Chapter 82

Accepting My Twin Mates Chapter 82 AMTM Chapter 79 – Was It You?

Astennu “How are we gonna handle this?” I yanked a chair up to my brother’s desk.

Badru was on it in a second, tugging his laptop open and cursing, violently, in a string of Arabic that would make our mother blush.

“You say that around mom and she’ll wash your mouth out with soap,” I raised a brow as he threw his obviously smashed laptop to the side and fumbled through his drawer for his tablet.

He looked at me with the most unimpressed expression, pausing his search. “Well, it’s a good job she’s out shopping for damn baby clothes instead.”

With lightning speed and laser focus that he always had when he reacted to a situation, he laid the tablet flat across the split in the wooden surface of his desk and began flicking through a programme.

“It’s Janet’s last day in work right now before she’s off for two days,” his eyes scanned over the screen, looking over the rota and navigating through to something else. “She’s widowed with a grown daughter, who lives in another pack. With any luck, no one’s gonna suspect she’s missing until she’s meant to be back in work.”

“When you say ‘no one is gonna suspect she’s missing,’ just how exactly were you expecting to handle this?”

I knew my brother was impulsive, so I was slightly concerned by how he phrased it. We needed to investigate, not blow this out of proportion. All we had was a simple inclination and no evidence.

“That it gives us two days to question her somewhere and get a confession,” he looked up from his screen, truly confused. “What did you think I meant?”

“I thought you were planning something that involved hiding a body.”

“Goddess, no! Well, actually…” he paused in thought. “We will need somewhere to hide her and we need to figure out how to approach her. If she’s guilty and sees us coming, she could mind-link someone and we could lose potential evidence.”

“We could knock her out with the tranq darts from the weapon store and take her to the cells afterwards?” I suggested a rather extreme solution but, presently, it was the only one that would work.

Silver wasn’t just a metal that inhibited our healing and scorched our skin, a thin and intact barrier of it contained a wolf’s mind-linking ability. A wolf could mind-link within the confines of the silver barrier, but not across it. It was why our prison cells were lined with the metal and, during a wolf duel in matters of pride and title, a circle of silver was painted on the ground that opponents had to fight within to prevent cheating from outside the ring.

“If we’re wrong about this…” a sick feeling began to form in the pit of my stomach.

I had made so many mistakes already. I may as well have handed my own mate to the kidnapper personally and guilt ate me alive a little more each day.

“I don’t wanna start congratulations early, but I’m not so sure we are… and it’s all because of you. You were right, about all this, and if you hadn’t said anything, we would still be chasing our tails.”

“Stop, you’re gonna make me blush,” I tried to laugh him off, but my face fell a split second later.

I knew what he was trying to do, make it out that I had saved the day by having some breakthrough.

How could I be any saviour when I had directly contributed to the disaster?

“We’re not gonna be able to do this alone,” Badru shut off his tablet, sliding it back into his drawer. “We need someone to guard her that won’t tell a soul other than us if Janet says something while we’re not there.”

“Just us? You don’t wanna tell dad any of this?”

“Hell no,” he shook his head as though the notion was ridiculous. “He’ll just say we’re wasting our time.

No way will he believe a long-serving pack member being responsible for this over a rogue, especially not after the failures we’ve had. I want the full proof to slap in front of him, myself.”

“You gonna point and say ‘ha’ in his face, too?”

“Maybe. I haven’t decided yet. I don’t wanna be too smug.”

“What about Suzanna? She knows the pack cells like the back of her hand,” I rose to my feet along with my brother. “Tamlyn would have been the best choice, but she’s too high profile to go MIA for 48 hours.”

“I’ll mind-link her on the way.”

‘You know,’ I side-eyed my brother as we left our office, swiftly heading out into the brisk midday breeze. ‘We could get Catalina to help us. She seems to be able to break anyone.’

‘You do, you’re doing this alone!’ He glared, resisting the urge to shove me. ‘Besides, the objective here is to be discreet and that woman is about as discreet as a kazoo in a hurricane.’

*

*

*

“Tamlyn? Why are you here?” I pushed away from the wall of our small weapon store that I leant against, seeing our Gamma saunter towards us with her arm resting in the crook of her mate’s elbow.

“For starters, how dare you not invite me to the party,” she waved her cane roughly in the direction of my face in mock threat. “Second, like Suzanna wouldn’t invite me along anyway. And third, you interrupted our Lord Of The Rings marathon; the only downtime I’ve had in two months. I had it timed perfectly to finish for my patrol tonight and, now, it’s fucked.”

“That’s my Tammy’s way of saying I would have had to chain her to the bed to keep her from coming along,” Suzanna lowered her mate’s cane before she took my eye out. “So, what’s the plan?”

“Shoot Janet with this as she’s about to leave her shift in an hour,” Badru held up the single-handed dart gun. “And we take her to the cells to question in secret. Simple.”

“Is that all?” Suzanna took hold of the weapon, checking the chamber and sights. “And here I thought I was gonna be asked to do something difficult.”

They were rarely used, but we had tranquilliser guns in place just in case they were needed for border defence. A mix of a sedative and wolfsbane usually brought any wolf down without the need for bloodshed, and quickly. The wolfsbane repressed their wolf and cut the individual’s ability to mind-link.

The sedative knocked them out and eliminated the danger. The downside was that adrenaline lessened the mixture’s effectiveness, so using it in a fight or on an assailant in full sprint was tricky.

The dose we had selected was low, but enough to knock out a woman of Janet’s size and get her in a cell. The head housekeeper, with any luck, wouldn’t suspect anything with Suzanna approaching her.

With a hasty plan put together, we all took our places. Badru and Tamlyn waited with our Jeep ready to go. I took my spot outside by the large sash window near the small window where I had conducted my witness interviews, waiting for Suzanna to lure our unsuspecting target. There was an uncomfortable seedy edge to all of this that twisted my stomach; planning to basically kidnap someone, as my ammar had been.

‘This she-wolf is probably responsible for our mate being taken away from us,’ Aasim shuddered with a low seething anger. ‘She deserves worse.’

‘She deserves worse if she played a part. If she’s innocent, what we’re doing is terrible.’

When I saw the door handle move, I focused on my aura to temporarily neutralise it, camouflaging my presence for Suzanna’s ruse to work. Peering through the gap in the blinds, I watched as she ushered Janet inside, her coat over her hands casually, hiding the dart gun. My brother was poised at the driver’s wheel ready for when I jumped into action; his signal to roll up in our vehicle.

As Janet turned her back to close the door, a dart was fired straight at her neck. I prised the window up to leap in as Suzanna grabbed hold of her, clamping a hand around her mouth to stifle her shout of pain at the dart lodging itself deep and releasing the wolfsbane mix. Janet’s struggling slowly let up, her body finally going slack. I yanked the dart from her neck and shoved the window open wide, climbing out and exchanging the dart in my hand with the older she-wolf in Suzanna’s.

She was quick to follow me out and opened the trunk to the Jeep for me, just as my brother rolled to a stop by us. Suzanna hopped in with Janet’s unconscious frame, keeping her fingers pressed to the pulse point on Janet’s neck to make sure her heartbeat remained steady.

“Were you seen?” Badru called out, keeping the Jeep’s speed as balanced as he could between ‘casual’ and ‘haul-ass’.

“I don’t think so,” Suzanna replied. “There weren’t many around. I told Janet I wanted a word about planning a surprise anniversary party.”

“Aww,” Tamlyn cooed from the front seat. “I know it’s fake, but I’m kinda touched.”

“I’ve never been able to surprise you with anything,” Suzanna grouched. “You smell it coming a mile off.

How the hell anyone smells black lace-”

“We really don’t need to hear the end of that sentence,” I interjected, somewhat embarrassed to listen to another’s s*x life.

It also conjured images of Evie, in something tiny, black and revealing, showing off her glowing pregnancy body for Badru and me to drink in. f**k, I needed our mate back and soon, I squirmed in my seat.

Pulling up at the gates of the prison, the guard opened up for us without question; the perks of being Alpha. The facility had been rebuilt a little over five years ago from its outdated former structure, consolidated into something smaller yet more secure and modern; a result of the rogue that escaped six years ago, the rogue who killed Finley’s younger brother.

The facility hadn’t been heavily used in recent years. With our pack having little crime, there were few inmates. Aside from the odd rogue caught at our borders and held here to determine their level of threat, our prison was underused, meaning it was staffed to reflect that. A bonus for us as there would be fewer eyes to know what we were up to and make inquiries. All we needed was to keep a lid on our activities for two days at most.

Suzanna assured me she was fine carrying the knocked-out Janet and, by now, I had learned not to argue with a headstrong she-wolf. As quickly and quietly as we could, I led the way to an isolated cell.

Each was as basic as possible, containing a simple steel toilet and basin and a concrete slab with a thin futon on top. The door was solid reinforced steel, coated with silver on the inside to prevent the occupant from tampering with it.

Janet was settled on top of the thin mattress and I took out the small injection of adrenaline from my pocket. Normally, we would allow the sedative to wear off on its own. We didn’t have time for that on this occasion. She would come around quickly, suffering the worst hangover to exist and no doubt an incredibly sore neck.

She rolled a little bit, groaning in pain. A small whimper echoed as she rubbed her neck; the site where the dart had hit. Janet’s eyes blinked, chasing away the fog that clouded her vision and her hand swept over her dark hair that lay in disarray. Her face sobered the instant she noticed the four of us and where she was presently located.

“Did you have anything to do with our mate’s disappearance?” My brother was first to begin, doing well to hold back the growl I could feel him wanting to release.

Her dark green eyes widened and her throat bobbed. She may as well have admitted her guilt.

“Did you spike Lucy’s water? What about our mother and mate’s tea, was that you?” I pressed further, a snarl accompanied my words.

She withdrew on the bed to press against the wall, like a cornered animal, sealing her lips and focusing on a spot of smooth concrete wall to her side.

“Staying silent on this won’t help you. It’s only pissing us off,” Badru loomed over her and, still, she looked away, flinching. “Was it because Evie reported you for stealing petty cash? Or because she stood up to you?”

“Did Finley approach you? Did he pay you to do this?” I received no reply, just silence. “Was it Kate?”

“Did someone threaten your daughter?” Tamlyn spoke up from behind us. Her question got a reaction.

“Did they threaten to hurt her or what?” I pressed the nerve that was exposed. “Give them up because they clearly don’t give a s**t about you!”

“No…I-” she opened her mouth to say more, only to snap it shut without another word.

“No, they’re not threatening her? No, they do, in fact, give a s**t?” My brother’s jaw spasmed, threatening to lose his cool that swayed on a knife’s edge.

“Fine! Say nothing,” I slammed my hand to the wall behind her head, looking her dead in the eye at her continued silence. My aura flared, out of my control, her neck baring in response. “But get comfortable.

Because this cell is your home until you speak.”

I stormed out, with Badru quick on my heels and Suzanna and Tamlyn close behind. I slammed the cell door closed with a reverberating shudder, the concrete shaking loose dust at the force, and snapped up the viewing port in a screech of metal. My wolf begged me to go back in there and slice Janet apart.

She was as guilty as sin. Badru braced himself against the wall, heaving for breath to contain Baniti’s rage.

“You guys may as well go calm your nerves,” Tamlyn suggested.

“We’ll be right here and we won’t let up with her,” Suzanna crossed her arms, staring daggers at the cell door. “We’ll let her simmer in her fear for a while. Once reality sets in, she might give something up.”

“Ok…” I threw my head back, wishing I had done this sooner, rather than fixate stupidly on dead ends.

“Do you want us to leave you the Jeep?”

“No,” Tamlyn shook her head. “Neither of us is leaving till that woman talks. If I have to rearrange my patrol shift to be covered, so be it. She isn’t walking out of her and I will fight your father on the matter myself… I never thought she would stoop to this, and I feel like an i***t for it.”

Her sentiments mirrored my own.

Badru and I tore out of the prison, the snow parting in a small wave as I drove at a faster speed than wiser given the conditions on the road.

“We should have thrown her out of this pack the second Evie told us about her,” Badru seethed, practically vibrating in his anger.

“You saw how she reacted,” I reminded him, gripping the steering wheel harder. “Someone is putting pressure on her through her daughter. Janet will still pay for what she’s done, but she isn’t a fully willing contributor. And without a name, we can’t go to dad yet. Tam and Suzanna might just be the best to get that out of her. Two she-wolves are less threatening than two very pissed-off Alphas.”

“Fine, she’s got overnight to talk or she’s gonna meet the very pissed off wolf behind the Alpha… Why are we heading to the stables?”

“Because I need to breathe for a few minutes and it’s been almost a week since I’ve seen Heru. I’ve ignored him too long.”

“There goes my damn blood pressure,” my twin grumbled, folding his arms like an infant in a mood.

“Why don’t you go for a run on your own, then?” I sighed in exasperation. “And I’ll go with my horse.”

He neither objected nor agreed, silently following behind me and keeping his distance from the paddock fence. Swishing his tail in the field and grazing on the tufts of grass sprouting through the patches of snow, Heru didn’t need long to notice me. He trotted over quickly in his dark blue winter turnout rug, his head reaching over to nicker for some long overdue affection. For a change, he didn’t nudge at my pockets or seek out treats. He simply rested his heavy head against my shoulder.

“I know, boy… I miss her too,” a groaning sigh parted my lips, my mind wandering to Evie and hoping she knew we hadn’t given up.

My fingers rubbed up and down his neck, sweeping his mane. He was in need of a good brush.

“Goddess, even I’m feeling sorry for him,” Badru muttered behind me.

“How about a run?” By Heru’s excited fidgeting, I took it that he understood the word.

“You can let him out after I’ve shifted. I’m not risking getting bitten as I’m stripping and I know the beast will try it,” my brother growled in my horse’s direction. And from the mischievous glint in Heru’s eye, he would do it too.

‘Part of me would love to see our twin get his ass bitten by the horse.’

‘He still might,’ I shook my head, yanking my sweater over it and waiting for Badru to realise he had been lulled into a false sense of security of Heru’s reach.

When I heard the swearing yell and the neighing of victory, I knew who had won the battle yet again.

“That’s it!” My brother shooed the stallion, growling lowly at him. “If that thing is coming, I’m going ahead alone.”

He stormed past me, rubbing a rather red mark on his ass, and shifted, his wolf bounding away. Once Baniti had run off his frustration and anger, Badru would be a little more agreeable to run together.

With his turnout rug removed, my wolf, Aasim, and Heru took off, kicking snow and dirt behind us. It had been far too long since I had done this; let my wolf run free. I soon caught up with my brother and, despite his earlier grumblings, both he and Heru were goading and hounding each other, just like the pair of assholes they could be.

There was no wonder the two of them were so antagonistic. They were almost identical. No surprise that on our first meeting on the ranch in Wyoming, I had read Heru to perfection, knowing exactly how to handle him where all other prospective owners had failed. Because I had been handling a wolf version in my brother since birth.

Sated and in a much better frame of mind, I led Heru back into his stable as the last rays of light blazed across the sky. I hadn’t heard a thing yet from Suzanna or Tamlyn, but I was confident it was only a matter of time. Once Janet had a taste of a night in the cells and saw that if she didn’t cooperate, that one night would turn into an eternity.

Badru, for once, made himself useful in the stables, generously fixing Heru’s food bucket. Not that he would go anywhere near the stallion to feed him. Brushed and detangled, my horse was all too happy to tuck into his earned meal. As I patted his neck, the jingle and vibration of my phone played from my back pocket, our Delta’s name flashing across the screen.

“Hey, you both there?” Elan rushed out, sounding uncharacteristically disquieted.

“Yeah,” I paused to listen to the stables, satisfied it was empty of people and switched to speaker phone. “It’s just us,” Heru whinnied, dissatisfied he was being ignored. “And Heru.”

Elan laughed a little awkwardly. “Listen, I managed to get through that stack of your financials for the last decade… I found something kinda weird.”