Page 154 of The Alpha's Second Chance Mate

I didn’t want to do it, but I had to keep her calm. I reached out lightning-fast and grabbed her wrist, digging my fingers in firmly but not painfully. She froze again, eyes widening. I glanced down at her name tag, hoping to make a connection.

“Emily? My name is Cole Garrett. I’m the alpha of the Harbor Mills pack. I’m here to help you all. Me and my pack want Kyle gone.Gone,” I added with extra emphasis.

She looked over her shoulder again, scanning the empty dining room before looking at me again. “You aren’t going to hurt me?”

I released her wrist as a show of friendship. “I promise.”

She licked her lips, eyes darting around, hands shaking. She looked like a caged animal.

“We can’t talk about him,” she said at last. “Not anything bad, anyway. The owner, Lee, is on Mr. Alexander’s payroll. He’s one of the only people in town who doesn’t have to pay a full tax to his men, but in return for the… discount, or whatever you’d call it, he has to let Mr. Alexander know if anyone’s saying stuff about him.”

I let that sink in. It was very similar to how Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia operated, as well as the Italian mafia. Inspire terror among the populace, but then make sure to have a few traitors in your back pocket to inform on the others.

“Lee won’t know you talked to me. I swear,” I said, keeping my voice low.

“We don’t have anyone to defend us.” Tears shimmered in her eyes, ready to spill down her cheeks. “All we can do is obey.”

“How is that possible?” I asked, leaning forward. My phone buzzed in my pocket, but I ignored it. “What about the North Crest police? I know you’re a small town, but…” I trailed off as she shook her head.

“There’s only three guys on the force,” she said. “They’re all on the payroll, too. They help him with security when he needs it.”

“Jesus Christ,” I hissed. Kyle had gone that far? A tremor of fear rumbled through me. What else was he involved in?

“Why can’t you run?” I asked.

Emily shook her head hard, causing a few tears to fly off her lashes and onto her notepad. “We can’t do that. If we run or talk bad about him, he’ll… well, he’ll do bad things to us.Awfulthings. And if we do manage to get away, he’ll punish anyone left behind we care about. Parents, siblings, friends… we’re all too scared to do anything.” Her eyes widened in terror. “You can’t imagine the things he can do to us.”

I could. I recalled the video of him injecting that poor man with some strange cocktail of drugs. She was talking about being turned into a mindless animal. That would scare the shit out of me, too. At least when I shifted, I retained my mind and worked in concert with my inner wolf. To become some animal that didn’t have any thought or memory of a human life? That sounded almost worse than death.

“Can you really help us?” Emily asked.

She didn’t sound confident. In all honesty, if things were as bad as she said, I’d have a hard time believing anyone could save me from such a horrible situation, either. Yet, behind the fear in her eyes was a faint glimmer of hope. The poor girl was terrified, and I was sure many more people in town were as well.

“You act normal, Emily,” I said. “Normal and calm. Let me and my men do what needs to be done. I can’t promise it will happen right away, but I promise I’ll do everything I can to help you and the rest of the people in this town.”

She nodded and wiped at her eyes. “Okay. Got it. Uh… so… any lunch?”

I couldn’t help but snort out a laugh. It was nice to break the tension. Smiling at her, I nodded.

“Sure. I’ve got some time to kill. How about a club sandwich?”

“Okay,” she said, and smiled at me. “On the house.”

“Thank you.”

She went into the kitchen, and I pulled my phone out to find that Langston had texted me.

Langston:Thirty minutes

I nodded grimly to myself and looked out the window at the street. It again looked deserted like it had before we’d left town the last time. Everyone was preparing for… what? I didn’t even know what this collecting thing would be like. The videos had been sparse on information. Was it always the same? Did they change tactics? The biggest question was, would Dallas be with them?

A few minutes later, Emily put a sandwich down in front of me, along with a side of kettle-cooked chips. She hurried away before I could thank her. While I’d waited, four people entered the diner. Two of them seemed to be a couple.

My appetite was nonexistent, but I still picked at the food to give myself something to do while I waited to see how things played out. It didn’t take long. Less than ten minutes later, my phone buzzed with another text.

Langston:It’s starting

Snapping my head up, I looked out the window, and sure enough, a group of six men were making their way up the street. Two groups of three. One group was coming out of the grocery store Langston had been posted in. The other group—Dallas and two other burly men—was harassing the owner of a bookstore.The two larger men hovered over the poor woman while Dallas spoke to her. My hand clenched into a fist as I watched him.

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