Chapter 176

The three of us went back into the living room of Charles’ and my apartment. Anthony looked at us with pale expectation on his face.

“Well?” Gwen snapped at us. “What are we doing with the bastard?”

I put out my hand, holding the others back, and marched across the room so that I was very close to Anthony’s face. “I need you to understand something,” I said. “As a journalist, as a writer, I worshipped you. You were my hero. To find out that you’re someone’s slimy puppet makes me sick to my stomach. And I would like nothing better than to see you tossed in jail with your family and left to rot.”

He gazed pathetically at me. “I hope there’s a ‘but’ attached to that.”

“There is,” I agreed. “But it’s not for your sake. You left me in a club naked with my bodyguard and then tried to smear my reputation and ruin things with my family, my boyfriend, and my job. Lucky for you, I’m not the kind of girl who goes out for revenge just for the sake of revenge. If you really have dirt on the Alpha King, and you’re going after him with us, then your life will be on the line the same as ours.”

“I think if you live to face punishment, it will still be waiting for you on the other side,” I warned him. “But for the time being, seeing you get what you deserve won’t actually solve the bigger problems.”

Anthony let out a sigh and slumped to the floor. “I’m both relieved and terrified of what I might have gotten myself into.” He rubbed his hands across his hair, making it stand up on end and giving him the distinct look of someone completely disreputable.

I turned my focus to Gwen. “I’m begging you, please have patience with us while we do this,” I pleaded. “I know that’s asking a lot, but we’ve talked it over, and working with him to take down the root of the problem is the only way that any of us can get real closure.”

Gwen twisted out of David’s arms and stood with the sort of pride an alpha’s wife should carry. She marched across the room and whipped out her hand, leaving a stinging slap across Anthony’s face. The outline of her fingers glowed red against his pale skin.

Then she turned to look at me. “All right. Now you can do what you need to do with him.”

“And what to do with him is something that we’re going to have to figure out,” I admitted. “Because if he’s wanted by the police, and he actually makes a public statement in favor of the Rafe family and Theo’s sister, the police are going to trace him back here to us in no time flat. So, what should we do with him?”

I looked to David, Theo, and Charles for advice.

Charles pressed his lips together in thought, his brows coming together, expression less than thrilled. “As much as I hate to say it,” Charles started slowly, “I think we need to wait on the public apology.”

Theo let out a snarl of disapproval.

Charles held up a hand, asking him to wait. “I know you’d rather see your sister’s honor fixed right away, but he won’t be any good to us if he gets arrested. And if we go public, I’m not sure how we’ll hide him without having to go underground ourselves. It will be very difficult for Elena to do her work and have it be as reputable as we would like it to be if she takes the fugitive who’s sinned against her and goes into hiding.”

Theo rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Taking that a step further, it makes sense to just let him stay here for the time being. Personally, I’d rather share my apartment with a colony of bats than Anthony Bellweather. But an apartment with three of the people that he’s wronged is the last place the police are going to look for him.”

“Besides,” David added in. “If he stays here, then we can keep an eye on him and make sure that he behaves himself and follows through on his word. Otherwise, he might disappear on us.”

“I’m going to let the three of you figure out how we’re going to keep him safe and out of trouble at the same time,” I said. “While you do that, I’m going to go start researching the royal family. It will help if we know what we’re up against for real.”

Gwen crossed the room, hooking her arm through mine. “I’ll go with you, my dear.”

“Oh. I wasn’t actually leaving. I was just going to go do the research on my laptop.”

Gwen shook her head. “The only records you’re going to find online are the ones that the palace wants you to see,” she said. “If you think regular alpha families are careful about guarding their secrets, it’s nothing to what the royal family does. But if you want to get at the Alpha Archives, then you’re going to need someone who knows where to look.”

Charles gave the pair of us a grim smile. “Well, then, you ladies go about your business, and we will take care of things here. We will see you when you get home.”

Gwen smiled at her son. “No doubt. I don’t have a hotel rented here, so I’ll be staying with you for the time being. When I heard the news about Bellweather and recognized that our family would be set back where it should be, I rushed out here in a hurry. In fact, Elena and I might even stop while we’re out and pick up a few things because I just tossed the bare essentials in my bag before leaving.”

Gwen hooked her arm through mine and gave me a gleaming grin. “How would you like that, my dear? We’ll turn serious research into a bit of a girl’s day. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Well, um… It feels a bit weird, but I guess not.”

She leaned and whispered in my ear. “You’re going to be taking on the king, my dear. If one takes on a deadly enemy, then one must be prepared to pay the price. And in the meantime, it’s wise not to let the opportunity to indulge in small joys pass you by. After all…”

She let this hang, and I knew she was implying that these good times might be the last we had. Where did she find her bravery? I only wished I could be as calm and composed as she was. Because every time I thought about the consequences, I wanted to shake, or vomit, or pee my pants, or something. The reality of tangling with the Alpha King was terrifying.

Gwen ended up taking me to the Alpha Archives, which were off-limits to the general public but easily accessible by the alphas and their spouses. The building which housed them was adjacent to the main government building. Thankfully, my good standing was still in effect. Though, after this, my presence might call up a different response than the waving guards.

As a matriarch, she simply showed her ID, and the three of us were in. It wasn’t a full girls’ day since Theo was there for me. But we’d all make it work.

Inside the archives, everything in recent history was exclusively in the electronic database. The rest of it could be accessed on the computers, or you could find the paper copies.

The room with the paper copies smelled like parchment and ink in a way that tickled my senses. It smelled like history in that room. As well it should. Because according to Gwen, the histories and accounts of the alpha families went back not just generations but centuries.

My fingers itched to go through all of them and just discover. Imagine the articles about our collective history that I could write from these archives.

Gwen seemed to sense this and gently steered me away from the archive rooms and back to the computer room.

I took a seat at a desk while she worked on something on her phone. Clearly, it was up to me to dig up the information on the history of the Alpha King. Since the royal family was simply the most powerful of the alpha families, all of his information was included in the Alpha Archives.

At first, the information I found was stuff that everybody knew, like when the Alpha King James was born, who the king’s parents were, and what date he ascended the throne. From there, things started to get more interesting.

We’d always heard in history classes about his first queen, Rosemary. Her untimely passing and then his marriage to his current Luna Queen, Yarrow. But the story in the archives read more like a tabloid, a soap opera, or some sort of TV drama. In the time of our Alpha King, the royal family was an utter disaster.