Chapter 101

Harvey’s body stilled as he stared back at her, unblinking.

“I already told you I don’t like being interrupted.” He muttered in a quiet, dangerously low voice, his gaze both unblinking and unwavering as he stared at her. “So, why do you keep fucking interrupting me?”

Instead of apologising which she knew would only land herself in even more trouble with him – as if she wasn’t buried in deep shit already – Anastasia bowed her head and forced herself to stare down at the ground.

Harvey remained silent for a few more silently as he appraised her, appreciative of the submission, even if it was feigned on her part. It was only when he was satisfied with the fact that she wouldn’t interrupt him anymore, that he continued.

“By having a store of surrogates that are able to carry and bring werewolf pups to full term, we’ll be able to make more money, more constantly and while raising less eyebrows. Obviously, things are going to be slow at first and we’ll have to mix both plans until we’re able to have enough surrogates pushing out pups all year round.” He paused with a curious expression on his face. “You look like you want to say something.” He stated simply but when she still refused to speak up, he sighed. “You can talk now.”

Instead of rolling her eyes like she was very tempted to do, Anastasia forced herself to ask while she still had the chance, unsure if Harvey’s mood swings would allow her another opportunity later.

“Why me? Why not a full werewolf?”

“Because full werewolves usually have mates and we all know that if their mate goes missing, they won’t stop at finding them so that’s a terrible idea. The next best thing for us are females that are part-wolves as in most cases, they don’t have mates.”

“But I have a mate.”

“Yes, but we didn’t know that at the time.” Harvey explained, having the luxury to move around his spot on the cold, hard ground so as to be more comfortable, something which she wasn’t warranted to. “But that just makes things even more interesting.”

“How so?” Anastasia dared to ask in a quiet voice, unable to understand who things could get even more messier than they already were.

“We didn’t know at the time that you had a mate. Hell, even you didn’t know then that you had a mate but with all these issues going on between you both right now, well, it’s just made things easier for us.” He laughed at her pain and difficult mate situation, not even trying to hide it. “Regardless of that, you’re just the starting point of all of this. A catalyst even and believe it or not, we’ve been able to find one more just like you.”

Anastasia couldn’t help but gasp at his admission but before she was able to come to grip with everything so far, Harvey continued pushing forward with even more distressing news. “We were actually able to find her in our latest poaching run.”

“Pouching?” She asked in an inquisitive tone, her eyebrows furrowing together.

“Kidnapping. Poaching. Same thing.” Harvey shrugged, as if he hadn’t just admitted being guilty of kidnapping now as well as child trafficking.

“What kidnappings?”

Harvey threw his head back and laughed, the sound so carefree, light and soft, almost as if he wasn’t deeply rooted in a sick child trafficking scheme.

“You really weren’t joking when you said things weren’t good between you both.” His shoulders shook slightly as he continued to find amusement in her less than pleasant predicament. “Since it seems like your mate has decided to keep you in the dark, I’ll just have to be the one to bring you up to speed on everything.”

“You see, we’ve been keeping track of part she-wolves around the country but like I mentioned before, not many are able to carry werewolf pups to full terms. Like humans, the pup would end up tearing up the mother or surrogate, whatever term you prefer, from the inside. Essentially killing the both of them. It was only when we found out that you were mated to a werewolf that it all started to make sense.”

“None of this makes any sense to me.”

Harvey merely laughed quietly in response before he continued explaining.

“It appears that if a part wolf is mated to a werewolf, they’re able to carry a pup to full term and you’ve basically just proved that theory to use. Unfortunately, we need more than just one surrogate for this whole operation to be so we’ve been poaching part she-wolves to see if they’re compatible. Since there’s no way of us knowing if these she-wolves have wolf mates or not, we’ve been doing some blood tests to see if they’re compatible. Other than you and one other, we haven’t been able to find any other compatible she-wolves and hence, we’ve just returned them. When this continued, well, I’m sure you can imagine that it’s nothing short of immensely frustrating so we decided to try our luck with a she-wolf anyway. Too bad for her, the pup ended up tearing her from the inside so I guess we won’t be trying that again.”

“You killed her?”

“No. The pup she was carrying killed her. Poor thing didn’t even make it to six weeks but it’s for the best, really. At least we know now so we won’t be trying that again.”

“How can you say that?”

Harvey merely pulled a face and shrugged, as if the situation didn’t bother him at all.

“How can you live with yourself?”

“Pretty easily, actually.”

Anastasia scowled deeply as she glared up at him from under her lashes, this time uncaring if the fact that she probably provoked him.

“What’s in it for you?”

“Money.” Harvey shrugged, seemingly unbothered by how cruel and unethical his job was. “Well, that’s all I have time for right now, but I’ll drop by soon with your dinner.”

There were so many things on the tip of her tongue that she wanted to voice aloud, so many things that she needed to say but struggle to formulate properly, especially since she felt like she could barely think straight after their grand master plan had been revealed to her.

It was only when she heard the door close and the lock slide into place that she realised that Harvey had already left.

As much as she tried to stay positive, she couldn’t stop thinking about all the information that Harvey had just dropped on her; her mind absolutely reeling. When she started to feel sick to her stomach despite not being able to remember the last time that she had eaten, she was forced to focus on that instead of the despicable situation that she had been forcefully propelled into; a blessing in disguise.

Looking back now, with absolutely no light at the end of the tunnel to keep her going, Anastasia closed her eyes and allowed the darkness to consume her; wishing that she had had the chance to patch things up with her mate.