Page 43 of The Alpha's Second Chance Mate

“Holy shit, Dad,” I muttered. “What the hell were you thinking?”

At the bottom of the document, Dad’s signature appeared again beside a printed version of his name. Below that was another swooping signature beside two printed words:Kyle Alexander.

I froze, my eyes zeroing in on the name. The prick who’d accosted Avery in the hardware store. These were not legally binding contracts, and that was bad news. Dad had taken money from a fucking loan shark, just like Dallas said. Now, this prick was sniffing around town, trying to get his cash. Not only that, but he was making his presence known to an innocent woman. It was an imitation tactic. This fucker was trying to scare me intopaying back money I never borrowed. Dad was dead, and he was trying to collect, anyway.

The gambling, as stupid as it was, made sense. Even the loan made sense. But what made zero sense was what Dad could have possibly put up as collateral to get this guy to give him a hundred grand.

The answer came to me like a punch to the kidney: the pack businesses. The alpha family owned a small stake in every pack business. It granted them a small cut of the profits that were, in turn, funneled back to the pack through decreased rent and utility costs, among other things. If Dad had leveraged that ownership, then this Kyle Alexander guy could have a claim to all the pack-owned businesses. Legally binding or not, it wasn’t good. If it was legal, then we could get lawyers involved and sort it out. The fact that this was all under the table meant we had no recourse.

Farrah and I hadn’t talked since I’d confronted her about Avery and Ashton. I’d been too pissed off to look at her, much less talk. But this was too important to keep her in the dark. Regardless of what she’d done in the past, this was still her pack, and she and I had to figure this out. That meant she needed the whole story. I texted her, telling her to get her ass to the alpha house.

When she arrived a while later, I could see the fear in her eyes. She probably assumed I wanted to chew her ass out again.

“I’m here,” she said as she came through the front door. “Is everything okay?”

As pissed off and betrayed as I felt toward her, the terrified, chastened look on her face made me regret how things had gone. If the roles were reversed, would I have done the same thing?A promise to an alpha was something you couldn’t back out of. Still, it would take time for me to wholly forgive her.

“Calm down,” I said. “I’m not going to yell at you. We need to talk about Dad.”

“What about him?”

I explained all that I’d heard from Dallas and Maria that morning, then I showed her the file I’d found. She sank into the office chair, looking like I’d hit her with a shovel.

“This can’t be happening,” she said. “What are we going to do about this guy?”

“It’s worse than that,” I said, tapping Kyle’s signature. “He confronted Avery in a store the other day. Didn’t threaten her, but he made it clear that he and I were somehowbusinessacquaintances. I have a feeling this is going to escalate soon. The guy wants his money. He won’t stop until he gets it.”

“How did Dallas know all this when we were in the dark?” she asked.

“That’s what I don’t know yet. Dallas didn’t stick around long enough for me to ask questions.” I sat on the edge of the desk and put a hand to my forehead. “We really fucked up.”

“We can’t blame ourselves, Cole. We weren’t here.”

“That’s why you and I are both somewhat to blame. We left Harbor Mills behind, and Dad screwed everything up because we weren’t here acting as a counterpoint to him. We knew he was drinking heavily back then, but we never tried to stop him. We were both too pissed at him to care. As soon as we could, we hit the road and never looked back. If we’d been here, maybe we could have stopped this from getting out of control.”

Farrah sat forward and slapped her palm down on the table. “We were young, and Dad was a dick to us. Leaving out of self-preservation was all we could do. I refuse to accept blame for doing what was best for me, and neither should you. Mom died, and Dad spent the years after doing everything he could to push us away. This is his problem, not mine. I’ll help you fix it, but I’m not taking any responsibility.” She leveled a finger at me. “He used his influence on me so I was forced to lie to you. That was the last straw.”

She was right, of course. Doing that had broken whatever trust might have been left between Dad and Farrah. I’d have bolted, too.

“I know,” I said. “You’re right. We didn’t cause this issue, and we shouldn’t have to deal with it, but here we are. You and I are all that’s left of the Garrett family. We’ve got to fix this one way or the other.”

Farrah eyed me, her brow furrowed in concern. “How dangerous do you think this Kyle guy is?”

I grunted. “In my experience? Loan sharks get that name for one reason and one reason only. Once there’s blood in the water, they bite.”

“Do we need to call Trent?”

“Probably a good idea,” I said, and pulled my phone out. My friend had done a lot of off-the-book stuff in the military. If anyone in town could help with a threat, it was Trent.

“What do you need, Cole?” Trent answered.

“Where are you? Farrah and I need to talk to you.”

“I just finished installing that security system at Avery’s house a few minutes ago.”

A warm shiver went through me at the mention of her name. I’d almost forgotten he was going over there today.

“Can you get to the alpha house? Fast?”

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