Omega

Chapter 11

When Konrad said to look in my own backyard, I became suspicious. Now that I could see this file, it made me realise that he knew more than he should. Did he tell my father something?

Opening the folder was not easy. This could be the answer. This could be the killer.

It was a saved copy of an email with a folder. I opened the email from Konrad to my father.

Anders,

I tried to call you regarding the last email but you weren't at the packhouse. A man called Brian answered and seemed to be quite knowledgeable about the situation. I was led to believe that you intended to keep this quiet until the finer details were sorted, which I believe, so perhaps you should look into this. I don't want any trouble in the future and it is quite obvious that he's paving his own path. This is the reason for sending this to your private email rather than the pack address.

Attached is a series of photos that I organised. Brian was quite insistent on meeting with me in private and asked that I not mention it to anyone in your pack, especially you. The meeting essentially boiled down to an agreement. He offered to assist in my takeover of West River. I would get to keep Black Ridge land and leadership while also gaining West River. His payment in this would be that he would get to manage West River on my behalf. In return and as surety of his subservience, I would be given his daughter as a mate.

I believe in honouring the agreement that I have made with you. Please deal with this matter before anymore time passes as I do not want a traitor lurking around my family.

Because he would have a family if he mated with me. A family that would be brought here to see their grandfather. They would be included in West River life.

I sighed heavily as I thought about Brian's motive. It made it worse because he was Shelly's father. Did she know?

I had to question why Konrad would delete this email. Opening the folder of images, I soon found out why. Shelly was at the meeting. She was all over him. The worst part was that the meeting seemed to be going well and when it was done, Shelly left with Konrad.

"Betrayed," I whispered.

Tears rolled down my cheeks. It made me wonder if they'd hooked up. I rolled my eyes. Of course they would have. After all, she made the comment about how I walked out of the restroom yet I walked normally. She knew what Konrad looked like below the belt.

Printing out the images and the email, I returned the drive to the hiding spot and closed the cupboard. Dumping myself into the seat, I looked at the image of my brother. It made me realise what the code for the safe was.

"Damn," I breathed.

Grabbing the images out of the printer, I stuffed them into the folder and tucked them into my bag. Then I raced downstairs to Stephen's place.

While looking at the number placement for each letter in the alphabet, I punched in the code for Ankh.

It was Stephen that asked to go to the museum. He had always been fascinated with ancient Egypt. He had a tattoo of the Ankh symbol on his arm, he called me a scarab and he still has the little statue of Anubis.

I looked at it and decided that it would be perfect in my pocket as a reminder. After picking up Anubis, I tucked it into my pocket and turned the dial to the last number. The door opened. I turned the flashlight on and shone the light into the darkness.

There were two things. A disc in a case and a thick envelope. On the envelope was written open when instructed to and on the card insert of the disc was Don't be afraid, Megan. Play me.

It felt like the wind was sucked from my lungs. I stepped back, hitting the clothes behind me. My hands were shaking as the tears rolled down my cheeks.

This was meant for me to see.

With Anubis as my soothing support, I walked out to the television and opened the DVD player. I was surprised that Stephen still had it but I guess the reason was in my hand.

The disk almost fell from my hand. It was shaking that much. After a few seconds, it began playing.

I smiled with tears in my eyes as I looked at Stephen as he sat down in front of the camera. He acted a little awkward at first, then offered a cheesy smile.

"Hey smellyhead, bet you'd never thought you'd be rummaging through my drawers, or risking your mind being forever grossed out by the view of this horndog getting his groove on. But,"

Stephen sighed heavily, looking a little sader.

"If you are then it means that things have turned bad. This is another thing that we've hidden in case something happens. The other is the place where the you know what is which I'm sure you've already looked at and hopefully found nothing but I doubt it. Dad wants to tell you everything but he's worried that you won't believe him."

He rolled his eyes.

"Or that you'd get angry because of the deal. I said to him that if he just explained it then you'd throw your hissy fit, grump around for a few days and then completely change your mind once you'd seen Konrad. He claimed that you weren't that superficial but I pointed out that you'd figure out that it could be a whole lot worse. Anyway, that's not the real issue here. We'll go right back to the beginning. Dad wanted to invest in property as part of a tax thing. As crazy as it seems, there's a ruling that if a clan leader invests in a neighbouring pack's land, they can call it a high risk venture. No one does it for obvious reasons but you know dad, he likes to keep his tax bill low. We discussed which pack would be ideal and dad decided that Black Ridge was the best one. Konrad was new to the leadership and he was an easy target. Once we picked him, we began the surveillance. We had to know what the weaknesses were, where our advantages would be. Now's the time when you should open the envelope."

He paused while I lifted the flap and looked inside. There were a lot of photos.

"These are the surveillance photos that we had a private investigator take on our behalf. We both knew that it would not be ideal to have someone from the inner pack circle to do the investigation. We could have been easily identified whereas a lone wolf can remain unseen. Dad sent the initial email to Konrad after the first of these photos came back to us. I've numbered them and the dates are on the photos so you can see that Konrad met with them before we started the negotiations. Dad believes that Konrad might have approached the pack but got Brian or that Brian approached Konrad first. Then when dad made contact with him, he thinks that Konrad changed his mind and decided to play Brian for a chump. He started taking photos of their meetings and sending them to us so that we'd know what was going on."

Flicking through the photos, I saw a lot of the same thing but just on different days. Brian and Konrad meeting up for meetings, meals, and drinks. It looked like the ones with Shelly were dates.

"I know that you're probably lost, angry, upset. Just know that Shelly did the dirty on the both of us. We were about to tell you. I was about to make her my mate. To me it seemed perfect, you know? My little sister's best friend was in love with me. But she kept saying to just hold off, it's not the right time, she wasn't ready to tell you or that you'd be upset or angry. I should have seen the signs but dad saw them long before I did. He was always suspicious that Shelly didn't want to tell you and warned me that there was a reason for it. I thought she was just scared."

Stephen shrugged, his eyes downcast to the table. He looked up, gritting a smile.

"But it's okay. I know the truth and now you do too. I just hope that you find this before you get in too deep. Dad's upstairs planning the meeting for tonight. He's going to kick Brian and his family out of the pack. The information has been gathered, he's got all the evidence he needs. Somehow you've managed to weasel your way out of this meeting for that ridiculous festival. You know it's nothing but a meat market, right? Anyway, I recorded this for you to find in case something goes bad tonight. We haven't found any evidence that Brian has collected supporters but dad's not ruling it out. So, one final thing. Don't trust Brian, Shelly or any of their family. Actually, two things. I'd probably keep Konrad at a distance, if I were you. Once this hits the fan tonight, he's not going to be happy. Later, Scarab."

The video ended, leaving me with a black screen. I sighed and turned everything off. I didn't know what to do now.