Reckless Regrets
Chapter 35

Kade

The next morning, I woke up and was immediately scared half to death.

“What the actual f**k, man! What are you doing here, and why are you just sitting in the f*****g corner?!” I yelled.

“I’m here to help kick-off training. I’m going to work with your warriors and see if we can get them in shape. I’ve also been tasked with finding you a new head trainer. And I’m sitting in the corner because I refused to climb in bed with you, regardless of how pretty you think you are.”

“Screw you, Tyson. Xander could have told me you were coming. Or you could have, I do have a phone.”

“Check that phone. Xan called, and I sent a message when I got on the road.”

I grabbed my phone and saw the notifications. But they came a little after 3:00 AM, and I’d just gone to bed at 1:00 AM. I didn’t hear anything.

“I want to ask how you even got in, but it’s painfully obvious. That’s the first thing on my list today. Who just lets an almost seven-foot bear waltz into their alpha’s room without a second thought?”

“Luckily, I am as pretty as I think, so it’s much easier for me. But yeah, we can’t have them so lax when it comes to security around here. Get your a*s up and let’s go; I’m only here for a couple of days, so let’s make the most of it. I’m also missing my wife and kids already, and I can use the distraction.”

I climbed out of bed and took a quick shower before coming back to the room to see Tyson diligently working on his laptop.

“Working on some new tech?” I asked.

“Not at the moment. Scanning information on manufacturers I can use. It’s a real pain in the a*s and is taking forever. I would have preferred to leave work at the office, but this needs to be figured out yesterday. Anyway, let’s get going,” he said as he stood and put his things away.

“Put your bag in the safe in my office; then we can get to work. I’m sure it’s a goldmine of plans and details on that laptop that you’d hate to misplace.”

“I’d tear this entire place apart; Xander probably wouldn’t be too pleased with me,” he laughed.

We made our way through the house, and after stopping in the office, I took him out to the training grounds. I’d asked Simon to get everyone together, as was his job as Beta, and thankfully roughly 100 wolves were waiting upon our arrival. Many looked annoyed and irritated being called out at 7:00 AM on a Wednesday, but I didn’t give a s**t, and Tyson didn’t either.

“Good morning, warriors.”

“Good morning, Alpha!”

Well, at least we didn’t have to start with the basics; they respected the hierarchy.

“As you all know, Thorne has been detained until the Elder’s investigation on him concludes. I’ve been named temporary Alpha, and I intend to whip this pack into shape. It’s going to be brutal, and I’m sure many of you will b***h and m**n, but it’s going to happen whether you like it or not. Does anyone have an issue with that?”

“No, Alpha!”

“Good to know. This is a close friend of mine, Tyson Frederick. He’s the Gamma for Blue Moon and probably the best fighter you’ll ever see. He’s going to help us get started with training. If you have any issues take them up with him, he’s a very accommodating guy,” I said with a laugh.

The look on the men’s faces told me they knew I was full of s**t. Nothing about Tyson said accommodating, but at the very least, I knew that the pack wouldn’t try him. They may have been dumb, but they weren’t suicidal.

“Beta, will you allow me the next two days to work with your men? I don’t want to step on your toes, but I’ll need to be able to push them as I see fit if we’re going to get a true gauge on where they are,” Tyson asked Simon.

“Absolutely. I’m excited to see what the next couple of days brings. You have full autonomy; I will not interfere in any way.”

“Perfect.”

Tyson turned to the men and smiled. He was about to give them hell.

“Ten-mile warmup, the last 50 to cross the finish line will follow the run with 200 pushups, and the last 25 will add 200 sits up on top of that. Move out!” He yelled.

They took off into the woods without a single complaint; one less thing for me to worry about.

“Ten miles? Our last trainer only ran two or three to warm up. Those men are going to die,” Simon said with a chuckle beside me.

“If they don’t have the stamina to handle a ten-mile run, then they’ll never be able to defend this territory if it’s ever attacked.”

“I have to agree with you there.”

“Any luck finding Gabby?” I asked.

“None. And I’m getting worried. Her phone seems like it’s dead, it just goes straight to voicemail when I call now, so I don’t know what to think.”

“Keep trying. If I can figure out something to help your search, I’ll let you know. I need to go work out the security around the packhouse and border patrols. It’s been a joke for long enough.”

I headed to the northern border checkpoint, which served as the base for the patrols. The wolves posted here were supposed to be in charge. They supervised the other three stations to make sure things were in order. Sadly, when I arrived, I wasn’t surprised to see the two wolves there sleeping on the job…literally.

“Wake the hell up!” I boomed, making them both jump up to their feet.

It took them a second for their brains to process what was happening and the deep s**t they’d found themselves in.

“Asleep?! Seriously?! What is the point of having border patrol of you’re not patrolling the f*****g border?”

The question was hypothetical, but I paused and looked them both in the eye to see how they would respond. Neither said a word.

“Do you know the definition of the word ‘patrol’?” I asked.

“Uhh, yes, Alpha,” one of the men replied.

“And is this patrolling?” I asked him.

“No, Alpha.”

“What are your names?”

“I’m Steven, and this is my brother Kevin.”

“I refuse to start my time as alpha by killing two of my pack members, but if one more person gets onto this territory unannounced, I will rip your throats out. This bullshit has gone on for far too long. Get off your asses and do your jobs. Check the other three posts; make sure they know that this is a real and serious position, if you can’t do it, I’ll find someone else who can.”

“Yes, Alpha. I apologize-,” Kevin began.

“Save it. Just know that I’m dead serious. I don’t care where they cross; if anyone makes it onto my territory without one of the ranked members being notified, it’s your asses on the chopping block,” I pointed to them and advised.

They nodded their heads in agreement, and I hoped I wouldn’t have to follow through with the threat. But Xander was a stickler for security; he had zero patience for weak borders. These guys needed to get their s**t together now before it was too late for them.

***

By the time lunch had rolled around, I’d spoken with Hellen and placed her in charge of the house staff and asked her to get together a list of all the issues they were having so we could work on getting them taken care of. Because Gregory didn’t have a mate, there was no Gamma female to look after them, so the omegas were a complete mess. I had hopes of assigning the task to Gabby; once she was found.

Tyson decided to have mercy on the men after three hours, so he’d found his way to my office to discuss his thoughts, and I held my breath in anticipation.

“They’re terrible, but not hopeless. The men can learn, and it looks like they have the desire too, but they lack the discipline. Once I was able to determine their skill levels and get them properly grouped off for sparring, it went much smoother than I expected,” he said.

“Thank the Goddess! I couldn’t handle any more bad news right now.”

“I didn’t say it was good news; they are terrible. The most skilled group, which consists of maybe ten wolves, isn’t even on the level of our junior warriors. The weakest might as well be children. They just don’t know how to fight.”

“The junior warriors are children. They graduate when they turn fifteen and move up. You’re telling me that the best that this place has to offer can’t beat a bunch of pubescent teenagers?”

“That’s what’s I’m telling you. One guy, Roberto, caught on to everything almost instantly. I’ll work with him to step up as the head trainer.”

“At least that’s something.”

He stretched out on the couch and looked around.

“Where is the troublemaker? I haven’t seen her around today.”

“Hell if I know. Both her and her best friend, who also happens to be Simon’s only daughter Gabby, have been gone since yesterday morning. Simon is getting more and more worried, her phones died, and she still hasn’t responded, but I’ve honestly been more focused on keeping things together since Thorne was taken away.”

“When’s the last time you heard from her?”

“When she sent me the voice recording, nothing since then.”

He had an intense look on his face as he thought things over.

“That doesn’t sound suspect to you? She gets concrete proof of her dad’s bullshit, a dad that she does not get along with, then she and her best friend disappear?”

Now that I was thinking about it, hell yeah, it sounded suspect. But even though they didn’t always see eye-to-eye, I didn’t believe Thorne would do anything to her. But this place kept surprising me, so why would this be any different?

“I don’t have the energy for this s**t, man.”

I linked Simon and asked him to come to my office to see what he’d found out about Gabby. While I waited for him to arrive, I hoped that he had found her and that the girls had been off on some last-minute shopping trip that ran long or something dumb like that. But, like they sometimes are, my hopes were dashed as soon as he walked in.

“She’s missing, Alpha. She didn’t show up for her job at the preschool this morning, and she didn’t call. When I checked her room, I could tell there was a struggle; and I found b***d,” he said.

f**k, f**k, f**k!

“With the horrendous security around here, anybody could have taken her with little to no problem. Tyson, can you track the GPS on her phone with that fancy laptop of yours?”

“How long after you noticed that she was missing did her phone die?” he asked.

“A few hours, maybe? I’m honestly not 100% sure.”

“That’s good enough. I’ll see what I can find out.”

I thought over things, and even though anyone could walk into the territory, I had a hard time believing that these wolves could see a stranger take the girls and not say anything. This was likely an inside job, orchestrated by Thorne to cover his a*s, but he was a few minutes too late to stop Marisol from sending me the recording.

“Simon, are there any men here who are loyal to only Thorne? I understand loyalty to your Alpha, but I’m talking about anyone who’d break any and every rule just because he told them to do so.”

“There are a few I can think of. A pair of brothers who work the patrols are the first to come to mind.”

“Steven and Kevin?!” I asked.

“Absolutely. They aren’t the brightest, and Bill took full advantage of that over the years. They’ve basically been brainwashed to do his dirty work.”

I jumped up from my seat and headed for the door.

“Tyson, see if you can get the location on the phone. Simon, let’s go see if we can get a pair of idiots to talk.”