Fallen (BoyxBoy)

Chapter 22 - The leak

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It was 6 AM on a Friday morning when I found myself driving to Lyall's house having just left the office for the first time since arriving the previous morning. After spending another night working with Zev and four of the top computer scientists in our pack, we had dropped the number of people we suspected down to two.

We had looked into who in our pack had reached out to anyone unusual in the last couple of years. Following phone records, emails, even their social media and after looking through thousands of communication networks we found suspicious links that two people in our pack had with people in Lawrence's pack. They were not direct, it was through other people, one in our pack that had a direct link to someone in Lawrence's pack and another that was a few people off but led directly to their Beta.

The person connected to their Beta was linked to a colleague who had a mutual friend that was connected to someone in Lawrence's pack, that third person happened to have constant communication with the Beta, but that had only started around the same time we suspected Lawrence had begun plotting to steal our product.

That chain of people seemed more likely connected to the mole than the closest second, which was that one of our directors that had information on the product had contact with another person in our pack who had communicated with someone in Lawrence's pack in the same time frame. The reason the first suspect seemed more likely despite having a longer line of communication, was because the second did not show any communication with the pack's Beta, unlike the first.

The chain that ended with Lawrence's Beta started with someone that had more knowledge of what we were doing than almost anyone, only second to Zev and myself: Lyall.

I did not want to believe he would have a hand in what had happened. Of course, I would believe it if it turned out that way, but I hoped he did not. I didn't know how I would react to a betrayal from Lyall, as my best friend and basically the closest thing my pack had to a second Beta despite him not even being a Delta. Everyone trusted, loved and respected him.

I had never felt even slightly apprehensive about seeing him before, the feeling itself was unusual to me, but as the car came to a stop in his driveway, I hesitated before climbing out. I knew what would happen if he turned out to be the leak, he would be treated like any other member that had done so.

Because it had done no harm to the physical or mental well-being of any of our pack members and he had a mate who might not have even known what he had done, if he turned out to be the leak, he would just be removed from any pack duties, fired from the company, barred from working certain positions at any of the others and demoted to pack work only on pack grounds. He would have to work to pay back some of the money he caused us to lose, as it would be utterly impossible to pay the full amount, but even that would leave him and his mate financially devastated for a very long time. And while I would still try to treat Belvine normally, I knew the rest of the pack would basically shun both her and her traitorous mate. She would stick with him no matter what he did because she loved her mate that much. Even if he was banned from the pack, she would go with him. I could not think of a single mate that would not leave with their partner.

It wasn't an uncommon occurrence for mated werewolves to pass away a few days or weeks after their partner did, not because of suicide, but just pure grief. Most werewolves lasted about a year if they made it through the first few weeks. My mother was not most werewolves.

The front door was pulled open before I reached the deck leading up to it and Belvine furrowed her brows at me. She looked like she had just gotten out of bed.

"Alpha?" I greeted her with a hug she responded to naturally despite her confusion about why I was at their house so early.

"Lyall back from his training?" Both my and Zev's training schedules had been messed up by trying to find the leak in the past few days. Usually, we met with the other leaders in our pack, tried to train with everyone else and younger wolves sometimes too, but that week we found ourselves alone in the gym at odd times, only realising an entire day had passed when someone walked into the office the next morning.