Chapter 81
#Chapter 81 – Confrontation
Victor: Home in about an hour, do you want to have dinner?
Victor stares at the text on his phone. The messaging system lets him know that Amelia has read it, but
not responded. He sighs, tucking his phone away in his pocket as his town car pulls into the club. For
the past twenty-four hours Amelia has given him the silent treatment, but she hasn’t left.
Honestly, he doesn’t know what’s really going on.
The car rolls to a stop in his reserved parking spot and Victor sighs as he steps out, looking up at the
sports club of which he is a member. He hardly evees here, but it’s convenient for events. For
instance, his bachelor party will be held here tonight, and he’se early to ensure that everything is
in order ording to his liking.
Bachelor party, he thinks, shaking his head as he walks through the front door. Am I even getting
married? Yesterday I told her that she –
“Kensington.”
Victor stops dead at the voice. Not because it’s a sound he’s heard it all his life, but rather because it’s
one whose words are seared in his memory. Victor turns and coldly meets the eyes of John Walsh,
seated in a chair at the entrance. Waiting from him.
“We need to talk, Kensington.” Walsh says with perfect calm.
Victor’s lips raise in a snarl.
Ten minutester, they’re seated together in a corner of the club’s Alpha-only bar, a room that is dark
with leather and brass. A waiter looks anxiously between them while delivering the two sses of
whiskey that they ordered. Neither Victor nor Walsh touches their ss, staring at each other instead.
Victor had truly considered gutting Walsh the moment he saw him at the front of the club. Only three
words had stopped him.
“Amelia called me,” John had said, a dirty smirk on his face.
The words had halted Victor in his tracks. He wanted Walsh gone – out of his life, out of this world,
frankly – but he had to know what Amelia had done, what she had given this man.
“You think I’m here as some kind of nasty little trick,” Walsh says, breaking the silence and leaning
forward to sp his tumbler of whiskey. He leans back in his leather chair, studying Victor, who says
nothing. “You’re wrong, Kensington. I’m not.”
Victor fights his surprise, not letting it show on his face or in his body. Instead, he merely narrows his
eyes. What’s Walsh’s game?
“The fact is, Victor,” Walsh says, rankling Victor with his familiarity, “that we’re actually on the same
side.”
Victor remains steadily silent.
“Yes, your little woman called me,” Walsh continues, casually spinning the whiskey in his ss,
dismissing Amelia’s call with both his words and his actions. “She cried to me about Evelyn on your
couch, about the boys constantly underfoot, begged me to take them away from you, again.”
Victor seethes inwardly, but lets Walsh continue. He needs all the details.
“Frankly, Victor, like I said – you have to get that woman under control.” Walsh smirks at him here. “For
an Alpha, you certainly do let her run roughshod over you.”
“I –“ Victor snaps.
“No no,” John interrupts, his denial magnanimous. “Don’t lose your temper, Victor – I understand.
These women, they can be difficult. Especially the high-spirited ones, which clearly seem to be your
type.”
Walsh raises his eyebrow here and again smirks at Victor, who forces himself to settle back into his
chair. He’s ashamed of himself for rising to Walsh’s bait.
“Still,” Walsh says, looking Victor up and down. “You can’t have your woman running off to another
Alpha for help every time you have a disagreement. It doesn’t look good, and one of these times,
someone’s going to take her up on her offer.”
“What is this meeting about.” Victor speaks the words through clenched teeth.
“I want toe to a peaceful ce with you, Victor!” Walsh says, giving him a broad smile. “We have a
responsibility, now, to create a better environment for those boys, for our mutual heirs. Quite frankly, I’m
disturbed by your Amelia’s suggestion that they be sent away to Colorado, of all ces.”
“The boys are going nowhere,” Victor says, reaching forward to take his own ss of whiskey. Walsh is
right. As much as he hates it – the timing, especially, as well as the impetus – this is a conversation he
and Walsh need to have. Legally, the boys bind their two packs together.
“I concur,” Walsh continues. “The best ce for them is with you, in your private home. If you were truly
unwilling to raise them by hand – and I believe that you are – then I would, of course, ept them into
my own.” Walsh nods reasonably at this.
“Then what is the problem,” Victor says, shaking his head. “If we agree that the boys should tay with
me, why surprise me with this little…chat. Today.”
“The problem,” Walsh says, leaning forward to put his elbows on his knees. “Is that little b***h you n
to marry. Amelia.”
Victor leans forward with a snarl. “Leave her name out of your mouth –“
This text is property of N?/velD/rama.Org.
“Look what she’s done to you, Victor. How she betrays you,” Walsh hisses. “Trying to get rid of your
children, so that she can rece them with her own? Children which will surely be inferior to the ones
that Evelyn has given you, can still give you.”
“We’ve discussed this already,” Victor grinds out. “Not that it is your business, but Amelia is my mate.
We are to be married next week, and it is final.”
“Oh, but it very much is my business.” Walsh says, his wicked smile growing. “Those boys are the
future of my line, will inherit my business and all that I have. I will not have them raised to believe they
are second-ss citizens, with a woman who sees them as inferior to her own whelps.”
“Amelia will fall in line,” Victor growls, but he hears his voice falter as he says it. It’s words he’s been
saying for months, but in all of those months…it’s never happened. Amelia has refused, at every turn,
to fall in line with hismands and his wishes.
“You’ve cornered that b***h,” Walsh says, his voice fierce. “And when a b***h is cornered, she bites.
She bes unpredictable in her fear, her fury. You have no idea what she’ll do next. Even call her
husbands enemy, the man who seeks to take everything from him. Asking for help.”
Walsh sits back, smug.
Victor stares into his whiskey, his mind screaming. He knows he has been cornered, by Walsh, by this
whole situation.
“Your best choice,” Walsh continues, slowly, “is to take Evelyn.” He pauses and sits back in his chair,
letting Victor mull it over. “That b***h Amelia will betray you at every turn, but Evelyn? I raised her to be
loyal. She would never have betrayed Joyce if he had not betrayed her first, that stupid man.”
Walsh takes a long, angry drink of his whiskey. “Evelyn was an impetuous fool, with what she did after.
But had he only been more discreet…she would have been a good wife. She would be a good wife to
you.” Walsh fixes Victor with his re. “A better wife than Amelia.”
Walsh finishes his drink and stands up. “I’m not going to pretend that this advice is unselfish,” he
continues, buttoning his coat. “If you take Evelyn as your bride, marry her as you should, then I gain
significant control.
“But I am not wrong,” Walsh continues, looking down at Victor with contempt, “When I say that this is
the situation that benefits you as well. Your b***h, Amelia – she is out for herself first. She’ll burn your
entire world down until she gets her way. Evelyn, perhaps, is just as willful. But I raised her to be an
Alpha’s wife. Your visions for your future lives are aligned.”
With that, Walsh strides away, every line of his body arrogant. Victor watches him go, hating him.
Hating him for cornering him like this, for using his newfound connections to his grandsons, for his
interference in Victor’s personal affairs.
But Victor hates him most because he wonders, truly, if Walsh is right. Evelyn is the woman who shares
his love of family, who wants children, who marks a clear line to the future he’s always wanted. And
Amelia…is out of line.