Page 64 of Before the Bond
Donovan leaned over the desk and looked at each of us firmly.
“We send a message,” he said. “A hard warning along the eastern line. Make it clear they don’t cross again.”
“Are you trying to get us into a fight?” Stella asked.
“They’re not that stupid,” Donovan reminded her. “And we’ve been patient long enough.”
Jake was quiet for a moment. “If we escalate, they escalate, won’t they?”
We turned to him. Jake shrank into the wall he was leaning on. “It’s just… that’s how things usually go in history books.”
“He’s not wrong,” Stella said.
Jake continued, this time his voice even lower than before.
“He’s seen her,” he whispered. “If Elias has been watching the property, he’s seen her. She needs to know. What to look for, who to avoid, why —”
“No,” I said.
The word dropped before I finished thinking it. The wolf moved first — it moved faster than the rest of me.
“But —”
I stepped closer to the middle of the circle. “We don’t tell her,” I said. “And we don’t move. We’ll do what they’re doing. We’ll watch and wait.”
“Don’t be stupid, Caleb,” Donovan pressed. “That’s not a strategy. That’s you trying to save your skin.”
“Donovan,” Jake warned.
“Am I wrong?” Donovan asked. “Don’t you feel bad that she doesn’t know?”
I did. That was the honest answer, the one I couldn’t say in this room without it becoming something else — an admission, an opening I couldn’t afford. Feeling bad didn’t make it wrong. I told myself that. I’d been telling myself versions of it since she arrived.
Jake’s fingers tensed. He stepped forward to say something, but he winced in pain again.
Stella dug her hands deep into the pockets of her jacket. “I’m with them on this. Olivia deserves to know. We’ve told her everything so far, haven’t we?”
No one said anything, but they stared at one another in agreement. I tried to ignore the dull sensation digging into my chest. Everyone knew.
I steadied myself.
Outside, somewhere past the treeline, Elias Voss was patient. Maykhel Voss was more patient still. And Olivia slept down the hall. Unaware.
I thought about telling her. Pictured exactly how that conversation would go. Her questions. All of them. And at the end of that thread was something I wasn’t ready to hand her yet.
“I won’t change my stance,” I said. “We don’t know what the Voss pack wants just yet. Telling her changes things.”
More silence.
“We will tighten our patrols for now,” I said. “At least until we get a better understanding of their activity.”
The group looked at one another and then at me.
Donovan combed his fingers through his hair and shook his head. “Alright.”
Jake nodded.
Stella shifted her weight from one leg to the other. “Fine.”
