I turned within her grip to see my mates hanging back, looking at her warily.
“Well, not all of them, Mum.”
“Yes, all of them,” she snapped, then held me at arm’s length. “High-handed, controlling bastards who benefit from structural inequality and will do anything to maintain it, including assaulting my daughter. I know we talked mating an alpha but…”
Her words trailed away as I pulled my shirt away from my neck. Bren’s mark was there, Rhys’ on the other side, and I was going to add to them, I knew that. If I had to stick my head through prison bars for Marcus to mark me, it was going to happen.
“Mum, I’m theirs—”
“No, no, Cyn. You don’t have to do this. Marcus helped me out. I won’t be able to sever the business relationship I have with him, but there’s no reason why you should have to put yourself in this danger again. Alphas are overbearing, controlling—”
“Mates,” I finished for her. “They’re my mates. I know you don’t understand, but…”
My voice trailed away, and I frowned, the guys doing the same, clustering closer.
“Business relationship?” Orion asked sharply.
“Marcus has been a silent partner and contributor to R&D in my company. Our company,” she said, eyes dropping. “I met this kid at a renewable industries convention not long after Cyn finished school. I was trying to sell the idea of batteries, but no one was biting, except for him. Initially, I brushed him off, thinking he was too young, and then he showed me the numbers. What he had to invest, his previous dabbles in business, his share portfolio.”
“His share portfolio?” Orion said. “Are we talking about the same person? I’m pretty sure we’re broke.”
She shook her head slowly. “Marcus, he’s a genius, that goes without saying, but he’s no ivory tower intellectual, pondering the mysteries of the universe. He is a devil at the stock market, his instincts are unparalleled. He just kept reinvesting those returns in the company, allowing it to grow beyond anything I would have managed on my own. Journalists say I’m coy when it comes to talking about my success, because I have to be. The batteries, they’re a good invention, but we would have gotten nowhere without him.”
Her eyes came swinging back to me.
“But that doesn’t mean you need to have anything to do with him. I’ll sell the company and the IP off to the highest bidder, let some alpha step into the newly created vacuum.” She rubbed at her temple. “It’d be almost a relief. I thought it’s what I needed, to keep you safe, Cyn. He made me see that. He knew that a helluva lot of money would open doors for you I couldn’t, allow you freedoms that you wouldn’t normally have, but—”
“When did you start this company?” Rhys asked in a low, deadly tone.
“When I turned eighteen,” I said, “or just before.” But I wasn’t seeing them, Mum, the hospital foyer, or anything. I saw him, that golden figure in the forest, right before I left, but this time, Marcus drew a deep breath in, turning his head in my direction, following the trail of my scent home.
“Mum, are you going to be OK?”
“Me? How about you? You’ve just suffered through—”
“I need to go,” I said, kissing her quickly on her cheek, then dancing back when she tried to grab hold of me. I felt bad for that, but I knew now what I had to do. “We need to go to the police station.”
“What?” Bren asked, but I shot him a look. “OK, the car’s out front.”
“Mr McCallum has been released without charge,” the police clerk at the front counter said stiffly, not meeting our eyes.
“What? When?” Orion asked, pushing forward. “Our lawyers weren’t notified.”
“He didn’t want them to, so we left him to leave under his own steam. Now, if that’s all?”
We stepped away from the counter, clustering close.
“What the fuck?” Rhys asked, raking his hand through his hair. “What the actual fuck?”
“It’s like… Did we even know him?” Bren said with a frown. His hands were shoved deep into his jeans pockets, but I worked mine in beside them. “So where is he now? Apothecary?”
“Maybe. Like is he going to run or…?” Orion said.
“I know where he is,” I replied. “You can drive me there, but I need to speak to him first.”
Rhys snorted his appreciation for that idea, but Bren stared at me.