Chapter 41
Chapter 41 – Eve ys the Hau
Though Eve’s ns didn’t always turn out as she’d intended, she was certain they were well thought
out. It was people that messed things up.
With Petra, she’d always intended the elder she-wolf to survive. She needed her as an ally after Ethan
divorced Jane; she needed Petra to love her unconditionally so she would help convince her son to
marry Eve. The problem then was that Ethan turned out to be even more irrational than Eve could have
dreamed. Instead of leaving Jane then and there, he simply punished her.
All of her previous attempts on Paisley’s life had also been thoroughly researched and nned. The
first time Jane’s other little brats turned up out of nowhere and ruined her scheme, and the second it
simply turned out that the doctors were morepetent than she gave them credit for. This time
however, this time there was no way she could fail: She couldn’t stop the car, Paisley was perfectly
aligned with the oing truck andpletely unprotected without her seatbelt. The crash was
happening, and the brat would be squished like a cockroach under a boot.
Yet despite Eve’s certainty, it seemed she failed to consider one simple variable in her n – which
was the pup’s own instincts and quick thinking. As the truck charged toward her, Paisley dove out of
the passenger seat and into the back of the car, curling into a tiny ball on the floor behind the driver’s
seat.
Eve shrieked in indignant fury, but a secondter a huge crash jolted the vehicle and sent it spinning,
the sound of screeching tires, breaking ss and crumpling metal filling the air. It was the loudest thing
Paisley had ever heard in her
young life, especially with Eve screaming bloody murder throughout the terryfing situation. The car
spun like a top, bouncing back and forth between other vehicles and sending
ss reigning down on the little girl’s head. Still, Paisley stayed curled up like a little armadillo,
shielding her face and head with her hands.
When the car finally skidded to a stop, Paisley’s heart was beating a mile a minute, and it was truly a
testament to her renewed health and her surgeon’s skill that the organ was able to withstand the strain
of such a terrifying event. The pup could hear Eve crying in the distance, forcing her car door open and
stumbling out onto the pavement.
Onlookers rushed to the car, helping Eve escape the crumpled remains of her sedan and asking if she
was alright. Eve waved them all off, rushing for the back door and looking down at Paisley with a look
of pur hatred that she quickly disguised as relief. “On Paisley!” She cried, reaching down and extracting
the pup from the floor. “Oh thank the Goddess you’ re alright.”
Paisley tried to push the cloying she-wolf away, but Eve was in the middle of a dramatic performance
and wasn’t about to let the people surround them seeing how much she despised holding the child.
“I’ve never been so afraid in my life, you’re such a smart girl, getting on the floor that way.”
Sirens sounded in the distance, and the truck driver was now out of his car and approaching Eve. “Are
you crazy? Running a red light like that?”
“I don’t know what happened!” Eve wails, “I tried to m on the brakes over and over again, but they
wouldn’t work! || think they went out!”
“Why didn’t you use the emergency brake?!” The truck driver demanded, “and why the hell was the pup
in the front?”
“She wasn’t!” Eve insisted instantly, “You must be confused, everything happened so fast. That’s why I
didn’t think of the emergency brake, I was just panicking.”
“Is that the Alpha’s daughter?” One of the witnesses asked suddenly, when Paisley had finally
managed to wriggle free enough to poke her head over Eve’s shoulder.
“It is!” Someone else eximed. “Oh you poor thing, are you
alright?”
Paisley squirmed her way free of Eve, looking up at the concerned shifters surrounding her. Eve was
already furious the little brat survived, but now she was stealing the sympathy Eve had counted on for
herself too. Was there no end to the injustice? To make things worse, Paisley then threw her head back
and began to cry, “I want my daddy!”
Deting all at once, Eve slumped onto the curb and watched while the crowd began tofort the
pup. “Fuck.”
–
Ethan
I’ve had a horrible tangle of dread sitting in the pit of my stomach like a huge rock all afternoon. This is
my first day back at work after Paisley’s surgery, and I keep telling myself it’s just my anxiety over being
away from my pup, as well as anger and hurt over Jane’s supposed engagement. Still, nothing I do can
unwind the knots twisting my insides, and a
little after noon, I get up from my desk and decide to go home
for lunch – just to check on things.
I hear sirens in the distance as soon as I reach the parking lot, and I don’t know how I know that they
have something to do with Paisley, but I do. I point the car in the direction of the penthouse and
hammer my foot onto the elerator. As | drive I imagine all sorts of cmities, her heart failing again,
an intruder at the house, a kidnapping. I keep waiting for my phone to ring, but then I realize I left it in
my office in my haste to leave.
The sirens are only a few blocks from the penthouse, and following my instincts, I head straight
towards them rather than continuing home. When I arrive at the intersection teaming with red and blue
lights, I know my fears were well founded. I can smell both Paisley and Eve though I cannot see them.
All I do see is Eve’s car in the middle of the road – at least, it used to be Eve’s car. Now it looks more
like a jumble of metal put through a trashpactor.
Jumping out of my car, the crowd instantly parts to make a path for me, and I charge towards the sound
of my crying daughter, “Paisley!”
Then she’s there in front of me, her clothes covered in ss, a ‘few scratches marring her tan skin and
her face crimson and tear-stained, but otherwise unharmed. She runs toward me immediately, and I
drop to my knees in front of her, love coursing through my veins as she throws herself into my arms.
I’m vaguely aware of the sound of cameras clicking around us,plete with a few shes, but the
only thing that matters is Paisley, “Are you alright? What happened?”
“Ethan I’m so sorry.” Eve is standing over us then, her eyes wide and bloodshot. “We were going to get
some ice cream,
but the breaks on my car wouldn’t work.” She sniffles. She too is a little bruised and scratched up, but
for the most part she looks unharmed. “Paisley was so brave, she jumped out of the back seat and
curled up onto the floor, I think it saved her life.”
“You should have seen her, sir.” One of the witnesses shared, “If I didn’t know any better I would have
thought it was her own daughter there, she was so worried. She wouldn’t let us take her away from the
wreck until she knew Paisley was
safe.”
Eve’s lower lip is quivering dangerously, and my Alpha instincts have me extending an arm to her as
well. It doesn’t matter that she gets on my nerves nine times out of ten, she was almost killed, and she
needsforting.
Eve copses into my arms, and as both she-wolves cry I turn to one of thew enforcement agents
standing nearby, “I need you to call someone for me.”
While the man calls Jane, and his colleagues clear the witnesses from the area, I focus onforting
Paisley and Eve. It’s onlyter, after I’ve spoken with the truck driver – who insists Paisley was in the
front seat and not the back – and the authorities have examined the car and confirmed the passenger
side seatbelt and brakes were both disabled, that my suspicions about Eve return. Why wasn’t there a
car seat in the vehicle? Why would somebody target her car, when she never takes Paisley anywhere?
Why not target my own car?
As the EMTs take care of Paisley, Eve and the truck driver, I pull the ident investigator aside, “I need
another favor. Can you pull the traffic cameras between here and my penthouse? I want to see what
was happening in the car before the crash.
The man nods, “I’m already on it sir, but you should know more than one witness said the child was in
the front seat – it’s not only the truck driver.”
“But that seatbelt was disabled.” I confirm.
He nods gravely, “if they’re right your friend put the pup in the car without a belt.”
If Jane hadn’t chosen that precise moment to arrive, I might have turned on Eve and interrogated her
right then and there, but my breath catches when I turn around and see Jane’s rushing towards theContent (C) N?v/elDra/ma.Org.
polic barricade, terroring off her in waves. She sprints up to me, wringing her hands, “What
happened?”