After Six Years The Alpha Begs For My Return Chapter 26
As the elevator doors slid shut, I caught one last glimpse of Gideon, still standing there, facing my direction, unmoving.
Reese took me to a seafood place tucked away on one of the old streets. The owner, an elderly woman with graying hair, smiled the moment she saw him.
The cream clam soup she brought out was rich and fragrant, sprinkled with parsley and black pepper. One spoonful was all it took to taste the kind of old-world craft built over decades.
“I grew up on this street,” Reese said, lifting his spoon. “After my first shift, my bones ached so badly I couldn’t sleep. My grandmother used to bring me here for soup.”
I bent over my bowl and drank half of it before warmth slowly returned to my limbs.
“About Corrigan,” he said, setting down his spoon. “My people looked into him. Ray Corrigan was a senior guard in White Ash River. He left the pack twelve years ago over an old case. The public story is that he went to South America. In reality, he’s been living in an abandoned fishing village across the river. The lead on your mother’s donor came through a neutral physician on his behalf.”
My hand paused on my spoon.
“What’s your connection to him?” Reese asked.
Outside the window, a stray cat landed on an air-conditioning unit with a dull thud.
“When I was ten, I went to play by the old riverside docks. I slipped and fell in. The tide was coming in, and the current was fast. I flailed, got swept out, and swallowed so much water I couldn’t even scream.” I looked down at the soup in my bowl. “Corrigan jumped in and pulled me out. He’d been a guard, so he was a strong swimmer. He threw me over his shoulder and ran two streets to the nearest clinic.”
“And after that?”