Keith stood by the window deep in thoughts. He thought about a lot of things; the company; running it and the upcoming contracts he knew he already had in the bag, about his pack and the troubles he had to settle within it quickly, about Donna, and how that he still could not get his head wrapped around the fact that she had a daughter.
He stretched his hands until it made a “pop” sound by the elbows before digging both his hands into his pants pockets and letting out a loud and long breath through his mouth. But then, as surprising and sudden as Donna’s reveal was, it was noting to be compared with the crisis he had to deal with in the pack.
It was easy being an alpha over one pack, but he was an alpha not over just one pack, not even two or three but twelve packs. It was not something that was common and it was not something that had been easy to achieve either, but he had made it work out.
But then all round peace was not always guaranteed as Hunter and his group of rouges had made him experience. Keith sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as he lowered his head and shook it slowly, where had he gone wrong in all this?
Hunter Lane was once the leader of the sixth pack under Keith, both of them had been just as close as brothers could be because Hunter had been around while most of the packs were merging, Keith could have vouched that Hunter was his biggest supporter and kinda like his only other family asides Julia, but everything did manage to crumble and what he could not exactly pinpoint was from where.
As he stood by the window looking out, he noticed Donna’s car speeding out of the premises, screeching and making sharp turns as if she was in a chase, he frowned, she hadn’t told him she would be leaving to go anywhere.
He turned around and picked his phone up from the desk, unlocked it and dialed Donna’s line, he listened to it ring continuously without her picking it up, his frown tightened and his jaw locked, he took a couple of steps away from the desk, heading for the door, and that was when the very familiar scent of blood hit his nose.
He paused and took another whiff of the air, no, he had not been mistaken, that was most definitely blood he was perceiving. He walked faster now toward the door and pulled it open, stepping into Donna’s office. The smell became stronger and he noticed the box on her desk, with a raised eye brow, he walked over and peered inside the box, his eye color changed to a bright yellow color and his fangs dropped as he reached his hand inside the box. He pulled out the pictures, his frown returned when he recognized the girl that had been captured in them, it was Donna’s daughter. That would explain why she had sped out of the premises, but who would be so cruel as to play such a prank on her?
His mind immediately went to Cheryl, she was the only one he knew that held a grudge against Donna, but then again, Donna said nobody knew of her daughter’s existence and unless Cheryl had managed to find out…
He sighed and dropped the pictures back into the box, retracted his fangs and walked back into his office and in just that moment, his phone rang. He was quick to pick it up.
“Alpha…”
“Mark I need you to do something for me.” Keith spoke quickly, cutting Mark off from saying what he had wanted to say.
“Just say the word, Alpha and it is done.”
He lifted his hands up to the light, it was still smeared by the blood from picking up the pictures in the box. It was not human blood, he could smell that and he was relieved it wasn’t human blood. He frowned. “I need to you trace a package to know where it had come from.”
“That can easily be done.” Mark replied from the other end.
“How soon can it be done?” he said and brought his blood stained hands up closer to his face, it smelled like pig’s blood. The more he thought about who could have set this up, the more his mind only liked it to Cheryl. He frowned. “It is quite important.”
“Just as soon as I can get the serial number and the company that delivered it.”
Keith turned and walked back into Donna’s office and picked up the box, the scanned the outside, top, bottom and the sides. “Mark, there is no serial number.”
“Who signed on it? There should have been a receipt or something.”
“The package in question was not a delivery that was paid for, it was…” he paused, he could not identify this as a gift, if it was then it was the worst gift anyone could have sent or received. “The package was just delivered as a gift in a way.”
There was a pause on Mark’s end of the line for about a second before he spoke. “What came in the box?”
Keith set the box down and picked up one of the pictures, flipped it over to the back and let out a long breath. “A warning.”
“Against you, Alpha?!” Mark’s voice went up a volume and the anger was evident in his voice.
Keith didn’t correct him, the warning was not to him but it had been sent to his own personal secretary, to someone that was pretty close and rather very important to him, so it wasn’t that very far apart. It was close even, too close. A threat to his person was a threat to him, and Donna was his person. He wanted to deal with this himself.
“I will call you back Mark.” he said to end the call but Mark was quick to call his attention.
“Alpha…” Mark said before he could hand up the phone and Keith hummed for him to go on. “…there is something else.”