Chapter 161: Rhys
I drummed my fingers against the desk with a frustrated sigh. There was no reason my businesses in the city should be failing. It was clear to me that the Red Blood pack was behind it, but how they were doing it, I had no idea. They were one step ahead of us on every front. It was clear they were playing the long game. They had a plan. One that even my best warriors couldn’t seem to see. It was infuriating. There was nothing I could do to defend against it. I would have to go on the offensive soon or I would lose everything I had worked so hard to build. I, of course, could rebuild, but I didn’t want to.
“Hey, did you see the accounts for Woodland’s is down over 20%?” Sawyer asked as he walked into my office without knocking.
“Yea, I’m looking at it right now.” I sighed.
“We need to do something to stop it from dropping anymore.” He urged.
I felt bad... Ever since Caleb had disappeared again, he had thrown himself into work in the most unhealthy way. He was doing the work of my Gamma, a doctor, and a beta, which shouldn’t be his responsibility. I had invited Heather to step in as Beta, since it was her right, but she had declined. She was barely hanging on. I made sure that I stopped by at least once a day to check on her, and make sure she ate, but there isn’t much anyone can do for a broken heart, except to be there as they pick up the pieces on their own time. So, I was trying to be there.
Heather had said, that she didn’t think the mate bond was broken, she still on a low-level felt her bond with Leon, which was reassuring, but I wondered what horrors they were doing to him, since he was completely at their mercy, and they had already used him as bait.
“And what do you propose we do?” I asked tiredly. I had used almost everything in my arsenal. I had no idea how I was supposed to fix this.
“I don’t know.” Sawyer replied in exasperation. “Fire some people. Put more money into marketing. Sitting back is just giving them the opportunity to take more!”
“Sawyer,” I said as patiently as I could muster. “They are going to keep attacking our profits until we take them out. Any effort we put toward our finances is going to be fruitless. We have to just wait this one out, and things will recover once we win the war.”
“How can we take that chance?” Sawyer demanded angrily.
“Because if we lose this war, we lose those profits too. Right now, we have enough. We can still pay our people even with our losses for a long time. We can still fund our economy, especially if we focus on local places within our pack community. We just won’t have the large income coming in that we are used to.”
“But holidays are coming up... The pack games... You’re wedding... Christmas... The Luna Ceremony... All of these things are big and expensive. What is your plan for those?”
“Alana and Grace have the budget for each of those things. I figured out how to make it work for the holiday season, then there is a very small budget for all other celebrations after that, as well as we have discussed saving what we can from those celebrations to use in the future. Alana is very organized, and Grace is lucky to have her to help.”
“Yea, a little weird that the person you chose to be Grace’s personal servant has now become her friend and is working admin for us.” Sawyer grumbled.
“That was always the plan.” I confided. “I always planned for Alana to be a safe person for Grace. And Alana is professional enough to know when she’s working vs when her and Grace are on their own time. But I picked Alana for that reason. I might not have known that Grace was going to be my mate, but I trusted Alana’s judgement of her, she just didn’t know I was doing that...”
“Wait... Did you do that for your other brides too?” Sawyer asked in surprise.
“I did. I didn’t use Alana every time, and with Grace I really didn’t need Alana’s help in that department, but the only person who I brought home that Alana got close to was Grace which I find telling.”
“You don’t think Alana is close to Grace for personal reasons, do you?” Sawyer asked hesitantly.
“Like to give info to the enemy?” I clarified.
Sawyer nodded and swallowed hard.
“No.” I answered. “I’ve known Alana nearly her whole life. She grew up in this house. She’s not that kind of person. We may have a mole, but I’m certain it’s not her.”
“That sort of confidence is going to get us all killed.”
I rolled my eyes. Did I think we had a mole? Yes, absolutely. Did I try to keep most meetings to the bare minimum of knowledge needed? Also yes. But did that mean we were safe? No. Not at all.
“Stop stressing about things out of our control. Until you can prove the mole to me, I don’t want to talk about it. There’s been less getting out since we made our meetings smaller. Alana only just joined. I highly doubt it’s her.”
Sawyer looked around the room. I knew he wasn’t happy with my answers, but they were my answers, nonetheless.
“Wait, where is Grace? She’s usually attached to your side.”
“Oh, she’s been at the school all week.” I answered easily, turning back to my laptop. “She wanted to make sure the kids all settled in okay to the new routines, especially the ones who have moved into new homes. She was really worried about how they’d be treated, but there haven’t been any issues to my knowledge. I think now it’s just she’s using it to learn a bit in a way that she also feels helpful.”
Sawyer nodded absently. “Speaking of the kids moving out,” Sawyer said suddenly sounding kind of nervous. “I think you should give Maizie a room here. She’s almost 18, and I don’t think she should have to uproot her knew life like that.”
Was I surprised at my brother’s request? Not really. But did it take me aback a bit? Yea.
“Grace and I have already agreed to keep the oldest kids with us.” I told him. “Both Maizie and Michael aren’t going anywhere. We just haven’t told them yet.”
He breathed a sigh of relief, and I could only guess why he cared. Not that it mattered. What mattered was that the kids felt safe, no matter what was going on outside these walls. And it was our job to make that happen.
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