Page 137 of The Alpha's Second Chance Mate

Trent pressed his palm to my chest, stopping me. “Hang on.”

I knew what was coming, and I deserved it. Though, that didn’t mean it would be pleasant or that I’d like it.

“Are you going to handle this like a man?” Trent asked.

“Yeah,” I grunted.

“Really?” Trent asked, raising his eyebrows. “Because you’ve been acting like a little bitch all day.”

Lowering my head, I said, “I know. I’m sorry about that.”

“Sorry doesn’t mean shit to me,” Trent said. “I don’t need sorry. What I need is my alpha to act like a goddamn alpha, not like some pissy toddler who missed naptime.” Trent pointed back over his shoulder in the general direction of town. “I’ve known Langston for a long time. We went through some major shit. If I were you, I’d be over the fucking moon that a guy like that traveled across the country to help me save my son. Ashton needs you. Kyle has your son, and from what we saw in North Crest this morning, he’s not only a threat to your family but your town as well.”

“I’ve got it,” I said, holding my hands up in surrender. “I know. I’ve been a dick. I promise my head is in the game. We’re good.”

Trent kept his eyes locked on mine, almost like he was trying to look all the way into my skull and read my thoughts. Whatever he saw must have told him what he needed to know. He dropped his hand from my chest and nodded once.

“Good. All I want is my friend back.”

“I’m back. It’s me,” I said. “I promise I’ll do better.”

“Well, let’s get going, then,” Trent said.

We shifted and sprinted back home. Thankfully, I’d spent my run going in a one-mile radius around my place, so we weren’t too far away. We hopped into Trent’s vehicle and headed for Avery’s place. The whole drive, I had a nervous tickle in my stomach. The worst thing about my behavior was that I’d have to look into Langston’s and Avery’s eyes and take whatever came my way. I deserved whatever they gave me, though. If the tables had been turned and Langston had acted the way I had? God, I couldn’t imagine the shit I’d have given the guy even if he apologized. I was more worried about Avery’s reaction, though.

When we got there, Trent led the way into her house. Swallowing my pride, I followed him. Avery was sitting at the kitchen table with Stormy and Langston. She glanced up, and we locked eyes. She didn’t smile, didn’t jump up to greet me with a hug, or even acknowledge my presence. Instead, her gaze stayed on me a moment before sliding over to Trent. Then she smiled.

“Hey, Trent,” she said.

Fuck. This wasn’t good. I couldn’t blame her, though. I needed to focus and get my head in the game. Show everyone here I was capable of being the bigger man, of being a better man than I had been earlier.

Taking the initiative, I headed straight for Langston, holding out my hand.

“Hey, uh, I’m sorry about earlier. I was a dick, and you didn’t deserve that,” I said, doing my best to be as sincere as I could.

Langston glanced down at my hand for half a second before nodding and shaking.

“No problem, Cole. Water under the bridge.” He nodded toward Zayde. “We’ve got bigger problems, anyway.”

“What did you guys find?” I asked, releasing his hand and moving to join Zayde at the kitchen counter where he had his laptop open. As I took my spot, I cast a sidelong glance at Avery. She gave me the faintest nod and a small smile. Not much, but I’d take it.

“Once we got checked into our rooms, Zayde did a bit more poking around North Crest’s systems,” Langston said.

Zayde gave me a slight once-over, then nodded. “At first glance, it appeared they didn’t have any surveillance systems. Looked like a little backwater town that never upgraded to the twenty-first century, but then I hit paydirt.”

“What was it?” I asked, leaning over eagerly to see what he had.

“I accessed the public works site. The place where you go to pay your gas bills and shit. I dived into the code and found a weird little back door that took me to a bunch of deleted files for the municipality. The files were deleted by someone who didn’t really know what they were doing. People like to think hitting that little trashcan icon is all you need to do. Unfortunately, for anyone trying to get rid of the dick pic they took when they were drunk, it takes a lot more to really get rid of something.”

I pointed at the computer. “What is all that?”

A dozen small thumbnail squares lined the screen, all black-and-white pictures that were too small to make out.

“North Crest does have security cameras around town. Not many, but they were all on the same server. The one some dumbass tried to wipe. Look what we found,” Zayde said as he clicked on the first thumbnail, enhancing the size to full screen.

The video showed Kyle and three other men getting out of a sedan on the main street of North Crest. One of the men was Dallas. I watched, with dawning horror, as the group walked up to a man who was sweeping the sidewalk in front of a shop. They pushed him against the wall. The older man stumbled backward, and Kyle pressed a hand to his chest, his face close to the other man’s. Some words were exchanged, and eventually the store owner pulled his wallet out and handed over what was inside. After counting it, Kyle shoved him again and pointed into the store. The guy hustled inside and returned a few minutes later with a bigger stack of money. This appeased Kyle. He handed the stack off to Dallas, who tucked it away in his jacket pocket before the group departed, leaving the store owner shaking.

“Son of a bitch,” Trent muttered from behind me.

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