Chapter 51

#Chapter 51 – Closet Conversations As I tuck the boys into their beds, the television in their room set to stream a Disney Channel show for the next couple of hours, I hear the phone in my closet ring.

“Do you have another secret call, Mama?” Ian asks, his eyes fastened to the screen as he asks.

“What?”

“Your secret phone,” Alvin says, absently tossing popcorn into his mouth as he watches the bright colors, “the one in your closet.”

“How…” The boys, sensing a problem, both look at me at once. I sigh. Genius twins, Evelyn, remember? I don’t know why I thought I could keep anything from them.

The phone continues to ring.

“I have to go take that call, boys, but it’s for work. I want you to keep away from the secret phone, okay? It’s secret for a reason. It’s our secret. So don’t tell anyone, not even Edgar or Daddy or Amelia.”

I tried to hide “daddy” between two other innocuous persons – Edgar and Amelia wouldn’t care.

Ian gives me a thumbs up and Alvin gives me a conspiratorial smile. The boys love a secret. Problem solved for now, I pull their door closed behind me and hurry into my room and then my closet.

“Hello?” I say, answering the phone a little breathless.

“Did we not have a call scheduled.” It’s a question, technically, but Victor doesn’t present it as such. He knows we did.

“Yes, I’m sorry,” I say, settling into my closet’s corner. I even added a little pillow back here, for greater comfort. “My children needed a little…unexpected attention. I apologize.”

“That’s fine,” he says. “I understand.”

“Wonderful. So, how are things going for you lately?”

“Things are…complicated,” Victor grinds out. My heart sinks a little bit in my chest. What? I thought things were going well after the camping trip. At least on my end, everything is pretty smooth.

“What happened?” I ask.

“Its…complex. But in terms of my relationship, which is largely what I wish to work through with you, I discovered that my partner betrayed me recently. Very badly.”

I work hard to keep my voice even and professional, like an uninvolved therapist. “I’m very sorry to hear that. Can you tell me more?”

“She…went behind my back and contacted someone who puts my family, my plans, in jeopardy. It’s caused a lot of problems for me, but I confronted her about it and she didn’t even seem contrite. She tried to persuade me that what she did was the right thing.”

“Well, in terms of devil’s advocate,” I say, “was she right? Was her plan the right plan?”

“No.” Victor says the word vehemently, with finality. “No, with her plan, I lose everything that I’ve worked so hard to build.”

I twirl the phone chord around my fingers and hesitate. I need to be careful here, but I also need to know. “I find myself…struggling to comprehend. I understand that you’re avoiding details for the sake of anonymity, but can you tell me more? Does your fiancé’s plan affect your work, your finances? Your situation with your children?”

“All of them,” Victor sighs. “But most significantly, my relationship with my children.”

I feel a physical drop in my stomach at this, dread filling my body and bones. “Are they safe?” My voice comes out in almost a whisper.

“Yes, of course,” he says bruskly and I feel a slight lessening of my fear. “They are perfectly fine. The ultimate result, the solution to her meddling, is that I’m going to have to move up the event of my sons’

claiming, marking them as my heirs and as part of my pack before I had planned to.”

“Oh,” I say, a little surprised. I search my soul for a reaction and find that I am fine with this. We agreed long ago that Victor would claim Alvin and Ian as his sons and heirs – who cares if it happens tomorrow or months from now, as long as they are safe?

“I suspect,” I continue, “that moving up the date is not as much of an issue for you, though, as something else.”

“Yes,” he says. “I’d claim the boys tomorrow if the event didn’t take so much planning and preparation.

That’s not the issue. The problem is that my fiancé went behind my back to speak with another Alpha, giving him a significant amount of power over me.”

I press a hand to my mouth. That is very, very bad. What was Amelia thinking? “That’s shocking,” I say, “considering everything you’ve told me so far about your partner. She must have had strong feelings, in order to circumvent your control in that way.”

“Yes,” he growls. “Strong feelings, certainly, but also, a certain unwillingness to cede control to the vision that I have for our lives.”

I open my mouth to contend this – remind him that it is their life – but he interrupts me.

“Please,” he says. “I know what you’re going to say – that she has equal right to plan our lives. But in this situation, she has crossed a line. It’s not merely that she’s asking to change or delay our plans for a family – it’s that she took actions to have my boys taken out of my life.”

“No.” I say, my voice full of disbelief, my eyes wide with shock. “What did she do?”

Victor clears his throat and I remember, of course, that I’m a therapist in this situation. I change tactics.

“That is a very significant betrayal,” I say more evenly. “How did you react?”

“Poorly, unfortunately. I lost my temper. It was…more physical, than I would have liked it to be. But she maintained that she was correct – that the best plan of action is for the boys to leave our lives, to remain unacknowledged by me – for me to support them and be a less-signficant part of their lives, but to privilege our own future children as my heirs. Not my current sons.”

I narrow my eyes. Amelia, what a b***h, pretending to be my friend all this time – fireside sisters my ass. She’s a snake.

Of course, a large part of me is fine with the idea of the boys not being the sons of such an important Alpha and instead leading totally normal lives. As Victor’s heirs they will be destined to take up his track in life. Not a bad path, but certainly a narrow one. If they were not acknowledged, they’d have fewer privileges, but also more freedom to pursue their own goals.

But while I see the appeal in this, I also know that it’s not the right plan. My boys love their father, and he has promised them that he will acknowledge them. To break that promise – for Amelia’s sake –

would be a great betrayal to my boys. If Victor goes through with it, I’ll never speak to him again.

“I assume,” I continue, “from what you’ve said already about moving up the ceremony, that you disagree with your fiancé – that you plan to acknowledge the boys. So that’s that settled. But what do you plan to do about your partner?”

“This is the thing I can’t decide,” Victor says. I hear a thump on the other side of the line and wonder if he has slammed his fist against something. That would be very Victor. “She has betrayed me – the kind of action that I would accept from no one. But she is my mate, and if what she says about wanting to defend her future children’s rights is true…I can see some logic in that.”

“It is also possible,” I say, my heart steely. “That this is merely a tactic.”

“What do you mean?”

“Listen,” I say, folding my legs beneath me in the closet and sitting up straight. I’ve decided that it’s time to finally use this power to my own advantage. “You have been more than fair to your partner. You shook up her life, yes, but you’ve listened to everything she’s said about needing more time, about seeking freedom. In return, she has not given you the same consideration.”

Victor stays silent, thinking it over.

“Did she even approach you about her concerns about her own children’s rights before going to another Alpha to put her plans in motion?”

“No,” Victor growls. “She did not.”

“This, to me, suggests that she is not willing to compromise, as you have been. She has made a move that has told you that it is her way, alone, that will be acceptable. If I were you,” I continue, decisive, “I wouldn’t trust her.”

“I concur,” Victor says, his voice likewise conclusive. I suspect that this is what he wanted to hear – less of me challenging his thoughts and actions and more confirmation that he can and should proceed with his instincts. For once, I actually do agree with him. Therapist-me might quibble, but Evelyn has taken over the conversation now.

“What will your next steps be?” I ask.

“To arrange the ceremony for the boys as soon as possible, and to tell Amelia in no uncertain terms that she needs to fall in line. Her approach of my boys’ maternal grandfather was absolutely out of line –“

At this, the breath leaves my body. It feels almost as if my blood has turned to ice, frozen in my veins.

For a moment, I swear my heart stops, my mind swims.

Maternal grandfather. My father. John Walsh.

Victor is still speaking, but I interrupt him. “Wha…what? Their grandfather?”

“Yes,” Victor says, backtracking. “That’s the Alpha to whom my fiancé spoke. I met with him and he told me it was her who informed him. She encouraged him to claim his grandsons, so that they would still have an equal chance at life, position, and inheritance. But then our children could inherit mine.”

I feel literally sick to my stomach, my breath coming fast. The phone slips from my hand, clattering to the ground.

“Hello?” Victor’s tinny voice echoes from the earpiece. “Hello, are you there?”

“I’m…sorry,” I say, my hands and voice shaking as I pick up the handset. “I’m very suddenly ill. I need to go.” With that, I slowly place the receiver back on the base, ending the call. I stare at it, my mind somehow at once totally blank while moving at light speed, in full panic.

My father. John Walsh. The thing I’ve been dreading for six years has come to fruition. He knows about my boys. And he will do everything in his power to take them from me.