Page 64 of Sold to the wrong Alpha
Zev closed the door behind him but didn’t leave. He leaned against the bookshelf to the side with his arms crossed, watching. Ren ignored him. He focused on Brody.
“I wanted to tell you that…”
“Sit down.” Brody finally looked up. His gray eyes, rimmed with red from lack of sleep, fixed on him with a hardness Ren had never seen before. “I have news. About your family.”
The floor tilted beneath his feet. Or so it seemed to him.
“My family?”
“Sit down, Ren.”
It wasn’t a request. Ren slumped into the chair in front of the desk. The leather creaked under his weight. His hands were shaking, and he hid them beneath his thighs.
“What happened?”
Brody walked around the desk. He didn’t sit down. He stood there, looking down at him, and the difference in height between them had never felt so brutal.
“Zev intercepted communications this morning. Your father and your brother have been on the move for days.”
“On the move, how?”
“Looking for you.”
Ren’s heart raced. For a moment—just a moment, brief and foolish and hopeful—he thought they were looking for him to bring him home. That they’d reconsidered. That Julian Valois had looked in the mirror and felt the shame a father must feel when he sells his own son.
Brody must have read the hope on his face because he looked away.
“It’s not what you think.”
“Tell me.”
Zev spoke from the bookshelf, his voice flat and clinical:
“They’ve made a deal with Malachi. The buyer, Reznov, demanded they hand over what he bought or give him his money back. Your family doesn’t have the seven hundred thousand.” So they signed a deal with Malachi.
“For what?”
“They’ve put a price on your head.” Zev pulled a phone from his pocket and swiped his finger across the screen. “Dead or alive. They prefer dead, because that way Reznov can’t claim the merchandise and the contract is voided due to force majeure.”
The words entered Ren’s ears one by one, like drops of acid. Dead or alive. They prefer dead. His father. His brother.
“No.” The word came out hoarse, torn from somewhere Ren didn’t recognize. “That can’t…”
“There’s an order circulating among Malachi’s men. One hundred thousand for you, delivered dead. Fifty if you’re alive, but alive means returning you to Reznov, and your family would have to pay a penalty.” Zev recited the numbers as if they werestatistics from a weather report. ”The math benefits them if you’re dead.”
Ren doubled over. His stomach clenched so tightly he thought he was going to vomit right there on the wooden floor of Brody’s office. He dug his fingers into his thighs until his knuckles turned white.
His father.
Julian Valois, who taught him to ride a horse when he was six. Who took him to the theater to see The Nutcracker every Christmas until he turned twelve. Who bought him adventure books at downtown bookstores and let him pick three each time.
That same man would rather see him in a body bag than on the run.
“Ren.” Brody’s voice, closer now. He didn’t touch him, but Ren felt his warmth inches from his back.
“And my brother?” The question came out hollow. He knew the answer before he asked it.
“He signed too,” Zev confirmed.
