Free Web NovelChapter 137: Chapter 137 A plot twist
_Alaric’s POV_
The photo was small on the screen, but clear enough.
Virella had herself pressed into a wall by a man I didn’t recognize. freeweɓnovel.cѳm
Like she hadn’t spent the past few months tearing through other people’s lives just to land where she wanted. The man with her looked polished and confident. The kind of person who knew exactly how to present themselves in public.
I didn’t know him. But apparently, someone did.
I noticed Alpha Pierre go still. ƒreewebηoveℓ.com
It was subtle at first, just a slight pause in his breathing, a shift in the way he held himself. Then he reached out and took the phone right out of my hand without asking. I let him, because the look on his face stopped me from saying anything about it.
He stared at the screen for a long moment.
“Pierre.” Ezekiel’s voice was calm, but I caught the undercurrent in it. He was watching Pierre the same way I was. “You know him?”
Pierre didn’t answer immediately. He just kept staring at the photo, his jaw tight, his brow creasing the way someone would do when they’re trying to make sense of something they really don’t want to make sense of.
“Pierre,” I called out.
He finally looked up. His eyes moved between me and Ezekiel, then back to the phone.
“That’s Theodore Ashford,” he said.
The name didn’t mean anything to me. I glanced around the room. From the looks on the others’ faces, it didn’t mean much to them either.
“Theodore Ashford,” I repeated. “Who is he?”
Pierre set the phone down on the table, screen still facing up, like he wanted to keep looking at it even while he talked. “Ashford. That’s my stepbrother.”
Deafening silence followed. A plot twist I hadn’t seen coming. None of us had
Ezekiel was the first to recover. “Your stepbrother?” He asked slowly, like he was testing the words.
“Yes.” Pierre nodded
“And none of us knew he existed because......”
“Because we’re not close.” Pierre’s tone was flat. The kind of tone that said don’t push this, but this matter involved my woman and I wasn’t going to listen.
“Not close how?” I asked. “You’ve never mentioned him. Not once.”
Pierre exhaled through his nose. He crossed his arms and leaned back slightly, and I could tell he was deciding how much to give us. “Theodore and I don’t have the same mother. His mother married my father when I was Fifteen. Theodore was Twelve.” He paused. “We were never friends. We didn’t pretend to be. When my father died, Theodore and I went our separate ways. That was years ago. I don’t keep up with him. I don’t know what he’s doing with his life and he doesn’t know what I’m doing with mine. He lives with his mother. While I became Alpha.”
“Except now,” Ezekiel said quietly, “he’s apparently doing Virella.”
Pierre shot him a look.
Ezekiel held up a hand. “My words were poor. I apologize.”
They weren’t poor. They were accurate. But this wasn’t the time.
Phillip stirred at the back of my mind, alert and thinking. “This is not a coincidence,” he said. “It can’t be.”
I agreed with him. I just didn’t know what kind of connection we were looking at yet.
“What do you know about him?” I asked Pierre. “Theodore. What does he do? What’s his standing?”
Pierre was quiet for a moment. Then, “He runs an orphanage. An export company and a grand hotel I forgot the name.”
The first one was not what I expected.
“An orphanage,” I said.
“Here. In this city.” Pierre picked the phone up again, glanced at the photo once more, then set it back down. “He opened it about four years ago. I heard through family, distant family, people who still try to keep both of us in the loop even though neither of us asked for it. I didn’t think much of it at the time. Theodore always had... softer instincts than most Alphas. He was never really built for pack politics. I assumed the orphanage was just something to keep him occupied.”
“And now he’s connected to Virella,”
“Apparently.” Pierre rubbed the back of his neck. “Which is—” He stopped and shook his head. “I can’t even think straight right now. Virella is the woman who went after Kaelen, his new wife. Kaelen, who you currently have locked up because you think he took Rowena.” He looked at me directly. “The same Rowena who is my friend. And now my stepbrother, who I haven’t spoken to in years, is standing in a photo with that same woman.” He pressed two fingers to his temple. “I have a headache,” he added flatly.
“Join the group,” Ezekiel laughed but no one joined him.
Phillip ran through it again in my head, slower this time. Virella marries Kaelen. Kaelen loses Rowena, or loses access to Rowena, depending on how you look at it. Rowena disappears. We find a photo of Virella with an unknown man. The unknown man turns out to be the stepbrother of Rowena’s closest friend.
Too many threads. Too many names that kept appearing in the same circles.
“Is Theodore the type to get involved in something like this?” I asked. “Knowingly, I mean. If Virella had an agenda, if she was using him somehow, would he know? Would he care?”
Pierre thought about it honestly. I appreciated that he didn’t just dismiss the question or defend Theodore out of reflex.
“I don’t know him well enough to say for certain,” he admitted. “The Theodore I knew at Twelve was stubborn and proud, but he wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t the type to hurt people on purpose.” He paused. “But people change. It been a long time. And if Virella has her hooks in him...” He trailed off.
“She’s convincing,” Reid offered. “We’ve seen what she did to Kaelen.”
“Kaelen let her,” Pierre said, a brief edge in his voice. Then he caught himself. “That’s a separate conversation.”
“Does Theodore have a pack?” I asked.
“No. He walked away from pack structure years ago. He operates independently. The orphanage is his.... funded through his own means, no pack affiliation. The hotel and export company included.”
“Which means no one’s watching him,” Ezekiel said. “No hierarchy or accountability.”
“That makes him either completely harmless or significantly more dangerous,” I said. “Depending on which side of this he’s on.”
Pierre looked uncomfortable, like he was doing the math in his head and not liking where it landed.
“I want to find him,” I said. “Not to move against him. Not yet. But I want to know what he knows. If he’s involved with Virella, even casually, he may have information about her movements. About who she’s been talking to. About where she goes.”
“And about Rowena,” Ezekiel added.
“Yes.” I looked at Pierre. “Can you reach him?”
He paused for a long time, sighed and ran a hand through his head.
“I can try,” he said. “We’re not on bad terms. We’re just on no terms. There’s a difference.” He picked up the phone one more time and looked at the photo. “I just never thought I’d be calling him about something like this.”
“None of us planned for any of this,” I said. I’d say anything at this point to save my woman.
