Fraudulent Death, Draft 01, CH 39 (Patreon)

“I think that you owe me an explanation,” the female said, sliding the pad over the table. Trembor caught it. A paused video was on the display. The title was ‘my boss has a family tiff’. It showed Bo and him screaming at one another. He hadn’t realized their argument had been recorded, but he should have. Everyone recorded everything, it seemed these days. He readied himself and played it,

“…because it was me you were fucking saving. If that wolf hadn’t been there. You’d have been happy to let me die, were probably looking forward to it, taking in my sons, raise them as yours, since you’re never going to fuck a female and have them yourself. You don’t give a fuck about me, about the rest of us. It’s just you and your wolf. You fucking live to be abused.” The derision came through clearly.

He didn’t pause it in time and watched himself punch his brother. The motion had been quick, without preamble, and precise. It surprised Trembor. He trained with his feet much more than his fist. In the still, Bo was almost on his back, Trembor was stiff.

“Well?” Serene asked.

This wasn’t the confrontation he’d expected, planned for.

“Me and Bo got in an argument, it got out of hand. I’ll apologize for hitting him when I see him again.” He could give details, tell her what Bo had encouraged Herelex to give into. Watch her tear his brother apart. As satisfying as that would be, he wasn’t a cub, to go cry to one of his mothers to take his side in an argument. And her getting involved in this would certainly bring the organization forcing his brother to do what he was doing down on his family.

“That isn’t what I’m talking about, Trembor,” she growled, “and you know it. That wolf abuse—”

“His name his Marlot, Mother,” he said firmly, if not as loudly as he’d intended.

She stared at him. “Why are you back with him after he hurt you like he did?”

“He made a mistake.”

“Doesn’t that sound a little familiar, Trembor? He didn’t mean to do it, he won’t do it again. After what you went through, how can you believe anything he says?”

“He’s talking with a counselor, if nothing else. He didn’t make excuses for what he did. Unlike Gorrek, Marlot realizes he had issues, and he tries to do better. And maybe if I’d told him about Gorrek and what he did to me, Marlot would have been more careful about how he treated me.” He smiled. “That is, once he’d eaten Gorrek.”

“Trembor, why are you taking the chance? That—Marlot has already shown he’s willing to hurt you. You can’t know he might not do it again.”

“Why are you still with dad?” Trembor replied without anger. He understood Serene’s position. She was the protector of their family. She already saw what Marlot had done as her failing him. That he was willing to put himself at risk again meant she’d failed even more. It was as much a repeat of Gorrek for her as it had been for him.

“I don’t see what your father has to do with this.”

“How many times did he go back to the gambling house after you thought you’d made him understand how bad it was for him and the rest of you? Why didn’t you leave after that first time? Or the second one?”

“Your father had a problem. I wasn’t going to abandon him while he was fighting through it. When you love someone, you help them.”

Trembor smiled at his mother. “I love him, and unlike Gorrek, Marlot loves me. He is a little possessive, and when stress gets too much he becomes demanding and stubborn, but not just with me, he makes the same stupid mistakes with the rest of the world as he does with me when stressed.”

“And that makes it okay?”

“No, but it means he’s not targeting me, the way Gorrek did. Gorrek never, ever, lost his temper with someone he hadn’t hooked. He was always the perfect male. How else was he going to hook anyone? Marlot is just someone who copes with stress by trying to control everything. He doesn’t even try to be sneaky about it. He runs right through other people to get what he wants. And now, after seeing what his actions did to me. He is trying to change. Would you, after what you went through with dad, really tell me to abandon him?”

He watched her study him. She would respect his decision, ultimately, no matter how she felt about it. He’d have to be careful if he brought Marlot to a family dinner again, but he didn’t believe she’d eat him. After all, she hadn’t eaten Gorrek, and that was one male who would have deserved it; if only he’d seen that back then and not stop her.

She sighed. “All right. I won’t eat the wolf. But I am warning you; if he hurts you again I—”

“Do nothing. And he is going to hurt me. He’s not perfect, he’s not going to fix his problem with one visit to a counselor. It’s going to take time, but I’m going to be there for him.” For as long as I can. Fuck, he was acting like he and Marlot had years together. Of course, to do otherwise would give his mother the scent that something was off. And the rest of the video was enough.

“I miss the days when you thought the world was perfect,” she said.

“I don’t. It led to Gorrek.”

“True.” She nodded to the pad. “About the rest?”

He pressed his lips together. He didn’t want to watch the rest. The memory of what he’d said and done was still fresh. But he didn’t know how much had been recorded. “What did you hear?” he knew better than to volunteer information.

“Bo says something about them having their claws in you too. I’m assuming he’s referring to the people behind the gambling house. You say something about him pushing Herelex into making sex movies, having them turn him into one of their males in a sex house. And you made it clear you were never going to work for them.”

Trembor sighed. That was going to cause him more trouble than anything else. Derimak couldn’t have seen the video yet, otherwise, she’d been here, fighting his mother for the right to be pissed at him. “I made the mistake of putting myself between Bo and the organization he’s in trouble with. They turned around and decided they were going to force me to work for them.”

“Bo being framed for underage predation,” she said. “Your lawsuit for interfering in an investigation.”

He nodded. “I am handling it, mother. You can’t get involved.”

She tilted an ear. “Can’t? Child, do you have any idea when the last time someone told me I couldn’t do something?”

She smiled. “A few months ago, when I told you you couldn’t eat Marlot.”

She narrowed her eyes. “He wasn’t threatening two of my children.”

If only you knew the whole story, Trembor thought. You wouldn’t let me talk you out of this. “This isn’t as simple as a tiff between lovers. It’s a matter for the enforcers, and I am working with them to take them down.” Not that he expected that to last, but so long as he could keep her from getting involved. He didn’t think he could bring himself to outright lie to her, so he’d have to skirt around the truth.

“I don’t like that it seems to mean you have work with those criminals, Trembor. You were always so adamant about following the law.”

“This is about doing what’s right. I can survive bending the law to take them down. And I’ll have Marlot to go home to.”

“And how does he feel about you putting yourself at risk like this?”

Oh, that’s a conversation I am not looking forward to having.

“You haven’t told him, have you?” she said.

“Not yet. He’s been busy with his cases, I’ve been busy with the lawsuit and this mess. We talk over pad every few days, but we haven’t sat down together in a while.”

“Tell him. Don’t wait until it’s too late, because as much as I don’t like him if you’re serious about him loving you. If he loses you and doesn’t know why, he will hate you for it.”

But if I tell him, he will never let me go through this alone, and I cannot put him in that kind of danger. “I will.”

She hugged him. “Be careful.” She kissed the side of his head and he escorted her to the door. On the other side, a hyena in an enforcer uniform was about the knock, or, by the expression on her face, obliterate the door. She forced her expression into something resembling neutrality as she stepped away.

“Derimak,” Trembor greeted her. “This is one of my mothers, Serene.”

“Ma’am,” the hyena greeted her.

“You must be who Trembor is working with on this,” Serene said, studying the enforcer. “I’ll let you get to it.” She paused. “If you get my son hurt, I will come for you.” She headed for her car.

“She’s not your mother, mother, right?” Derimak asked. “I met her at our graduation, she was nowhere near that intense.”

“Serene is my mother through mating, not birth. She’s still my mother.” She closed the door once the hyena was inside, and Derimak looked out the window, waiting until a car drove off.

“You told her?” she demanded.

Trembor chuckled. “You don’t lie to Serene.” He headed to the kitchen and filled two glasses with blood. “But I didn’t tell her everything, just enough she wouldn’t take on the organization herself to protect me and Bo.”

“So you lied to her. Because after that stunt you pulled, I can’t see how you can have convinced her there’s any chance we can pull this off anymore.” She had her back in hand, with the same video loaded on the screen.

“I’ve seen it, and I was there.”

“And do you understand the results? You specifically say that you’d rather eat them than work with them. I don’t know if there’s any way to convince them it was just you being angry.”

“Especially not with me punching the guy they sent to calm me and telling them they are all on the menu if they threaten my family, starting with their boss.”

Her ears folded flat. “Trem, you have to know they aren’t going to lie on their backs and bare their necks for you. You’ve just declared war on them.”

“I know.”

“You sound way too calm about this,” she responded.

“I’m dead, Der. I’ve accepted that.” He chuckled. “I’ve been trying to find a way of making it happen for weeks now. Ever since they came to me with their promise I’d end up working for them.”

“Taking your own life isn’t going to solve anything, Trem.”

“No, but making sure I take as many of them down with me, will.”

“And how are you going to do that? Even if hunt them one after the other, there’s always going to be someone to take their place. This isn’t some pack on the street you can clear out in an afternoon. They are everywhere.”

Trembor smiled. “Including the enforcers.”

“You shouldn’t look this happy they have their claws in some of us.”

“Why not? It means we know where to go hunt for someone who knows more about them than we do.” Trembor canted his head. “You do know at least one enforcer who works for them, right?”

“More than one, yes. Why?” she asked cautiously.

“Good, I’m going to get them to turn on the organization.”