"If he goes for one month, his family will go with him."
Nick murmured, "I'll do it. Two months."
I looked over. He nodded.
"All right," I said. "Nick for two months."
Kevin--sitting beside his father--snickered. "The omega? I'd rather take the retard."
Nick shot to his feet, his face hard. "Don't you--"
"--call you the omega?"
"I don't give a damn what you call me, boy. But you don't use that other word for anyone. Presuming you're talking about Noah, I don't know what you've heard, but he's in college with an IQ of a hundred and ten, which I'm going to guess is about twenty points higher than yours."
"Enough," I said. "Noah has school, so he's not an option. Nick is, and considering he sent Malcolm Danvers running, I don't think you really want to call him the omega. Let's cut through the insults and--"
"About Malcolm Danvers," Parker said. "He's still on the run, I hear."
"We're--"
"On the run for three years now, since he escaped Nast custody. Two years since Nicholas here found him."
I tried not to growl. Parker knew exactly what was going on with Malcolm, because I'd kept him in the loop. When Nick and Vanessa tracked down Malcolm, she'd implanted a tracking device. But just because we could find him didn't mean we could catch him, not without losing some of my Pack. Malcolm high-tailed it to Bulgaria, where the local Pack refused to extradite him.
For over a hundred damned years, the American Pack had little to no contact with our international brethren. Now I seem to spend half my time putting out cross-border fires.
"We're handling Malcolm," I said to Parker.
"Not very well."
True, and if you'd get off your ass and pull your weight with the Bulgarians, maybe we could get the psychotic bastard extradited.
"Back to the point, again," I said. "I'm offering--"
My cell started playing Bad Moon on the Rise. Clay's tone. Our daughter, Kate, had set it up. She thought it was hilarious. The British Pack stared like I'd broken out in song myself.
"Interesting choice," Parker said.
"My daughter's," I murmured, taking the phone. I looked at the accompanying picture. Clay with Kate--her choice again.
"It's Clay," Nick said. "And he wouldn't interrupt unless it was urgent Pack business."
Thank you. "Right," I said. "Sorry, but I need to grab this."
I took the phone and hurried into the hall. I answered just as it was about to go to voice mail.
"Hey," I said. "What's--"
"Where are you?"
I paused. The voice on the other end wasn't my mate's Louisiana drawl, but a little girl's, pitched high with annoyance.
"Kate?" I said, then lowered my voice quickly, before anyone heard me talking to my kid. "Is something wrong?"
"Yes. We're on vacation. Our one family vacation a year. And you're not here. You're on business."
I squeezed my eyes shut. Not now, Kate. Damn it, not now.