Taking Power With The Alpha's Daughter

Chapter 3: A Plan for Everfur Shadows

***PHIL POV***

    I loved Mira like a sister.  I had to keep reminding myself of that.  I loved her like a sister.

    But basic knowledge about how werecougars did business?  And not knowing that?

    To me, that was inexcusable.  I remember being taught that in a class with Mira, her sisters, and Justin.  Sure, my brothers were there as well, but they jerked around the whole time.  So did Mira.  I knew that that day was coming, where her ambivalence during the classes that Uncle Jim put on for us when we were young would catch up to her, and it happened.

    As I walked back to my office, I found myself feeling bad-tempered, which was a problem I had been having since I left the governor’s office.  At least that’s what I told myself. But, in reality, when Michael asked me what I was going to be doing with the money that Governor Brown had given me as a severance package, I found myself getting depressed.  

    I was almost 23, the same age as Mira.  I wasn’t mated.  I wasn’t engaged.  I wasn’t married.  I didn’t have kids on the way.

    That made me sad.  That’s all I wanted.  I couldn’t help but feel envy whenever I’d see Miracle and I wasn’t the one holding her.  I figured that things would get a lot worse when Michael and Mira’s little one showed up.

    I grabbed a miniature bottle of orange juice and sat down behind my desk, opening up a video chat with Jean-Marie.  He needed to know that we were coming.  Volunteering to do the mission in Louisiana was going to be good for me for a couple of reasons. First, getting out of the packhouse for a while was something that I knew would do me good as I’d be able to have some face-to-face negotiations.

    The other reason was that if I ended up there for a few days, I’d get to find out if my mate was part of Jean-Marie’s pack.

    When the video chat popped up, I took a look at my face on the screen.  My sandy-blonde hair now fell to the top of my shoulders and my hazy brown eyes were touched with sadness; not dead, but not warm and inviting...just withered by loneliness and sorrow.  The inner corners of my eyebrows seemed permanently tilted up in depression.  A line was formed at the top of my forehead.

    I was miserable.  I was lonely.

    I needed my mate.  Soon.  Otherwise these facial features were going to be permanent.

    I was jarred out of my trance by Jean-Marie, who seemed more frazzled than I remembered.

    “Is everything okay?” I asked, knowing what the answer was going to be.

    “Most definitely not,” Jean-Marie replied.  “Those damned werecougars are having their way with us, and it doesn’t look like we’re going to make it out of the next couple of weeks.”

    “Holy s**t, that’s a problem,” I replied.  “However, Crescent Woods has a plan for Everfur Shadows.”

    “Please tell me you’re sending people down here to bail us out,” Jean-Marie pleaded.  “If you do that for us, we don’t care what terms you request, we’ll agree to them, as long as the percentage is higher than 15%.  That’s our break-even point.”

    “We’ll be equal partners, or at the very least close to that,” I replied.  “Michael is even more fair than Alpha James was, and I’m sure he’ll go for right around the 50/50 range.” Of course, I wasn’t 100% sure about that, but I knew for a fact that Michael would pay out no less than 40%.

    “So that means you’re sending people?!” Jean-Marie asked with a mix of hope and excitement.

    “17 Delta warriors, 17 Omega warriors, myself, and $17,500 in cash,” I replied.  “Most of that will pay for our expenses on the way down and our lodging at the local hotel before we rendezvous with your people.  The rest will be an initial payment upfront to get new equipment and anything else you might need for our deal to take shape.”

    “You Crescent Woods wolves sure know how to treat their working partners well,” Jean-Marie replied.  “How quickly can you get down here?”

     “I hope to head down tomorrow,” I replied.  “What else do you need from us?  I want to make sure we’re covered.”

     “Just be ready to kick werecougar ass,” Jean-Marie growled.  “I don’t know what kind of support Lucas has, but there have been wolves around here as well. Not rogues, though, at least from what I’ve been able to see.  They’re too well organized and too obedient to Monica O’Neill’s instructions.”

      This just got a lot more interesting. Wolves and cougars hadn’t gotten along for millennia, according to Phoenix.  That’s when a sudden thought ran through my head that made me almost vomit.  The fact that one of the most brutal werecougar dens had shown up with werewolf support wasn’t a coincidence.

      “Have you had any suspicious wolf activity around your property?  Or any new hires in your pack’s IT department?” I asked.

      “One new guy,” Jean-Marie replied.  “We had problems with our cable TV hookups through our streaming services on the pack desktops.  Martin fixed it for us.”

      “When did you bring him on board?” I asked, getting frantic.

      “Two weeks ago, right when we started talking,” Jean-Marie replied.

      “Fire him, right now!” I yelled.  “Download all correspondence you and I have had, especially anything that you CC’d Michael on. Then have Martin escorted off-pack premises and double your border patrols. I’m heading down now. I’ll see you in ten hours.  I’m bringing Kristy with me.  We’ve got a problem.  I’ll call you from the plane that Chief Andrew uses for GTC business.  He owes me one hell of a favor.”  With that, I disconnected the call and linked all four other ranked members.

      My office. Now.

      I then texted the Vegas campus to have protective details out on Jack and Benjamin.  Something had always rubbed me the wrong way about the way Fabian had pushed out the poison we were trying to protect everyone from, but now something clicked in my brain.

      Mira was the first one to my office.  “What’s going on?” she asked.

      “The Louisiana problem just got a whole lot worse,” I replied.  “Something had always bothered me when we were trying to figure out how Fabian had the cash to get vampire blood to use in that poison that almost killed Justin.  I think I just figured it out.”

       “The size of your brain just floors me,” Mira stated, awe in her voice.  “How you keep everyone and everything straight in that encyclopedic mind of yours almost scares me.”

       “Thank you,” I stated with a hollow smile on my face.  While I appreciated her compliment and would return it in kind, her ignorance left a lot to be desired.  I picked up the phone and got the Grand Tacoma Council on the line, waiting semi-impatiently to get transferred to Chief Andrew.  Right when the call made it to his desk, and the chief picked up the phone, Michael, Kristy, and Justin walked into my office.

    “Team, I’ve got Chief Andrew on the phone right now as well,” I declared.  “I just found something out that’s added a whole new wrinkle to our Fabian problem.”

    “Gamma, Fabian is already facing some pretty heavy sanctions already from what he did to you guys behind all of our backs,” Chief Andrew groaned.  “I’ve been dealing with a potential new pack in Illinois trying to get land permits to build a packhouse and incorporate themselves, but the alpha is an i***t, so I’m a bit short-tempered right now.  You better have something that would start the proceedings in getting his pack taken from him.”

     “Does unlawfully bugging the computers of another pack count as something that would get him in trouble?” I asked.

     “You have my attention now,” Chief Andrew replied just as Mira whispered, “oh f**k” under her breath.

     “We’ve always thought that Fabian had ties to organized crime, but we’ve never had anything to say he did definitively. So why do you think he does?” Chief Andrew asked.  This was the perfect time to explain my hidden passion.

     “I think Jean-Marie Allard’s email server at Everfur Shadows got bugged,” I stated, making my case.  “Jean-Marie just told me that their TVs and streaming services had been scrambled, and right when it happened, they had just hired someone in their IT department who unscrambled it right then and there.  That’s a more modern playbook for how Paul Castellano got in hot water with the FBI in the 1980s.

    “In addition to that, Fabian’s influx of cash right when Michael was declared the Alpha-in-Waiting coincides right with when we found out Fabian had mixed Wolfsbane and vampire blood.  Fabian’s income has always been a mystery to all of us, but with leech’s blood almost impossible to get in legal ways, it all fits.”

    “That’s a huge leap, Phil,” Michael responded.  “We know that Fabian is insane enough to try that, and it would not surprise me if he did.  However, we can’t just randomly add that to the list of charges against him during our summit with him.”

    “That’s why I want to leave tonight, and I’m cashing in my favor with the Chief to see if I can borrow the GTC plane to get our crew down there now so I can investigate this before we can get organized and start kicking the crap of those shapeshifting kitty cats,” I stated.

    “You’ve got it,” Chief Andrew stated.  “I’ll link my pilot to put gas in it now.  How soon can you get up here?”

    “That’s contingent on one thing,” I stated, looking directly at Justin.  “I’m taking Kristy with me.  I want to see if any of the wolves that Jean-Marie just told me are there are also ones we banished from our fight last month.  I always figured that Fabian had some of his people with Richard’s team; I want to test that theory right now.”

    “I’ll pack a bag,” Kristy replied from the doorway.  “Miracle will be just fine right here.  I’ll be prepared for a week and ready within half an hour.”  With that, she dashed off.

     “Then I’ve got a better idea,” Michael said.  “Can your pilot land in Hayford’s airport?  The damned thing just got finished, and the tower is operational.  Our people will be there, bags in hand, with an envelope containing ten grand in cash to reimburse you if you want it.”

     “That’s totally unnecessary,” Chief Andrew replied.  “If you guys find something, you can petition to have the GTC come in and strip Fabian of his alphaship.  Now, if that happens, we’re obviously going to have someone in place as the interim Alpha to put the pieces back together at Phantom Grounds.  Let’s not go that far, though.  See what you find down there and report back to me when you can.”

     “Thank you, Chief, and will do,” I replied and disconnected the call.  When I looked up, Michael was smirking and shaking his head.

     “What the hell is that expression for?” I asked.

     “I swear to the Goddess above; you had to have been an Alpha in a past life.  I have no freaking clue how in the hell you just simply move from one thing to another in your brain as quickly as you do.  If I didn’t have Phoenix in my head reminding me to take a break and just simply do what I can to move on to subsequent tasks, I’d be lost.”

      “I’ve noticed my ability to do that as well, but honestly, I’m really happy with the job that I have right now.  I can’t imagine doing anything else right now, to be honest with you,” I replied.  “I just chalk it up to being brutally efficient in what I do.”

      “Either way, I’m just damned glad that you and I are on the same side,” Michael stated.  “Be sure that you text Jean-Marie and Bonnie that it’s going to be 36 wolves total now.  Good luck in Louisiana.  I hope you come back with decent news, or at the very least unscathed.”

      Me too, Madison whispered in my ear.  This should be fun.

      I just hoped we’d be safe.