Free Web NovelChapter 138: Chapter 138 Meeting Theo
_Pierre’s POV_
I stared at the phone in my hand for a long time before I actually dialed the number.
It had been years, years since I’d heard his voice, years since I’d last had any reason to reach out to him, years since I’d convinced myself that whatever bond we were supposed to share as brothers had quietly died somewhere along the way. And now I was about to call him like nothing had happened. Like we hadn’t spent over a decade pretending the other didn’t exist.
My thumb hovered over the screen.
“You don’t have to do this,” Ezekiel said softly, standing close enough that only I could hear him. “We can find another way.”
“There isn’t another way, he just has to do it. Don’t do much Pierre, just try to fish some information out of him. No one is ever too careful, and Theo would definitely have a cockroach in his cupboard. He’s with Virella, surely he’ll let slip a few things.” Alaric said from the side lines, and I knew he was right.
“Don’t fucking rush him.” Ezekiel gritted out but I placed my hand on his and shook my head, reminding him who he was talking to. Alaric remained the Alpha King no matter what.
If he said I should do this, then I just had to. Plus, I was doing this for Rowena too.
“There isn’t another way indeed,” I said. “Not one that gets us answers this fast. Rowena’s life is also at stake.”
He studied my face, and whatever he saw there made him reach out and squeeze my shoulder once, firm and warm. “Then do it. You’ve survived worse conversations than this. Haven’t you?”
I smiled.
I wasn’t sure that was true, but I appreciated the lie.
I pressed the call button before I could talk myself out of it.
It rang three times before Theodore actually answered. I hadn’t expected him to answer. We might have stayed away, but we sure had each other’s numbers. I was Alpha, he was a well known business man.
“Pierre?” Theodore’s voice came through, carefully, like he was testing whether the name on his screen was some kind of mistake. “Is this actually you?” His voice made me tense. Now I understood Kasper and Gabriel’s relationship. This was hellish.
“It’s me,” I said, and my voice came out steadier than I expected. I was handling it well.
There was a pause for a long time before he spoke softly. “Well. This is unexpected.” He didn’t sound angry, didn’t sound particularly warm either. Just... amused, in that detached way he always had, like life was something happening slightly outside of him that he found mildly entertaining. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
“I know,” I said. “It’s been a while.”
“A while,” he repeated, and I could hear the dry edge in it. “That’s one word for it.”
I glanced at Alaric, who was watching me from across the room, arms crossed, waiting. Ezekiel gave me an encouraging nod.
“I was thinking we could get a drink,” I said hurriedly, trying not to fidget. This was my junior, what the hell. “Catch up. It’s been long enough.”
Another pause. Shorter this time. “A drink?”
“Yes.”
“After years of nothing, you want a drink?”
“Fifteen,” I corrected, before I could stop myself.
He laughed, it was a short, humorless laugh but not unkind either. “Fine. Fifteen years.” There was a pause, like he was weighing something. “Why now?”
I had an answer ready. “I heard about your hotel. Thought it was worth congratulating you in person instead of over text like a stranger.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie. I had heard about the hotel. I just hadn’t cared until tonight. Plus, I didn’t even know the name of the place.
“Alright,” Theo said finally. “I own a place downtown. The Glass Hour. Come by tonight, I’ll have a table ready.”
“I’ll be there,” I said, and hung up before my voice could betray anything else.
The room let out a collective breath I hadn’t realized everyone was holding.
“You did well,” Alaric nodded at me.
“I feel sick,” I admitted.
Ezekiel came over and pressed something cool into my palm, a glass of water I hadn’t asked for, but drank anyway. “You’re doing this for Rowena,” he reminded me quietly. “Remember that when you’re sitting across from him.”
I nodded, because I needed the reminder more than I wanted to admit.
Before I left, Alaric’s men fitted me with a small device tucked into the collar of my shirt. It was a camera no bigger than a button, and a voice recorder hidden in the lining of my jacket pocket. Alaric checked the feed once on his tablet, gave a short nod, and looked up at me.
“Don’t push too hard,” he said. “Let him talk. People reveal more when they think they’re in control of the conversation.”
“I know how to handle my own brother,” I said, more sharply than I meant to.
Alaric didn’t react to the tone. “You haven’t seen him in fifteen years, but sure, go handle him.”
I sighed and left.
When I arrived, Theo was already at a corner table, a drink in front of him, looking exactly like I remembered and seen in the news from time to time, he looked more composed now, but still carrying that same lazy confidence that used to irritate me when we were younger.
“Pierre.” He stood, and for a second neither of us knew whether to shake hands or do something else entirely. We settled on a brief, awkward hug. “You look well.”
“So do you,” I said, taking the seat across from him. “The place is nice.”
“It’s mine,” he said simply, gesturing around. “Bought it three years ago. Good investment.”
I didn’t reply to that. Theo loved to brag as well.
We ordered drinks, made small talk about nothing, just the weather, the city, and how much had changed since we last sat in the same room when we were teenagers. I let him lead for a while, the way Alaric told me to even after lashing out earlier.
I let Theo think he was simply catching up with a brother he hadn’t seen in years. frёewebnoѵēl.com
Then I shifted the conversation carefully.
“You seem to be doing well for yourself,” I said. “Hotel running smoothly, bar doing well. Are you seeing anyone special these days?”
Theo’s expression didn’t change. “Not particularly. Why do you ask?”
“No reason. Just making conversation.” I took a sip of my drink, watching him over the rim of the glass. “A man your age, successful, but no ring on his finger. People talk.”
“People always talk,” he said simply, swirling the ice in his glass. “Doesn’t mean there’s anything to talk about.”
I let it sit there for a moment, watching his face carefully. He gave nothing away, no flicker, no hesitation, nothing that would tell me he was lying. If I hadn’t seen the photo myself, I might have believed him completely.
“Fair enough,” I said, and moved on, asking about the hotel instead, about how he’d ended up running it. He answered all of it smoothly, and easily, like a man with nothing to hide.
We talked for almost an hour. About old memories, about the years we’d lost, about things that almost felt like an apology from both sides without either of us saying the word out loud.
And then, just as I was reaching for my glass again, I saw it. What I’d been waiting for.
I saw a small mark on the inside of his wrist, just visible as his sleeve shifted. It was pale and faint, easy to miss unless you were looking for exactly that kind of thing.
It was nothing but a mating mark.
I froze, my glass halfway to my mouth, staring at the spot before he pulled his sleeve back down and reached for his phone, which had just lit up on the table.
He glanced at the screen, and something in his expression shifted just for a second, just enough that I caught it.
“Everything alright?” I asked carefully.
Theo looked up at me, and the easy smile was already sliding back into place.
“Everything’s fine,” he said. “Just business.”
But I had seen the mark. And I had seen his face.
He wasn’t with any woman but he had a mating mark. He indeed had a cockroach in his cupboard.
And something was very, very wrong.
