Page 99 of Taken By the Pack

I don’t speak. I can’t.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, voice edged with concern. “Do you know them?”

I exhale slowly, jaw clenched so tight it aches.

“It’s a subsidiary,” I manage, “of my family’s business.”

She blinks. “What?”

I scrub a hand down my face. “Let me handle this.”

I pull my phone from my pocket and call the one person who can give me answers.

My father answers on the first ring.

“Son,” he says, sounding too fucking pleased.“About time you called.”

My stomach knots. “What the hell are you doing buying property in Driftwood Cove?”

My father chuckles. Chuckles. Like this is some kind of joke.

“Well, isn’t it lucky we learned about this place?” he says smoothly. “Wouldn’t have, if not for you.”

My teeth grind together. “You can’t do this.”

“I can,” he says easily. “And I am.”

I inhale sharply, my Alpha snarling. “You had no right.”

“I had every right,” he counters. “Business is business, Ash. You, of all people, should know that.”

My hands curl into fists.

“Chin up,” my father continues. “The family will be coming next week to see our investments. Maybe you can show us around town.”

Fuck.

I end the call without another word, my heart pounding.

I stare at my phone, then at the eviction notice still crumpled in Grace’s hands. My past—the one I ran from, the one I swore I’d never let touch this place—is closing in.

And I have no idea how the hell I’m going to stop it.

27

GRACE

It’s been a week since I found the eviction notice pinned to my door. A week of stewing in my frustration, of turning over possibilities in my mind and discarding them just as quickly.

Rowan offered me a place at the lighthouse, Jake said I could crash at his, but I’m not ready to accept either. Not yet.

I still have time before I have to leave. That doesn’t mean the anger isn’t simmering beneath the surface, ready to boil over at any moment.

“You okay?” Jake’s voice pulls me from my thoughts.

I blink, bringing myself back to the present. We’re outside my shop, carefully loading up crates of older flowers into the back of Rowan’s truck.

The early morning sun bright and gentle, but it does little to lighten my mood. Still, I nod.

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