wait again Vincent, you are of limited use to me!”
The threat in the caller's voice is ever-present.
Alpha Vincent bristles at the fact that the mystery caller never uses his title, so he tries to assert his authority in his reply
“I control the Gamma not you, something I think you forget at times.”
“Oh, I don’t forget.”
The caller's cold reply stops the Alpha’s breath
“For now, you are useful, a convenience if you will.
Best you remain that way, if it changes, then I will remove the Gamma from you to serve me directly, she is the only one I actually need.
Even if that means killing you first.”
Silence fills the room.
Swallowing his pride Alpha Vincent speaks.
“What is it you need to happen?”
“Alpha Davies, his youngest son Danny needs to die, details will follow as per usual.”
The line goes dead
Growling Alpha Vincent throws his phone against the wall, shattering it into pieces.
Getting up he paces around his office.
This is not how it was meant to be.
All that time ago it had seemed like such a simple deal, he would get the Gamma to deal with a few non-pack-related issues and he would be paid for the inconvenience.
He smiles at the memory, the person on the phone had been nervous the first time they spoke, talking about ‘issues’, when he had meant kills, he’d just been too squeamish to admit it.
The call had come in a few months after the Gamma came back, he’d been trying to whittle down who it could have been, but ultimately, he’d drawn a blank, there wasn’t a single pack that could both afford the payments he was receiving nor had issues with all the packs that were being targeted.
He walks over to his safe, opens it, takes out his book and adds the most recent name to the list, this was his safeguard, but also the master list he uses to try to find a link between each of the targeted packs, figuring that way he’d find the Benefactor, but so far, he’s drawn a blank.
Logging on to check his e-mail he sees there is a request for an invoice to be sent, to cover an accident, no name or details of course, this is him being told to ensure the Gamma makes this death look like an accident.
The one thing he has to hand to the Gamma, she is creative in how she manages to kill wolves and yet, makes them look like accidents, never duplicating the same method, careful, methodical, deadly, just the way he liked it.
If he wants it to look like murder or an assassination, this benefactor will send an email asking for an invoice for work to be sent.
Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing and it’s clear now, that he was played, the caller had never been nervous about killing, but making it seem like that, had pulled him into the web of deceit, giving him the feeling, he had the power, when he was, in fact, powerless.
Trapping him, like the Gamma was trapped in this pack, in his own sick way, he had to be a little bit impressed.
He bends down to survey the broken phone, picking up the sim card, he takes out a new phone from his desk, plugs it in to charge and puts in his old sim card, the cleaner will deal with the mess later, broken items are par for the course in this office.
He takes another look at the packs, but he can’t find anything that links them all, they don’t all share the same allies or enemies, the packs all are in different areas of business, farmers to fighters, it covers them all.
Shaking his head, he puts the book back into the safe, somehow, he needs to get a lead, nobody is perfect in hiding what they do, the problem is he doesn’t know where to start.
This would be the seventh kill the benefactor had ordered, but he also insists on knowing any targets that Alpha Vincent wanted to eliminate.
One of them, also written in his book, had been vetoed, which irked Alpha Vincent, until a payment, equivalent to one of the standard assassination fees was deposited in his account.
While it softened the blow, it didn’t ease his battered pride, that he wasn’t his own boss anymore.
His original plan had been simple, track down the caller, and then blackmail him for more money once he’d got enough evidence of his misdeeds, but try as he might, he had nothing more than the number he called on.
Yet now, he was himself being threatened, classed as nothing more than a convenience, he needed to change this up somehow.
Alpha Vincent growls loudly.
He hadn’t done badly out of this arrangement, he had millions in a hidden account now, which was fine, until his life had been threatened, but now the mystery man has made it personal and it’s his job to turn the tables on him, this person thinks he holds all the cards, but Alpha Vincent will show him how wrong he is.
He looks across his desk thinking through his options.
Passing the pack onto his son, to remove himself from the situation would probably work, his son would never deal with him like that, too soft to understand killing is what wolves do, but in doing so, he may still be able to manipulate his son, make him a puppet Alpha.
But the more he thinks of it, the more distasteful that idea becomes, give up his power and status, Goddess above he may as well commit suicide and that’s not something he plans on doing either.
His son and he do not share a good relationship, Robert is too weak to be the Alpha of this pack in his eyes, maybe he should take over some other pack and install his son there, keep him on a tight leash, and strengthen this pack that way.
Of course, the reason that Robert was so weak is that he went against his father’s advice, and picked his fated mate, a beautiful she-wolf, but Delta born didn’t have the right bloodlines or upbringing.
He gets that now, it’s why Robert is too soft, any hardworking wolf could make Delta, didn’t mean the bloodlines were good, but he didn’t intend to make the same mistake again, a weak Alpha line was better than a strong Delta.
Robert can fight, he’ll give him that, he excels in negotiations as well because he’s just too approachable, but he lacks the killer instinct, the brutality that’s needed to succeed and keep other packs afraid of the Nightshade pack.
Strong packs need to breed a healthy fear in other packs, or they become ripe for takeover, yes, the Royal Pack doesn’t allow it to happen at the moment, but even they seem weaker, less imposing than when he was a pup.
One day soon, they will be a figurehead and nothing else, after all, a second son from their bloodline was named as the heir, and they will be taking over the throne, if that doesn’t scream weak, what does?
People call his views old-fashioned, but Alpha Vincent would bet any money none would go against him, this modern-day Alpha is weak, Robert is weak if he wasn’t, he’d have made a play for Alpha status already, he shouldn’t care about anything else bar being Alpha, and he’s proved that’s not the case.
Alpha Vincent feels strong enough to reign over this pack for another lifetime, his father was almost unbeatable at 60, even if he’d handed over the pack when Alpha Vincent had hit 20, so why shouldn’t he be the same?
He needed a stronger male pup to take over, one he could train to be ruthless from an early age, take a leaf out of his old Gamma’s book, train them from the age of two, and allow no friendships, yes that’s what he would do this time, keep this new mate in line.
But that still left him with the issue of this mystery man, you can’t stop what you don’t see, surely this hidden voice or benefactor had to make a mistake sometime soon.
Nor will he admit to the Gamma or his Beta, that he’s taking orders on who to kill so that they could help investigate it, which would of course weaken him as well, and he refuses to be weakened in their eyes.
He already swears his Gamma gets stronger by the month, something else he hadn’t bargained for, her full parentage didn’t justify how strong she was becoming, he should think about doing some digging on her when he had the time.
But she was close to twenty, and he also needed her mated and tied to the pack, clearly her fated mate wasn’t in the pack or they would have known by now, but she needed a chosen mate he could control easily, yet ruthless, cold and strong, that way, there’d be two people to control her, him and her mate.
He’d made a mistake allowing Cole to try and dominate her when she was younger, so now when he made his decision, he wouldn’t leave it to others to resolve, he would plan it all, ensure the plan worked, even if she had to be removed as the Gamma.
She only ever killed because he commanded her to, he’s well aware of that, he’s not even sure if she could take a life without it, well ignoring Rogues, but even some of those she’d left alive, but beaten.
He doesn’t give her a choice in dishing out punishments or taking a life, ensuring her compliance in front of others is important, if the pack thinks she’s bending to his will willingly, then she is his poster child for obedience, the rest don’t need to know she is, essentially forced into it.
Plus, he could make her unavailable to the mystery caller in some way, like ensuring she is with the pup, or away from the pack.
Suddenly it hits him, the answer to his biggest problem is within his control after all.
He grins an evil dangerous grin.
Yes, this could work out well.
Standing he feels in control for the first time in a long time, he’s got seeds to plant and preparations to make, but he can see a way out of the mess he’s in, one in which he wins and that’s all that matters.