Induction, T.K. Eldridge [read aloud books txt] 📗

in secret and he had convinced her that keeping Mom weak would benefit them both. He did try to talk her into killing Mom, but Jolie broke up with him after that phone call. They were already at Abraham’s when that call came through and she broke down in tears and told Grandma, Evelyn Rue, and Abraham the whole story. Me? I wanted to take her out into the woods and beat her senseless, heal her ass up and do it again. I guess keeping her at Ricker’s and seeing if he could turn her around was a better plan. Sort of.

The meal was over, and we were having coffee and wine with dessert.

Grampa Walsh interrupted the conversation when he said, “Oh, Andre. I forgot to tell you they picked up Sebastian LeFleur today. After about an hour, he gave us a full confession and will be spending the rest of his life in Galliol. Margot Sullivan was delivered to Galliol this morning.”

We were all silent for a moment, sobered by the thought of a lifetime spent in the stark confines of the country’s supernatural prison.

“What was Margot’s game?” I asked.

“She seduced LeFleur and James into doing her will. Turns out she’s Fae. Half Siren, half Lamia,” Dad said.

“Good thing you didn’t let her seduce you,” Mom teased.

“She didn’t have to do much to start to pull you under. I was in her presence for about fifteen minutes and felt the power. It was creepy,” Sin said.

“Didn’t it seem like she went down too easily?” I said.

“Margot was focused on Sin. Seems she has wanted his power for a while,” Sett said. “After she started to tell her story, we also learned that Margo was the ‘she’ that had been at the beginning of it all thirty years ago.”

“She also told James to kill you two. She planned to take you to his office, incapacitated, and let him kill you in his shifted form,” Dad continued. “Fortunately, she had no idea that you two were so strong, or that you had backup.”

Sin rolled his shoulder. He’d healed pretty quickly, but it was going to be tender for a few days. “Thank gods for that backup, Dad.”

I reached out and squeezed Dad’s hand. “I’m sorry you had to kill him.”

“I am too, but he was too far gone. For him to have tried to kill all of us, there was no coming back from that,” Dad said.

“So, why did Margot want them to do this Purist League crap?” I asked.

“The kind of Fae she is is never truly accepted. As a result, Margot decided to create chaos. The more, the better. If she could get the shifters and witches to kill each other off, then there would be more for the Fae to take into their control. Unfortunately, while she had a good plan for the long game, she didn’t take into consideration that pretending to be a witch put her firmly in one camp over the other. The shifters never fully trusted her, and after you two publicly turned on James, a lot of the good shifters started to lose faith in him, too. That’s why she wanted to take you two out. Make it look like you’d tried to attack her and James and then kill you, putting James firmly back in the trustworthy column,” Grampa Walsh explained. “She didn’t understand that people were questioning James because they knew how good you two were. They knew your parents and knew the good you’ve all done behind the scenes for the community. Her plan would have never worked.”

“What about Brian?” Sin asked. “Are you really going to let him escape to California, unscathed?”

Grampa Walsh and Dad both started to chuckle.

“Oh, he’s not unscathed. We called the SPD branch in Sacramento and they picked him up at the condo he was renting. Tino had been keeping tabs on Brian and found his computer full of filth. We didn’t have to do a thing other than informing the local SPD. They have about as much appreciation for pedophiles as we do. Brian will be spending the next few decades in solitary at the state penitentiary,” Grampa said.

“Yeah, they’ll keep him in solitary, so he doesn’t get killed by the other prisoners when they find out why he’s in. Brian may be a shifter, but he’s not very powerful, so a regular cell will hold him,” Dad said.

Sett drained her wine glass and held it out for a refill. “After the Commander was announced as alive and returning to run the SPD and reorganize the Academy, I got to spend the day with Lang and Angiers. They’ve both been sent up to the G as well. Samuel Lang is under psychiatric rehabilitation, as are about twenty of the other Purist members. The rest were given a citation and a warning. Other than those few going through psych rehab, the rest were just there for the money. Angiers is going for the kidnapping and assault of you, Sid, and the attempted assault on two other students while I was on suspension. Lang is going for financial fraud and bodily harm to students under her care. She’s the one that set up the two students to be assaulted by Angiers, but the students crippled Angiers and left him in the combat center.”

“Give me their names later,” Grampa said. “I’ll want to see about putting them on my Ops team.”

“So, what’s going to happen next?” I asked.

“Your father and I are going on a nice, long vacation and we’ll be back in a month or two,” Mom said and kissed Dad’s cheek.

“When your Dad comes back, he’ll be running the Academy. In the meantime, Sett and I are going to overhaul the whole mess and get us back on track. You two are going to take a week or so to relax and then you’re going to get more training for the Special Ops program. Sid, you need some work on your shifter side and Sin needs some help with his spell work. Other than that, you’re both exceptional and I’m so very proud of all you’ve done,” Grampa said.

“Here, here!” rang out around the table and everyone lifted glasses to toast.

It was nice to be honored and appreciated, especially by my family.

“What about Keith Roberts?” Sin asked. “Is he going to keep working with the Special Ops team?”

“He will, yes,” Sett said. “But he’s also going to be taking over Angiers’ classes for a while. He said he liked the fieldwork, but not all the time.”

“Alright, everyone. Time for Amelia and I to get home. We’ve got an early flight tomorrow,” Dad said as he rose from the table. Everyone got up to give them hugs and say our farewells, and Mom pulled me aside.

“I put the stuff you saved from the house in the safe,” she told me and tucked a piece of paper into my hand. “That’s the new access code to the safe. No one else has it. You two and we are the only ones I want to be able to get in there.”

“Okay, Mom. I’ll let Sin know and we’ll make sure everything is secure.”

Mom kissed my cheek and smiled at me. “I know you will, my girl. Be safe while we’re gone?”

“Always, Mom,” I said, then waved as she and Dad headed out to their car.

Sin, Sett, and I were cleaning up the dishes while Grampa and Grandma chatted. The laughter from the other room sounded good after all the stress and worry.

“So, what do you think of those two?” I asked Sett.

Sett wrinkled her nose and grinned. “I do not want to think about my mother’s sex life, thanks very much.”

Sin laughed at her and she swatted him with a towel. “I think they’re cute together,” he said.

“Cute? Oh, do not let Grandma know you said that,” I said.

“What if I tell her?” Sett teased.

We both yelled and started to swat her back with our dishtowels as all three of us laughed.

Grampa whistled from the dining room doorway, and we all fell silent as we turned to look his way. He held up his phone and then put it back to his ear. “Yes, I can hear you now. Uh huh. Okay, send me the files and I’ll call you in the morning,” he said, then hung up.

“You three finish up and get some sleep. We’ve got a case to look over,” Grampa said.

“What kind of case?” Sett asked.

“People are disappearing. Four cases that seem to have similarities so far. The last disappearance was yesterday in Sorsyville. Meet at the SPD offices at eight tomorrow morning.”

Sett told us to head home and we said our farewells before Sin and I made our way back to the cottage.

“Our first official case,” Sin said.

“Yep. I hope it goes well. This will be the first one we do in the public eye, so to speak. No undercover, no pretending to not be cops. This is the real deal,” I said.

“Tomorrow will be our real Induction Day,” Sin said. “Not graduation, like Dad said.”

“Yeah, I think you’re probably right.”

We were inducted into the brotherhood, but tomorrow? That’s when we would publicly act like we were a real part of it. The first day of the next phase of our lives.