Sirty–One
288 Vouchers
Sixty–One
Alexander’s POV
It was a day after sitting with my dad and I decided that despite this strange and unexpected illness, this man was still the strong Alpha that he once was. He hated to be helped even though he needed to be but despite the little things he needed to be helped with, I could tell that he was no longer in the critical condition he was just the day before. And I was hopeful that if he kept up like this, he wasn’t going to have to live with some illness for the rest of his life.
That being said, my restlessness was out of the roof. It had gotten so bad that my father had commanded me to get out of his room after pacing to and fro the walls of the room more times than anyone would be comfortable with. I knew why I was restless. He knew why I was restless. Hell, even people who didn’t know that I was always pacing or bouncing my leg when I sat for the past day would expect that I was already out for my mind by now. I wonder when Antonio got so smart because I just got off the phone with Blake and the feedback was not the least bit positive. It was obvious to me at this point that they were never going to find Isabella.
Antonio had always acted like there was some unfinished business between us; when he left the pack and even when we met again. The way he looked at me with hatred and eyes that sought revenge. And now that I knew that it was him behind Isabella’s disappearance, I was certain that I was the only one that could find Isabella. Antonio had taken her to bait me. The bait was for me and no one else and until I was
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Sixty–One
288 Vouchers
the one to catch the bait, she would never be found. With that thought came another; what if she wasn’t far after all. What if the place we were looking for was not as far from our noses as we thought? My men had probably just looked over it because it was somewhere that didn’t seem likely.
With that thought, I jumped to my feet and went to grab my phone. Dialing Blake’s number, it rang just once before he picked up. “Where are you?”
“I’ll be at the pack house in an hour…approximately. Is there a problem?”
“We’ll just talk when you get back.” I said ending the call and throwing my phone on my bed where it fell flat after bouncing on the surface.
Running my hands through my hair once, I went downstairs to my study and reached for the topmost shelf in the case where the maps were kept. Bringing them down, I lay them all down on the table and started to go through them one after the other. By the time I was done studying the maps of the whole region, our pack and even the whole country and making marks on the photocopies I made on the places where I knew my men had searched, I caught a whiff of Blake’s scent outside my door just before I heard a knock.
“Enter.” I said since I already knew who it was.
Blake came in and glanced down to the span of the table before looking back up at me, “How’s your dad?” He asked thoughtfully even though I knew that the first question that came to his mind with the way he looked at the table had to have been, ‘what are you doing?‘ or something along those lines.
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Sirty–One
288 Vouchers
“Stable.” I said simply before linking Caleb, Mason, the captain of the trackers and the captain of the fighters to all meet me at my office right away. “We leave tomorrow.” I told Blake. “And this time we’re not coming back without her. I just linked the other guys, they should be here soon.”
“We? You’re going this time?” He asked, surprised.
“Yes. My father is stable enough and I can barely sit still. I’ll say more on this when the others arrive but yes, I’ll be leading the search party this time around.”
Blake nodded before looking at the table. “What are your leads though, it seems like you’ve been doing a lot of research.”
“Yes. I don’t have any leads but it’s evident to me that wherever this place is, it must be somewhere we least expect. My guesses are that it has been overlooked because it’s not likely at all. She may kept somewhere in the pack for all we know.”
The door is suddenly pushed open to reveal Caleb, “Nah, I doubt that one. We have searched this place too hard. Even regular pack members have been put on high alert. Her scent would have given her kidnappers away and someone would have found her by now.”
“Fair enough.” I say, agreeing with him when a knock comes at the door. I call out for them to enter and the rest of the party walks in. Mason speaks first,
“What’s up?” He then looks at Blake most likely because we all knew Blake just got back from a search. Well, I had asked him to travel to the last place I saw Antonio. A whole other Country away from here to the place I went to college but like
I realized before I called him this afternoon, she wasn’t there. “Anything?” Mason asked Blake.
“No.” I answered for him turning everyone’s attention to me once again as well as to the table for brief moments each as they scanned it and tried to pick up ideas on why they were here. “We leave tomorrow.” I said, “And like I told Blake already, we aren’t coming back this time without her. And yes, I’m leading the search this time. Antonio is the one behind this and the only reason he would take my mate is to bait me. So I’ve decided that the only way I’m getting my mate back is to go out there myself.”
They all nodded and I was grateful that they seemed to somehow understand because I wasn’t sure I was making my logic clear enough to them. Then I turned to Mason.
“I’m sorry man but you’re going to have to sit this one out. I need someone to make sure my father is safe.”
Mason shrugged, “It’s no problem.”
I smiled briefly before turning back to face all of them collectively, “No one is to know that I’ve left the pack. It’s going to be five of us and three others. News can spread that another search party has been sent out but I don’t need Antonio finding out that I’ve left the pack from any of his little satellites before I get to him.” I paused to check if they were following which they were before I continued. “My guesses are that their hiding place is not as vague as we think. It’s just somewhere that has been overlooked because we just didn’t suspect it at all.”
I threw a marker at the tracker captain, “Circle all the places that have been searched so far. I doubt I would have gotten
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Surty–One
288 Vouchers
them all.” I told him to which he nodded and stepped forward, the marker that he had caught easily in his hand.
“You got most of them.” He commented as he finished and placed the marker back on the table.
I nodded. “Now do an asterisk on all the most unlikely places.” I said to which he nodded and got to that.
I gave out other information after that and heard what they all had to say before dismissing them after declaring that we leave before sunrise. We had to leave early if we wanted to check out those places we had marked out on the map after all. There were three sets; the most unlikely locations, the other unsearched locations and the locations that had already been searched and we were going to conduct our search in that order until we find her. Although, hopefully and according to my instincts, we’ll find her in the first set.
Time to set out did not come quicker than expected or even right on time. Maybe it was because of how restless I was but it seemed to drag on for like forever before it got to four AM the next morning which was when we decided was the best time to leave. We packed light as possible since we were going to e carrying our bags in our mouths by their handles. Two bags for our clothes and the other bags among us where for food and other supplies.
While my dad just shrugged and said, ‘he thought I’d never leave‘ when I went to let them know of my plans at dinner time the night before, my mom made a huge fuss. She was worried and I knew it was because there was no doubt going to be a showdown between her both sons and it scared her. To be honest, it scared me too. Not that I was scared of
Antonio. I was scared of what this might mean for us, for our
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family. I was scare of just how far he would want to take this and what I may have to do.
