ARABELLA POV “Ma’am, can you please come with us and step into the vehicle?”Joshua blocked the officers way before they could take his mate away. “No! No, Lily would never do such a thing!”“I don’t even know how that got there!” Lily cried. “I promise I’m a patriotic citizen!”It was chaos. Josh shouted and tried to hold her back for as long as he could, but there was nothing to do. There was contraband amongst her goods, and there was nothing to be done but take her away and investigate the matter. Josh turned to me the minute they were gone and shook me vigorously, removing the stunned spell that caught me since I saw the content of the box. Guns.Individuals were not allowed to have weapons like that.“She’s not a killer!” Josh said to me. “You need to do something, please save her!”We’re all killers, I thought, but not that kind of killers. Not the kind that got guns so it would be untraceable to the source. At least if claws and teeth were used, it’ll be easier to sniff out
RHYS POV I watched her leave. I know I should not have, but I believed Emma. Lily was an enemy, no doubt, but the way she pointed it out made me self-conscious. Was she truly an enemy or was that what I made her out to be? I won’t want someone else being punished for a crime that she did not commit. When I turned back to my office, Mia was glaring at me. Whatever happened between her and Emma was none of my business, and apparently, none of them wanted to say anything yet they kept throwing the heat in my face. It was hard enough seeing her in my house, and it was even harder seeing her with Mia. “Just know that Lily is guilty of whatever they say she’s guilty of,” Mia said under her breath. I heard her, but I won’t let that define me. I got into the office and went for my phone, calling my Beta. Craig picked on the second ring. “Good day, Alpha,” he greeted. “I want you to look into something,” I said, straight to the point. “I heard you arrested one Lily?” “Yes,” Craig answer
RHYS POVThe anger that filled me was tremendous. The audacity of Lily to talk to me that way because of the familiarity I had with her was wild. My anger pulsed through me and instinctively squeezed the life out of her throat. She coughed, her hand reaching up to hold her neck. I saw her life flash between her eyes. The light was going out, yet I couldn’t stop the anger. She had no right, no right whatsoever, to bring up Arabella in our conversation.“RHYS!!!”My body suddenly stilled. My wolf had never, never been held captive by the sound or the call of another. I felt myself reverting towards the new sound and person entering, mellowing down to receive orders from them. It was Emma. It took me a long moment to analyze this. Emma. Emma.Emma?How? How did she capture my soul with a single call when she wasn’t my mate? Was it possible to have two mates in a lifetime? Even Mia had never held my soul and wolf captive to make a point. She had never even held me captive before. Why was
ARABELLA POVI walked out and to my car, refusing to look at Rhys’ pitiful face. I didn’t want to deal with him that moment; if he wasn’t going to release Lily then I knew just the right person to pull their strings. The first mistake I made was going to Rhys, knowing that he was not emotionally stable and was biased when it came to me. Even though, did he have to attempt killing her? He could defend himself all he wanted and say that was not his intention, but at the end of the day, what was his true attention if his wolf and Alpha aura had gotten the best out of him? I honestly didn’t want to sit around and find out.Lily was still outside the cell when I left, but I’m sure she would have gone back now I needed to get her out of there as soon as possible; Rhys was still in his feelings and would rather discuss us than her. Bringing out my phone, I quickly sent a text to Mia, one incriminating enough to stand her on her toes.I want us to meet. It took a long moment of deliberation
MIA POVI watched her leave. My chest constricted with pain, spreading fat and wide until I felt it thumping against my rib cage. Oh, Emma was making a big fucking mistake. The audacity she had to summon me here and make a big fucking threat to me. I laughed, but the laughter stopped in my throat. There was nothing joyous to laugh too, and certainly not Emma. I felt as betrayed as I’d felt when I found out my friends weren’t really my friends, but somehow this betrayal sunk deep. They didn’t hold this secret that Emma now held above me, and they certainly did not threaten me fearlessly. I should have known the kind of person she was from the start, but she played her game meticulously. I would have snapped right here and now, and removed her stupid omega head from her body, but not yet. It was just not the right time. I didn’t know where she had kept the other evidence of my secrets, and I couldn’t just kill her without ensuring that the last of it was gone. Heaven knows how many she
MIA POVIt was dining time, and my mind was definitely not there. All I thought about was Emma. How many people have she told about this secret of mine? If she held it over m head this way, surely she must have told some other persons. I honestly won’t put it past her. Emma was something else now that she had stopped being my friend, and I was afraid to find out exactly how much power she held above me.Sighing, I picked around my food, seeming to not find the appetite. How would one eat when their whole life was hanging in balance and could be discovered?“Mia!”I looked at Rhys dully. He’d been calling my name for a while now. “What is it?” I asked.“Are you okay/’ he counter asked. “I’ve been calling you and you didn’t answer. You’re absent.”I picked around my food again. “I’m fine. just a bit stressed.”“Do you want to tell me what the problem is? You’re not eating and I’m concerned,” Rhys said.I watched him for a while, almost going absent. If not for the twitch in his eye, I d
RHYS POV I kept my spoon down beside my plate, thinking furiously about what Craig just said. That Walters guy can’t have done all these. This would be a high-profile case since it was about framing someone up for crimes, and that someone happened to be Lily. Everyone suddenly seemed involved and invested in the case. Emma was convinced that Lily was innocent while Mia was just being plain irrational. I don’t even know where she stood in all these. It was like she was here and then she wasn’t. Mia’s voice came on again, low and high and taunting and just plain disturbing. “Is it that you don’t believe your own Beta’s words?” she asked. I sighed before answering. “Mia, it’s not like I don’t believe Craig, but I just know that Walters won’t have done this.” “Why is that? Because he’s a good person?” “Far from that, Mia. He’s a good person and I trust him I trust that he won’t frame someone just like that. What does he stand to gain from all these? Some contraband? That’s unlike Walt
MIA POV When Rhys left, I hastily picked around my food, upset and mad and just angry. There were loads of things I wanted to tell him but I didn’t, all because I wanted to maintain some sort of sanity. I sighed, trying to calm myself down. Why wouldn’t he believe Craig? Why would he believe some lowly guard over him? This was seriously giving me a headache and I don’t like it. I looked up and saw that Craig still stood awkwardly around like he was trying to look invisible and failing miserably at it. “Why didn’t he take the bait?” I asked quietly. Craig looked at me, then shrugged. “I don’t know, Mia. I don’t know what goes on in his head sometimes.” “Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “You don’t know what goes on in his head, but I’d like to know what goes on in yours. How did you find a guard that he knows and trusts so much?” Craig tried to sit down and then realized that he wasn’t in his house. He hovered around, trying to see if I would invite him to sit. I did not. It would be su