Page 56 of In the Mouth of the Wolf

“I really thought he’d just been a deadbeat, skipping out on child support.” I sniffed.

“Hmm,” Elias responded.

I backed up and looked at his face. He had the same expression from back at his office when we first met.

“Spill it,” I said. “You know something.”

He pursed his lips and looked to the side for a moment, his eyes softening when he finally looked back at me. “Do you know how your mom paid for everything?”

I swallowed, thinking back to my childhood. We had lived in a modest three-bedroom home, with enough money for essentials and a little extra. As a little kid, I hadn’t thought it was strange that my mom didn’t work because so many of my friends’ moms also stayed at home, until I had realized that was because they had dads.

When I had asked her about it, she said that we lived off a small inheritance she had received from her parents, long since dead.

Still, if he had been so wealthy, if his company had been so successful, why the disparate lifestyles? Why the secret fellowships?

None of it was adding up.

I looked back towards the safe, an idea popping in my head. I wiped my cheeks and crossed the room. “I wonder…” I whispered to myself.

I entered six numbers, and the door clicked open.

Elias came up behind me. “You figured it out? What was the code?”

“Mine and Ezra’s birthdate.”

He sighed. “Should have been our first guess.”

“No,” I replied, carefully swinging the door open. “Honestly, before this moment, it would have been my last.”

Inside was filled with photos of me and my twin brother – school pictures, birthdays, Halloweens, and Christmases. Vacations in Door County, trips to the zoo and Six Flags. All tucked into envelopes addressed to my dad in my mom’s handwriting, with no return address.

Further tucked in was a small bag. I yanked it out, unzipping it quickly and taking the contents out one at a time, handing them to Elias to hold. Three thick bundles of cash – one US dollars, one euros, and one pounds. Next came four passports. The first one was for my dad, but it said he was from Texas and listed his name as Murray Peterson. The following three were for me, my brother, and my mother – our faces photoshopped, our names all changed.

“What the hell is this?” I gasped.

I could feel Elias’s shock and confusion clearly through our newly created bond. “Honestly, I have no idea. I didn’t help him with any of this.”

He took the bag and all its contents and set them on a nearby side table, then held my hands in his. My mind raced with questions and emotions and memories, and a deep purr from Elias anchored me back. “Marlowe,” he said. “I didn’t know your father that well – mostly through Cam growing up, and then when I started my firm he became one of my first clients, keeping me on retainer to help with his personal affairs and the company every now and then. That was it.”

I looked around the room, trying to get a picture of the male my father was, but I was coming up blank.

“What was he like?” I asked quietly.

He raised a hand to my cheek. “Cam could answer that question better than me.”

“No,” I shook my head. “I want to hear your experiences, too.”

His eyes looked up as he gathered his thoughts. “He was quiet, but warm and kind. The kind of male who didn’t seem like a yeller. He just exuded strength and dominance. He was quick to help, quick to try to figure out solutions to any problem you came to him with. And he really wanted to uplift the shifters of this town. Even though he was alone, I think he really enjoyed being a part of the community. Having it around him.”

“But not his family,” I whispered.

Elias drew me in for another hug. “I’m sure you don’t want to hear this, but I don’t think he left you all from any lack of love. Fathers don’t create fake non-profits to fund their children’s college tuitions or fill secret safes with years’ worth of their pictures and an emergency go-bag to whisk them out of the country because they don’t care. They do it because they’re scared.”

I digested his words, finding them at odds with the image I’d built of my dad for the past twenty-two years of my life. The deadbeat who couldn’t even be bothered to come to his own son’s funeral.

But had his distance really been motivated by something else? “What does a shifter have to be scared of?” I asked, my voice shaking.

His forehead touched mine. “I can’t think of anything powerful enough to rip a male away from his pups. Protecting our families, our packs… it’s our prime motivator.”

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