Chapter 26
Alpha
Hearingfromhissister-in-law during the day was a surprise.
Alpha wiped his face with the towel, sweat pouring down his chest as the ringing of his phone interrupted him mid-training. With the fight coming up, knowing his opponent would be the Ravager, Alpha was preparing for the first time in a long time.
He picked up his phone, putting it to his ear, his scarred eye itching with the phantom sensation because of the sweat.
“Sister-in-law,” he greeted, curious as to why she would call him and not Zephyr for something. The only thing he could think of was SLF.
“Brother-in-law,” Zenith greeted back, her serious tone immediately making him focus.
“What is it?” he demanded, a tightening in his chest at the thought of something happening to his wife. That could be the only reason she would sound so somber.
“I just got home and found an envelope,” she informed him. “It’s addressed to you.”
Fuck.
Why the hell would he send a note to Alpha through Zenith of all people? Jasmine, he could understand. Zephyr too. But leaving a note for Zenith, at her home, made no sense.
Alpha looked around the training center, the one he had for fighters in the industrial district near the arena. It was about fifteen minutes from where she lived.
“Can you please bring it to me?” he requested. “It might be urgent.”
Zenith agreed and he told her the address, hanging up and going to the locker room to change, his mind whirring with questions.
His phone rang again, his wife calling this time.
“Rainbow,” he put her on speaker, tugging on his jeans. “I take it your sister called you?”
“Oh god, is it the same black envelope thing?” her voice, sweet and feminine, rushed out. “Do you think he knows something about your DNA at the last scene? Will you meet him? I don’t want the cops trying to arrest you for something you didn’t even do so—”
“Breathe,” he commanded, a sliver of amusement curling inside him despite the grim development.
He heard her catch her breath, blowing another out, and felt the movement in his lips at her. She did that a lot, did things naturally that made something inside him lighten up, though he didn’t know if she knew that. Since he’d brought her back, she’d been a bit more reserved, held herself back just a tad bit enough for him to feel it, and fuck if it didn’t make him feel like shit. But it also lit up a fire inside him—to make her love him again, as openly, as completely as she had, and banish all doubts from her mind. He was the one with the trust issues between them, not her.
“Ask Zen to read the note when she gets there,” his wife suggested after she’d calmed down a bit.
He tensed instinctively. He didn’t like anyone knowing about his inability to read small words. He didn’t know why it was the way it was, but he could make out billboard signs and large posters well enough to understand what they read, but trying to focus on smaller fonts just made his head ache. And it wasn’t his vision, because he saw both near and far with clarity with his one eye. It was just another peculiarity related to his missing eye he didn’t comprehend anymore.
Why he’d told her he couldn’t read, when his sentinels were the only other people who knew about it, he didn’t know. Maybe his instincts had known deep down that she was worthy of his confidence, maybe he’d been too bull-headed to listen to it.
He fucking hated trusting people.
But he had begun to trust Zephyr, and she trusted her sister implicitly. And it wasn’t like he had a choice anyway. Hector was out of town so one of his other guys had been driving him, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to give him the note to read. No, Zenith was a better bet.
“Okay,” he told her, hanging up, then realized maybe he shouldn’t have been so abrupt with her. That was just the way he was with everyone.
Sighing, he pocketed his phone and went out into the parking lot in the falling dusk, darkness encroaching on one end of the horizon, chasing the day away.
Someone exited the training building behind him, coming to stand at his side.
The Ravager.
Alpha had known him once, fought with him as a younger man on the streets. The hate-filled boy had channeled it and grown into a weapon that made the industry a shitload of money.
“Adrik,” Alpha greeted him by his real name, wondering how someone could have such natural white hair.