I Don't Need No Alpha Brothers novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Gravel Bar

Conrad opened his mouth.

I watched him look for the lie.

He'd had one ready for fifteen years, and for the first time I saw him unable to find it.

"I misspoke," he said.

"No, you didn't."

"Lainey, I'm tired, I haven't slept, I meant your mother's eyes in the photograph."

"There's one photograph," I said. "I keep it by my bed. She's laughing in it. Her eyes are closed."

He said nothing.

The flashlight lay on the step between us, pointing at the river.

"You saw her alive," I said.

He looked at the water for a long time.

When he looked back at me, the warm man I had grown up with was gone.

What was left was someone I'd never met.

He was calm. He was almost relieved.

"Your father wouldn't sell," he said.

The words hit me like the cold of the river.

"I offered him money. I offered him a place in the pack. Twice. He said the fork was his and his daughter's and no Alpha was ever getting it."

"So you killed him."

"I came with my enforcer to make him leave. He went for my throat on his own porch." Conrad touched his left side, where the long scar ran under his shirt. "He gave me this before he went down."

I couldn't feel my hands.

"My mother," I said.

"She ran for the trees."

"Don't."

"You asked." His voice didn't change. "My enforcer caught her by the woodpile and held her down. She fought him so hard he had her bite marks till the day he died."

He looked at my face.

"I did the rest. She looked at me."

I made a sound.

I didn't know I could make that sound.

"There were no rogues," I said.

"There were no rogues."

"Keir's father said there were no bodies."

"Keir's father was the only one on this river smart enough to ask." He almost smiled. "Nobody listened to him either."

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