Auctioned Mates Revenge
Chapter 67

Matt's POV

I couldn't look at her. Once we started heading towards the office, it was better to use the walk to calm down. Lucas was growling with want, demanding some time alone with her, an explanation, or at least to push her up against a wall and kiss her breathless, but I shoved his thoughts aside.

I'd made her a promise.

I'd made myself a promise. I wouldn't break it just because she'd done a sexy dance for a dance class that Felix had put together.

I'd take out my frustrations about Felix's hair-brained scheme on Felix later. We'd get into a sparring ring and I'd put him through his paces until I wasn't so frustrated.

When we reached the office, I let them enter first and did my best not to lean in close to Renda. I wasn't an animal and there was so much to debrief about.

Renda and Emoni sat. I wasn't entirely sure where to start, but as I settled into a seat, I decided that the most pressing thing was first.

"Teagan is in talks with Skyfall about a formal alliance," I said. Renda's eyes narrowed. "It would be best to break them up sooner rather than later."

"Skyfall?" Emoni asked, frowning. "What do they export?"

"That has yet to be seen." I smirked, "But if I had to guess? Nothing. They're just a puppet pack to help Ben move products, wealth, and whatever else he needs to get rid of quietly. Given what Renda found out about Justin's connection to Calvin and Andrew, Ben's likely planning to move against Mordecai if possible."

Grace nodded, "I got that sense too."

I looked at her, "What do you mean?"

Renda and Grace glanced at each other.

"He's here in Midnight."

My heart lurched and I looked at Renda before sitting forward, "What do you mean? How do you know that?"

"He was at the border's office when we went with Felix to pick up your imports."

I grit my teeth. That son of a bitch was either more paranoid than I first thought or I hadn't made a big enough gap between them.

"What did he say?"

"Nothing to us. He invited Felix to dinner at Mordecai's. He made it... pretty clear that he shouldn't bring extraneous guests." Grace said, "Though I think he plans to get Felix to invite you or Mordecai will extend the invitation."

Of course, the bastard did. He likely showed up here, mostly because I wasn't answering his calls and Wade had finally gotten out of the hospital. It was hard for the little bastard to try and kill me from the other side of the continent. Mordecai was a psycho, but he was a psycho who favored me. Wade's little tactics wouldn't go far here.

"Was Wade with him?"

"Not that we saw."

That didn't mean he wasn't here too. There was a chance that he was going to be here soon or they planned on ambushing me at Mordecai's somehow.

Still, there was a better chance for me to use this to drive a deeper wedge between them.

If only I could leverage my connection to Mordecai against Teagan and Skyfall. I'd have to tip Mordecai off about Skyfall and Teagan's talks and figure out what he thought about it.

But that wasn't the only thing I had to worry about.

"I'll get back to them soon," I said. "There's the matter of your father, Emoni."

She went stiff, "It's about that wench, isn't it?'

"Partially, yes." I shook my head; it wasn't an easy thing to explain.

Shortly after Emoni and Renda were safely in the car with Greyson, Gordon had asked me at least twenty questions about Emoni's well-being and what I knew. He looked sickened through most of it and had gone to grab a pipe, stuffed it full, and started smoking some intoxicatingly calming blend that I never got the name of.

He'd gotten some messages, smoked a lot more, and told me that Teagan and Megan were on their way to his house.

He didn't mention or didn't know, that Calvin and Andrew were with them, but he seemed surprised to see them and even more surprised that Teagan expected him to let them stay in his home as well.

"I want to claw her eyes out," Emoni growled.

Renda looked pale as I looked at her, "Andrew asked after you."

She nodded, "I'll... message him or something."

Her voice was tense, but I didn't probe.

"Your father is on a tighter leash than I first imagined. Calvin was there to negotiate a trade agreement with Gordon, but it seemed more like a forgone conclusion and Teagan was just applying pressure on him to meet the amount that Calvin wanted." Emoni looked down and nodded, "She wants him to hire more people."

"Go on."

"Teagan," she sneered. "Has mentioned plenty of times about expanding the distillery and changing the process so that it's not such a secret and so reliant upon my dad." "That's what your father told you?"

She nodded, "She's very invested in freeing up his time so she can demand more of it. She wants my father, badly, but she likes the money he makes the pack too. That's part of the reason why she assigned Greyson to him. Dad thinks he's supposed to be spying on him, but Greyson doesn't seem to care."

She chuckled, "He also said that Greyson's better in a kitchen than in a distillery. He doesn't have the talent for it."

I smirked, "I don't think your father's wrong on that."

Greyson made dinner for everyone in the house, including himself, and breakfast before I left. He was a great cook. He didn't have the training that Armand did, but I'd take his food over Armand's very refined dishes any day.

It reminded me a lot of Emoni's home-style cooking. Everything was warm, comforting, and good.

"About Greyson," Matt said. "I'm not convinced that he's not on some sort of leash as well."

"Oh?" Emoni asked, her eyes went placid and I knew she was hiding something.

"Teagan treats him like a servant. In her mind, I'm sure he is. She treats your father only slightly better, but it's Megan, her daughter, that's more concerning."

There was a wild possessiveness in her eyes as she took the seat beside Greyson and seemed to press into his space. There was the faint scent of cannabis smoke and an earthy scent that clung to Greyson. I caught him on the porch taking deep drags from a glass pipe of a blend that smelled the same in the morning before breakfast.

Gordon had spent the night at the distillery, having locked his bedroom door behind him. He'd snuck out sometime in the night with Greyson's watchful eyes on his movements. I got the sense that Greyson followed the letter of his orders rather than the meaning. "It's not Teagan, though he seems to have some sort of obligation to her. It's her daughter who is holding his leash."

Emoni's eyes turned hard, "Megan, huh?"

"Something you want to share?" I asked.

"I want to claw her eyes out too," Emoni said, "What's the plan?"

"Gordon is the lifeline of the rest of the distillery workers."

Emoni nodded, "I know that. He has the recipe; it would take too much to train new people. Most of the people had been working with Dad for at least ten years before the attack."

"As I said before, Teagan and Calvin need to be stopped from forming any sort of alliance. I don't want casualties if it can be helped against any of the members of Frost Pelt." Emoni nodded, "I agree, and I don't think it's necessary."

"Could we get Mordecai to attack Skyfall?" I asked, "He knows they're plotting against him."

I shook my head, "We need more than just an overheard plot. Something concrete and damning. It needs to be focused on Skyfall specifically. If we make him focus on Ben, it'll backfire."

Mordecai might have some resentments towards Ben, but they haven't been enough to cause an all-out pack war. Skyfall won't be enough and I didn't want Mordecai going against Ben anyway. It would pit the two major players against one another and degrade both of their powers. It might give Uriel a chance to expand and I didn't want that if I could help it.

"Not yet," I said. "I think it may be easier to dismantle Skyfall and Frost Melt at the same time by turning them against each other somehow."

I wasn't sure how, but I could bet that this dinner that Mordecai had yet to invite me to would give me an answer.

"If we could get Teagan and the alpha of Skyfall away from their territories, maybe in Mordecai's backyard, and frame them for something mutually detrimental," Grace said and looked at me. "Neither one of them are big enough to want to piss off Mordecai, but they're in prime positions for Mordecai to take over."

I smirked at her, a bit dazzled by the conniving genius of it.

"Frame them so Mordecai has reason to annex them free and clear as compensation?" I asked. "You're living up to your name, Grace the Cunning."