Filed To Story: In the Shadow of the Past Luna (Lily & James)
No. Please no.
(Brady POV)
My heart pounding, I called Evelyn. She answered the phone on the first ring.
She was crying hysterically, which made it hard to understand her. However, from what I o could gather from between her so bs, Sammy had been kidnapped from his room at some point between Evelyn’s fourth and fifth text messages to me this morning.
Worse, the kidnappers left a note, which Evelyn agreed to text to me. The note said:
“You have 48 hours to bring us the she-wolf. We no longer care if she comes dead or alive. If we do not get the she-wolf, you will never see your son alive again. We will be in touch about the transfer details.”
Holy Goddess.
The guilt for leaving Black Moon while my pup was still there hit me hard and fast. Had I been there, he would have been with me. And if he had been with me, he would not have been kidnapped. I let pride, emotions, and jealousy cloud my thinking.
And even though it was none of Evelyn’s business, I really had been f&&ing another she-wolf while Sammy was in trouble. F&&k. (No pun intended.)
I needed to get back to Black Moon and fast.
I quickly hung up with Evelyn after promising to do everything in my power to get our son back. I then called my father. Perhaps for the first time ever, I was relieved when he answered the phone.
“You have heard,”
my father said calmly.
So much for “hello.”
“You already know?”
That Sammy was kidnapped?”
“Yeah”
“Yes. It seems the wolves searching for Lily were not happy when they saw the sky last night.”
My heart stopped. I had been hoping that Evelyn was wrong or that I misunderstood her.
I silently began praying to the Moon Goddess. Please do not let them hurt him. Please. He is just a little pup.
“Do you have any leads on where Sammy is?”
I asked after a short pause.
“You need to get home.”
“Yes. I will hang up with you and go to the airport.”
“Good. We need you here to deal with this and everything else. I talked to James and Lily this morning, and they will be heading here soon as well.”
To my surprise, it did not bother me when my father brought up James and Lily being together. Maybe it was just my fatherly instincts prioritizing my emotions. Th
“Do you have any leads?”
I asked again.
“Yes.”
I took a deep breath as I stared at the phone. The father in me was falling apart. Last night’s heartbreak seemed juvenile and st upid in relation to my son being kidnapped and the fear of what might happen to him.
“Dad… I… I am falling apart here. Do you think that Sammy… is going to be okay?”
“He is with Alpha Brett and your mother in Red River.”
Wait…. what?
I looked at the phone in confusion. Did I just hear him right?
“What? So… he was not kidnapped?”
“He was.”
“I am confused. Please, Dad, no more games. This is my pup. What is going on?”
My father did not say anything.
“Dad, please. Think about how you would feel if you were in my shoes. Just tell me what is going on.”
I heard my father take a huge breath, blow it out, and then tap his fingers on the desk. It was rare, but when he did those three things in a row, it usually meant that he was fighting the urge to say “I told you so.”
“Dad, please.”
Another minute passed. But then finally, he explained.
“When you told me about your fight with Evelyn, I had a theory. I had her phone and computer tapped, and I also had her followed. It turns out that I was right.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Evelyn has been working with some of the wolves that have wanted to get their hands on Lily.
hey were going to pay Evelyn $200 million to bring Lily to them unmarked. Evelyn, in turn, hired some tracker to find her.
Evelyn lost it when she found out that you left to go and find Lily yourself. But then obviously last night happened.
Evelyn did not know what it meant when the sky changed, but the wolves she was working with did. They blame Evelyn for feeding them bad information and leading them on a wild goose chase.
Now those wolves want Lily dead, but of course killing her has now gotten tremendously harder. In the hopes of getting leverage, they kidnapped Sammy this morning while he was playing in his room and they left that note.
However, we intercepted the kidnappers before they left the pack with Sammy. Evelyn still believes that Sammy has been kidnapped, and the kidnappers’ bosses still believe that Sammy has been kidnapped, but he is fine. We have the kidnappers safely kept in the dungeons in Red River, unable to mind-link. We will keep them there until you return and the werewolf council is functional again.”
I ran my hands through my hair as I tried to process what my father had just told me. What the f&&k.
Evelyn was behind all of this? Or at least some of it? How? Why?
“How did…. how did you figure it out?”
“It was all right there in front of you, Son, but you were too blinded to see it. Evelyn knew that the wolves who attacked the pack were after Lily. She either knew that because someone told her that, or because —
“-she was the one that let them in.”
“Correct. The attackers believed that Lily was still at Black Moon when they came. That fact alone ruled out a lot of suspects; most of the wolves who knew that Lily had been the target had also known that she was gone.
You were u to blame James, but James is so disillusioned with his family right now that I knew he would not be the one leaking information, even after the fact.
Meanwhile, Evelyn practically became a fixture around the packhouse after the failed attack, almost as though she was seeking out information.”
“But when… when I asked Evelyn if Andrew told her, she looked at me with guilt in her eyes…”
“Because she felt guilty about her own actions, and she was afraid that Andrew would find out what she had done.”
I am an idiot. An absolute idiot.
“Have you arrested Evelyn yet?”
“No. We have her under careful watch, but I want to make sure we have everyone that she has been working with before we arrest her. I am unwilling to alpha-order a pregnant she-wolf, but I am not above
I sighed.
I did not expect to wake up this way this morning.
Was this the way that James felt when he found out what his family and Lily’s had really been up to?
Feeling like an idiot who had blindly believed in wolves who did not deserve his faith in them?
Just then, I saw Charlotte begin to stir in the bed.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?