Page 94 of Omega's Flight
"That," Quin agreed. "You know he's going to put pressure on Raleigh. Given his upbringing, I have my concerns about whether Raleigh is going to be up to withstanding that kind of targeted persuasion.”
As much as he hated to admit it, he thought Quin was probably right. As soon as the pups were threatened, Raleigh would start bending and twisting to keep them, but he'd likely lose ground with each step until he'd lost everything he'd won so far. He'd be so used to giving up parts of himself for the benefit of the pups that he wouldn't even see it happening until he was moving back into Degan's home and wondering where it had all gone wrong. "What do you need?" Cas asked, unconcerned for the bluntness of his tone.
"Take a day if you can, or a couple of mornings. I'm going to try to buy us some time, but Roland is pushing to hear back from him right away, so the faster you can prepare him, the better. Bax says he'll help, I've given him free rein to come and go as he needs for this." He turned to Bax. “But as soon as this crisis if over, you’re out of this office. Understood?”
Bax nodded.
"Holland not around?" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Cas regretted them. There was something going on between his brother and his mate, that was evident from the sudden hardening of Quin's features.
"He's gone for a few days." Quin's voice was flat and unhappy. Cas didn't say anything, couldn't say anything. He didn't know what might be putting his paw in the mud of his brother's relationship and didn't want to make it worse, whatever it was.
The silence stretched and, just when Cas's nerves were prompting him to some ill-considered joke, Quin sighed and rubbed his hands down over his face. "We're arguing about money. The hospital is more expensive than we'd anticipated, getting anyone to work in it is going to be more expensive than we'd anticipated—the government is insisting we have a doctor in place before we can open it. Building materials for the houses have gone up by half in cost. And the trust income is creating its own financial issues."
Cas was aware of that last one, and he'd warned each of the councils to be certain to put some money aside with each project they approved to cover the tax burden that would be coming. Lysoon, they didn't listen, did they? What a mess this was going to be. "So what does that have to do with Holland?"
Quin stared up at the ceiling and laced his fingers together over his stomach. It should have looked relaxed, but to Cas it read as anything but. "Holland still gets offers to work modelling. He's been turning them down, but with Raleigh, then Julius, and now Ori and Patton..." His voice trailed off and he shook his head. "He's got too much on his plate as it is, and he's adding that now because I told him we couldn't afford to buy a new mattress for Ori and Patton until some of this financial stuff is straightened out. So he took the one meant for us down to them and bought a new one for our bedroom anyway."
Cas could read between the lines now. "Let me at the books for a few days, maybe a week, once we're done dealing with Jackson-Jellystone, and I'll see if I can put together a decent picture of what kind of hot water we're in."
"What about the rest of your workload?"
"Let me worry about that. You deal with everything else."
Bax put up a tentative hand. "Can you let me know when you're going to do that? I'd like to see some of it."
"Why?"
Bax glanced over at Quin, who nodded. "I'm thinking about going back to school," Bax said. "By distance. I can take courses, then take the CPA exam. Louise is getting too old to put in the hours that the pack needs and we're going to transition her to retirement. I've got six months free with just the baby and the pups to look after, I've signed up for the first two I need to start in June."
His packbrother would be smart enough to do that, even with a new baby. "You guys already have this thought out."
Quin nodded. "We did. Some. Seosamh is going to take over part of Bax's duties permanently, but we're going to need a second person to handle some of the paperwork, and stuff keeps cropping up to get in the way of finding them. I don't know how Abel did this with just Louise."
"It was a lot simpler then, you know. He wasn't pushing to get outside walls like you are, he wasn't dealing with the omega crisis," Cas snorted and shifted on his chair, "and he didn't have the trusts to deal with. You really need a bigger staff. And a bigger office. Have you thought about doing what Abel did and putting up a house and expanding the office into the apartment?"
"Giving me another job, counsel?" Quin asked dryly. "Don't worry about it, we'll figure things out. If you could draw up that page in the contract, it's the same as the last time, just make sure you close the loophole on the delayed payments in this one? And then go talk to Raleigh and we can meet and talk about the rest later." Quin reached for a folder in his inbox, signalling the end of the interview.
Bax got to this feet and came over to tug on Cas’s arm, jerking his head toward the door. Cas stood, feeling slightly dazed and wondering how he'd missed the start this avalanche of disasters. On impulse, he walked over and squeezed Quin's shoulder, then gave him a hug. "You're doing fine, big brother."
Quin reached up and batted him away. "Go, do your work." But the corners of his mouth had curled into a smile, and Cas took his leave knowing that he'd at least brightened his brother's day for a while.
C H A P T E R 6 7
I should have known it was all going too smoothly to last. Damn my mate, anyway.
"So, what do we do?" I asked Cas. "I'll talk to him if I have to, but we both know he's not going to listen to me."
He nodded, but like it didn't really matter. "When are your pups back?"
"Not until school is over, but I have to work."
He shook his head. "Quin's made it good." He guided me down onto the couch and pulled over a chair from the kitchen so he could sit in front of me. "I've been asked to help you get ready for this interview. Maybe they'll just let you say your piece and agree to let you keep the pups, but my evaluation of the situation is that it isn't likely."
"Isn't going to happen at all, I think you mean," I said, a little more tartly than I'd intended. "Okay, so what do we do?"
He looked me over as if measuring the strength of my will, then nodded. "We're going to practice for whatever he throws at you. This won't be easy. Or comfortable." In a move so sudden it made me jump, he reached out and took my hands in his and squeezed them. "I'm going to apologize now for what's going to happen. You need to know I don't mean any of the things I'm going to say, it's not what I think or what I feel, but it's things I would say to an omega if I was trying to bully them. You understand?"
I nodded, because I thought I did.
