Proof of Life (The Potentate of Atlanta Book 4)

by Hailey Edwards

  “No.” He rose, bent to kiss me tenderly, then crossed the apartment and greeted our guest. “Ares?”

  An acrid stench that had become too familiar to me filled the room when she entered uninvited.

  “Hadley.” A tear tracked down her cheek, slicing through soot and grime. “Your sister…”

  “No.” I was on my feet before I knew it. “No.”

  “Ares.” Midas stood beside me, his hand on my back. “What happened?”

  “Matron Pritchard and Mr. Whitaker got into a fight in the lobby yesterday. They were arguing about the service and food at the restaurant Mr. Whitaker chose. Matron Pritchard made it plain she was eating at Michelle’s tonight, and he could starve if he chose not to join her.” More tears fell, carving grooves down her face. “I warned Addie to mix it up, just in case, but she must have caved under the pressure.”

  And the mole overheard and made their plans, likely believing I would go out with my family to dinner.

  No, no, no.

  A clamp snapped shut around my lungs, and oxygen whistled through my teeth. “Who told you this?”

  Whoever it was, they were wrong. Wrong. There was no other explanation.

  “I saw it for myself.” She bowed her head. “I went to Michelle’s before I came here.”

  “You followed them,” I realized, my voice sounding distant in my ears.

  “They’re your family,” Midas explained for her. “I had them watched.”

  Since the OPA was doing the same on my end, I could hardly blame him, but why hadn’t Bishop…?

  Pivoting on my heel, I jogged into the kitchen and located my phone, which I had left on silent.

  Bishop had texted me twenty-three times.

  Lisbeth thirteen.

  Even Anca, Milo, and Reece had touched base with me.

  And I had been too busy riding Midas’s hand to keep in contact with my team during a time of crisis.

  “This isn’t your fault.” Midas trapped my back against his chest, his hands clasped at my navel. “The bomber has only targeted you. You had no reason to think they would go after your family.”

  But we had both known, deep down, it was a possibility. Otherwise we wouldn’t have each assigned them guards to watch over them whenever they left the Faraday. We wouldn’t have moved them to the Faraday in the first place if we hadn’t had concerns.

  I had chosen my city over my family, and I had failed them both.

  Not enough, not enough, not enough.

  No matter what I did, it was never enough.

  “I need to go.” I broke free of him. “I need to be there.”

  I fell to my knees when I tried to pull on my shoes, and I almost couldn’t get back up, but I had to move.

  It wasn’t like Addie would have been alone. Boaz would have been right there with her.

  The one person who had loved me unconditionally, who had never hurt me, never hated me, was gone.

  Part of me withered and died on the spot. I might not be a Pritchard anymore, but Boaz was my brother.

  My brother was dead.

  Eight

  Midas held Hadley’s hand to leash her, but she tugged against him, blind in her grief and rage. She made it onto the sidewalk before elbowing him, twisting free of his hold, and running straight for the plume of smoke on the pink-and-orange horizon. He allowed her to maintain the lead, but he kept close enough to watch her back.

  He wasn’t surprised when Bishop jogged from an alley wreathed in shadows to join him.

  “This is going to get ugly fast.” He cut Midas a look. “Can you restrain her?”

  His feral half took orders from her, which meant she could free herself, but that abuse of power sat wrong with her. Usually. “Yes.”

  “Good.” Bishop frowned at the back of her head. “Poor kid can’t catch a break.”

  Hadley was a fighter, but even the strongest could get knocked down until they could no longer rise.

  “Will Linus come?” Midas wondered. “Does he know yet?”

  “He’s already on his way.” Bishop slowed his pace. “He and Boaz had issues, but he’s worried for Hadley. He doesn’t want her to face this alone.” He came to a stop as they reached the scorched restaurant. “Grier is with him.”

  “That means Lethe will come too.”

  Grier’s power made her unique, but it also made her a target. Lethe would never allow her best friend to leave Savannah without a guard. Despite their troubled histories, Grier had grown up next door to Hadley and Boaz. She had loved him for most of her life, and she would mourn him. Deeply.

  Hadley would need Grier to help make sense of this shared loss. And Addie… Midas wasn’t sure how Hadley would process the loss of the woman who had welcomed her into sisterhood with open arms.

  The deaths of Mr. Whitaker and Matron Pritchard left Midas uncertain as to their impacts. Hadley hadn’t been close to her “father,” but she liked him. The woman who had birthed her and then thrown her away rather than deal with the scandal fueled by her crimes was another matter.

  It didn’t mean Hadley wouldn’t grieve her, but he had no expectations as to how her sorrow might manifest.

  The smoke burned Midas’s sinuses and made him cough as he fought through it to reach Hadley.

  As wind teased the edges of the black plumes, Midas understood why she hadn’t rushed the fire.

  The restaurant was ash. Nothing but ash. The magical fire had devoured it whole.

  Once that registered, Hadley hit her knees, but she didn’t scream as Claudia had done, and there was no sense of defeat about her. No one could see her and not understand she was mourning, but no one would dare engage her with that murderous wrath twisting her face either.

  There were no words to make this better, no magic to bring them back, no miracle waiting in the wings.

  All Midas could do was kneel beside her as her fists clenched and her jaw ground with white-hot rage.

  Ambrose whirled in a circle over her head, a funnel of dark intent, and Midas swore the shadow cast him a worried glance as if he too were concerned for her. But that couldn’t be right. If she was close to breaking, Ambrose ought to be rejoicing.

  “You don’t need to be here for this.” Bishop crouched on her other side. “Let Midas take you home.”

  Voice distant, eyes vacant, she stared ahead, seeing nothing. “This is exactly where I need to be.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.” Bishop reached in his pocket and, moving faster than Midas credited him for, stabbed her in the upper arm with a hypodermic needle. “Midas, you might want to catch her.”

  A red haze blinded him, and his teeth ached to clamp shut over Bishop’s throat, but Hadley’s spine curved as she began to collapse. Midas made his choice, the only choice, and grabbed her shoulders before she kissed the pavement. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Above them, Ambrose popped like a balloon after a pin pierced its surface and vanished from sight.

  “You want to go next?” He produced a second, larger needle. “I came loaded for bear, which in this case means gwyllgi. I put you down, and you’re not getting up for forty-eight hours.”

  “Try it,” Midas growled, his entire body vibrating.

  “Settle down.” Bishop spread his hands. “I’m faster than you think, Goldilocks.”

  “Explain yourself…” water pooled in his mouth, his fangs itching his gums, “…or I will kill you.”

  “Still mad about me blowing her up, huh?” He checked the streets from left to right. “Not here, and not now.”

  “I’m not moving an inch, and neither are you, until you give me a reason.”

  Bishop stared at him, in the eye, which not many people dared to do if they wanted to keep breathing. A heartbeat passed, then two, and the beast under his skin turned restless, eager, quivering in his gut.

  “Linus made the call, and he was right to,” Bishop said at last. “He couldn’t predict how she would react, how bad it would get, and he
wanted her neutralized until he got here.” He studied the sidewalk. “It could have been worse. It could still get worse. You know their deal.”

  Midas did know their deal, and it sickened him to his core to think Linus would ever raise a hand to her.

  But he would, if he had no other choice.

  And Midas…he wasn’t sure he could let that happen anymore.

  Hadley wasn’t an unthinking, unfeeling monster. She was more, she was better, she was his.

  “Dial it down,” Bishop warned. “You’re going to leave me without a choice, and that would suck.”

  With Hadley unconscious, there was no harm in asking, “Have they found the bodies?”

  “No.” Bishop scanned the wreckage. “This building was all wood. It was over as soon as it started.”

  “Let me know when they’re recovered.” Midas stood and brought Hadley with him. “And don’t visit until I tell you I’m ready to see your face again without gnawing it off then picking it from my teeth.”

  “That’s what I like about you gwyllgi.” Bishop eased a few steps away. “So visual.”

  Unease rippling down his spine, Midas turned from Bishop and carried Hadley to their home.

  Hadley slept the entire day and well past dusk on the futon in the loft of their apartment. The height and the wall at his back settled his other half, and he appreciated how the narrow staircase meant no one could sneak up on them.

  Linus might come through the front door, or he might use the fire escape, but there was only one way he would gain access to the loft. Through Midas.

  A commotion in the hall perked his ears, and he leaned forward, ready to pit himself against anyone who dared harm his mate in her weakened state.

  The knock on the door was unexpected, but their guests didn’t wait for him to give permission.

  “Midas?” a familiar voice called as the door swung open. “Are you here?”

  Grier Woolworth entered the loft with her long, dark hair in a ponytail high on her head. She stared up at him through the thick fringe of her bangs, her eyes ice-blue in color but warm when she spotted him. She had known Lethe long enough to guess he would have chosen the high ground to make his stand.

  “Bishop warned us guests might not be welcome.” She didn’t come closer. “Are you okay with this?”

  “Yes,” he growled down at her, his voice unrecognizable.

  “We’re here to help.” Grier flashed her empty palms. “We’re not going to hurt her.”

  Heart pounding, lungs burning, he crouched at the head of the staircase. “I can’t risk that.”

  “She hasn’t done anything wrong.”

  “Yet.” His lips peeled from his teeth. “That’s what you mean.”

  “We’re here to make sure she doesn’t escalate.” She inched forward. “We care about her too.”

  Years of friendship with Grier clashed with his primal instincts concerning his mate.

  Grier was pack, family, but she was just as capable of sinking a blade through Hadley’s heart if it kept her former best friend from embracing her darker half again.

  “Stay where you are, Grier.” Fur brushed the underside of his skin. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Then don’t.” Linus strolled through the door, hands in his pockets. “Hadley would never forgive you.”

  The wraith usually at his side was absent, thanks to the ward barring his kind entrance to the building, but Linus was no less dangerous without Cletus.

  Fingernails lengthening into claws, Midas widened his stance. “But she would be alive to hold a grudge.”

  “I give you my word, I won’t harm Hadley unless she becomes a danger to others.”

  Already shaking his head, Midas couldn’t trust him. “She’s my mate.”

  “I’m aware.” Linus stopped beside Grier, shielding her with his body, which earned him an eye roll from her as she allowed it. “Even if she wasn’t, I would do everything in my power to save her from herself.”

  A third figure entered the living room, her bright-blue hair kissing the tops of her shoulders.

  “Hey, little bro.” Lethe edged past Linus and Grier, stopping with one foot on the stairs. “May I?”

  Though it pained him to deny her anything, he couldn’t stop his instinctive denial. “No.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “With Hadley?” He exhaled. “No.”

  “I’m not going to murder your mate. I’m not a monster.”

  Midas slid his gaze to Linus, regretting how her comment had wiped all expression from his friend’s face.

  Grier leaned into Linus, comforting him with a hand on his arm. “Can we get anyone for you?”

  As tempted as he was to huff and puff and blow them out of the apartment, he caved. “Mom.”

  “She’s downstairs.” Lethe backed up a few steps. “I’ll let her know you’re ready for her.”

  Hurt from his rejection tightened her features, but Hadley hadn’t woken up, and he couldn’t settle.

  The elevator chimed, and footsteps announced another visitor Midas wished he could toss out.

  “Lisbeth called.” Ford ambled in like he was here for one of his usual visits. “I brought food and drinks.”

  Not so long ago, Midas would have shed his human skin and attacked Ford on sight for having the gall to invite himself in. It shamed Midas to remember how fast his obsession with Hadley, his jealousy over the infatuation he helped create, nearly ruined their decades-long friendship.

  “Just burgers and fries.” He hit the steps and paused where Midas blocked the landing. “You mind?”

  Throat tight, Midas stepped aside and let Ford sit beside him, dangling his long legs over the edge.

  “I brought Hadley an apple pie, the rectangular kind, but I figured better safe than sorry.”

  When Ford offered him a burger, he accepted it. When he offered him fries, he took those too. When he handed over a drink, and Midas sipped to wet his parched throat, he spat it on the stairs and coughed so hard he saw stars.

  “Oops.” Ford snatched the cup and gave Midas a different one. “That’s Granny’s moonshine.”

  Once the burn down his gullet eased, Midas rasped, “How can you drink that?”

  “I don’t drink it.” His laughter rang out in the silence. “I use it as an all-purpose cleaner.”

  Willing to admit he wasn’t at his brightest, Midas wiped his mouth. “Then why…?”

  “Hadley might decide she wants something stronger than a Coke when it really hits her.” He glanced over his shoulder to where she rested. “This is guaranteed to wipe her memory for hours at a time.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I should go.” Ford rose and left the bag of food behind. “Your mom will be here soon.”

  “Yeah” was all he could think to say, and it cost him to get that out.

  “Call me if you need anything.” Ford paused on the stairs. “Food, alcohol, revenge, manly hugs, hairstyling tips. I’m here for all of it.”

  “Thanks,” he said again, his brain and tongue getting tangled with the effort to be social.

  No sooner had Ford hit the bottom than Tisdale swept into the apartment with her guards.

  “Sweetheart,” she exhaled, motioning the pair of gwyllgi to wait in the hall. “My poor sweetheart.”

  Despite it all, warmth unfurled in his chest at the sight of his mother running up the stairs toward him. But she didn’t stop when she reached him. She kept going until she sat on the futon with Hadley, her hands fluttering over Hadley’s still form.

  The presence of his mother soothed, but the nearness of his alpha stabilized him, allowed him to think clearly for the first time since Bishop depressed the syringe into Hadley’s upper arm.

  A soft moan parted Hadley’s lips, and Midas rushed to her side, falling on his knees.

  “She responded to you,” he rasped, confused by her instant alertness. “Why?”

  “My sweet boy.” Mom cupped his cheek. “I’m her al
pha too. I can call her, and she has no choice but to come. She is bound to you in soul and bone, and you are my soul and bone. We’re kin. That’s why. She trusted you to protect her, to let her rest, to find her strength and her calm.”

  “Her family…”

  There was another brother, a little brother. Macon. And Mr. Pritchard. But they didn’t belong to Hadley. He supposed, thanks to the disownment, they didn’t belong to Amelie either, but they still had to be notified.

  “She has you, and she has me. She has her friends and the pack. She will survive this.”

  Aware his voice came out sounding lost and too young for his years, he whispered, “Linus.”

  Rising gracefully, she walked to the edge of the loft and stared down. “Mr. Lawson.”

  From where he knelt, Midas saw Linus tip back his head. “Yes?”

  “Harm this child, and I will split you open from neck to navel and feast on your entrails.”

  “I gave her my word I would stop her if no one else had the strength,” he said softly. “I’m not a liar.”

  “She doesn’t know,” Grier murmured, hand on his arm. “She can’t know.”

  “I’m a dybbuk,” Hadley croaked, her head tilting toward Tisdale. “Do you know what that is?”

  Expression thoughtful, his mother folded her arms across her chest. “That explains…many things.”

  Grinding the heels of her palms into her eyes, Hadley rubbed away her disorientation.

  “There’s only one dybbuk who’s been named and lived.” His mother touched her lips. “You’re Amelie.”

  “Amelie Madison née Pritchard,” Midas confirmed when Hadley left her hands over her eyes.

  “That was the secret you’ve been keeping,” his mother mused. “I expected it to be spectacular, but I find myself impressed despite all expectations.”

  From between her fingers, Hadley asked, “You’re not mad I lied to you?”

  “None of us are who we were born. We evolve from the day we enter the world until the day we leave it. That’s life.” She flicked a glance at the ceiling as if searching for the right words. “Most of us retain our birth names so that we can be recognized no matter how much we change, but some of us discard those too.” She shrugged a shoulder. “Names are labels, they have power, but they can be peeled off or written over.”