Page 75 of Small-Town Secrets
"Get out!" Tyler echoed him, opening the door.
"All right, all right." I walked to my car with Tyler and the dog beside me and eventually managed to arrive at my client's place only ten minutes late.
I was lucky that Laurence had my back. I needed to have his too, and thinking back to my conversation with Chris, I already knew exactly how I was going to do that.
32
Aaron
GettingHoward's address wasn't hard. As it turned out, he was the only alpha by the name of King living in all of Lake Forest, which was good because I didn't want to clue Laurence into what I was doing. After all, I hoped to return home with a Christmas present.
I parked in front of Howard's house and took a moment to gather myself, looking at it. The house seemed inconspicuous from the outside. A small townhouse with a red roof and a little fenced in yard in the front. An expensive-looking but ultimately ugly car was parked in the driveway. One of those cars that you drove not because you liked them but because you thought everybody else did. Idly, I wondered why his license plate didn't spell Asshole. It should have.
At least the car being here meant that Howard was probably home.
Good.
I got out of my car, walked up to the front door and knocked.
To my surprise, a dog barked inside the house. When had Howard gotten a dog? And what kind? Laurence and the twins hadn't mentioned anything about that, so he must be a recent addition.
When the door opened, I was greeted by the sight of an angry little black-haired poodle who demanded to know who I was and why I was here and why I smelled like other dogs—or at least I was pretty sure that was what the barking meant. "Hey there, little guy. I'm here to talk to your owner," I told him before I shifted my attention to the man standing behind the poodle.
Howard actually didn't look much different from the last time I'd seen him when he still lived in Oceanport eight years ago. He still glared at me with a face that I wanted to punch, only now he had a few more fine wrinkles than he used to and there was more gel in his hair. "What do you want?" he asked, foregoing any and all greetings.
"Who's at the door, honey?" I heard someone call from deeper in the house. A clearly female voice. Maybe his newest lover, poor thing.
"Nobody," he grunted, never taking his eyes off me. The dog by his side had quieted by now, but was still looking at me with the same intensity as Howard was too.
"I don't want to take much of your time," I said. "But we need to talk."
"Talk about what?"
"Talk about how I'm going to tear your balls off if you ever utter another word to my sons." Okay, the actual plan had been to have a civil conversation and nicely ask for some of Laurence's things back, but faced with Howard, I couldn't stay level-headed. Just looking at the man in front of me, my fingers itched to wrap around his throat and shove him against the wall for all the pain he'd caused my family.
Oblivious to my thoughts, Howard scoffed at me. "That's rich. Soyou'rethe guy who shoved his dick in my mate and now you think you can make demands of me. That's hilarious."
"You think that's hilarious? Do you also think the way you treated Laurence and the twins is hilarious?"
The fucker actually laughed.
That was the exact moment he outlived his mercy. I reacted so quickly I almost didn't know what was happening.
"Don't you fuckingdarelaugh about my mate."
"Not my fault," Howard spat. "If he didn't want people to laugh about him he shouldn't have behaved so ridiculously." His eyes narrowed. "He shouldn't have made me raise another man's bastards."
There was that word again. And this time, I saw red. I punched him. He yelped and clutched his nose. A tiny trickle of blood seeped between his fingers.
Well, fuck.
I hadn'tmeantto give him a nose bleed.
I wasn't sorry either.
He'd done worse things to the people I loved.
"Do you believe me now that I'm serious?" I asked.
