Free Web NovelChapter 131: Chapter 131 Compete with the Alpha King
_Ezekiel’s POV_
The next morning, at exactly 7 AM, my father called.
The fact that he called himself rather than routing through his secretary told me it was not a routine check-in. My father communicated directly when he wanted something specific and when he wanted to make sure the instruction landed without being filtered through someone else’s interpretation.
I sighed and picked up, adjusting my boxers as I climbed out of bed towards the bathroom.
“Have you seen the news?” he asked instantly.
I had been awake since five. Following the updates on Rowena’s disappearance with the focus of someone who had information that might be relevant and was still deciding how to deploy it. I had the photo of Virella on my phone. I had been sitting with the question of when and to whom since I’d taken it. But then again, what did it have to do with anything?
“Yes,” I said.
“The Alpha King made a public statement,” my father said. “Declaring that he loves the Marchioness of Ashthorne.”
“I also saw it,” I replied. I’d already known that Alaric had a thing for Rowena. He liked her or else he’d not go around pressing his lips on her hand like some housefly. It was obvious he loved her. And I was happy for them. Except my father wasn’t that happy for them.
“You know I sent the proposal,” he said. “On your behalf. To the Ashthorne Matriarch. And she accepted it.”
“I know,” I rolled my eyes. He’d told me she accepted and he was this excited when delivering that news. How did such a childish man become a King?
“Then you understand that you are now in direct competition with the Alpha King for the same woman,” he said. “Which means either you take this seriously and do something about it or you allow the Alpha King to make you look like a footnote in your own proposal.” He paused. “I think we both know which of those outcomes I find acceptable.”
I looked at the ceiling of my penthouse.
“She’s missing, Father,” I said. “She was abducted yesterday. There’s no competition to enter until she’s found.” fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
“Then find her first,” he said. The simplicity of it was almost impressive. “Join the fucking search, Ezekiel! Be visible as someone who acts. Make it clear that your interest in her is real and that you take her safety as a personal matter.” His voice took on the edge it got when he was saying something he considered obvious that I had failed to grasp. “You always do this. Every opportunity that requires you to step forward you find a reason to step sideways instead.” He sighed. “The Ashthorne woman is exceptional. Even from what I’ve read she is exactly the kind of match that would say something significant about who you are to this region and beyond it. She has great potential and her destiny is brighter than the sun itself. Don’t let the Alpha King be the one who brings her home while you sit in a hotel room doing nothing.”
After he spat those words out, he hung up directly without waiting for my response.
I walked back to bed and sat with the phone in my hand for a while.
My father’s version of encouragement had always sounded like a list of my failures with a suggested correction at the end. I had been receiving that particular format since I was twelve years old and it had never entirely stopped landing, which was itself a thing I had complicated feelings about.
But he wasn’t wrong about the search though, just that it didn’t concern me. Rowena would be found by Alaric. He was burning money to make sure of that.
My phone buzzed again and I was this close to tossing it to the other side of the room.
Larry was calling.
“Someone came to the penthouse looking for you,” Larry said. “He’s in the lobby. He told the desk staff he wasn’t leaving.”
“Who?” I asked, though something in me already knew.
“Pierre Ashford,” Larry said.
I was on my feet before he finished the name.
“Don’t let him leave!” I barked. “Tell him I’m 4 minutes away!”
Pierre was sitting in the lobby with his arms crossed and the expression of a man who had made a decision that cost him something and had paid it and was now here because of it. He looked up when I came through the elevator and neither of us said anything for a moment.
“How did you find this place?” I said after a decade of silence had padded.
“You’re not as difficult to track as you seem to believe,” he replied in a calm tone.
I smiled and brought him upstairs.
He sat in the main room and looked at it briefly and then looked at me with the direct attention that was simply how Pierre occupied every space he was in.
“I came to ask a question. Nothing serious. That proposal,” he said. “Nana Seraphine accepted it.”
“I can explain that,” I said immediately
“Go on and explain it,” he nodded.
I sat down across from him and told him the honest version. My father in the room, asking me to name someone, me saying Rowena’s name because she was the person I had been spending time with and I respected her and I had been trying to construct something logical out of a situation that was not actually logical.
“But you told him her name,” Pierre said. “You put her in that conversation.”
“I know, I fucked up,” I ran a hand through my hair.
“Why her specifically?” he asked. He was watching me carefully.
I looked at him and thought about it.
“Because she was safe,” I said. “Because I could say her name and mean something real by it even if it wasn’t the whole truth.” I paused. “Because the whole truth wasn’t something I was ready to say in that room.”
He looked at me steadily.
“You’re really stupid.”
“Pierre,” I called out. “Part of this was also Larry’s fault.”
“Oh shut up. You’re not a kid he can make decisions for.” Pierre glared at me, then next minute, he was on his feet.
He stood up and turned toward the door.
“Pierre wait!”
I crossed the room in four steps and pulled him back by the arm and kissed him and this time I didn’t pull back after one second because I was done pulling back after one second.
He went completely still again like the first time.
