The Enemy of My Enemy – 1

Sebastian’s POV

My rage bubbled up fast, threatening to boil over. Despite what Hawthorne said about Graves not being a suspect, I hadn’t crossed him off my list. This guy had kidnapped Thea. Nobody does that without some twisted motive. And Hawthorne’s explanation made zero sense. If he truly didn’t want to hurt her, why kidnap her and force me to make an impossible choice?

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I growled at him.

His gaze swept over me, then scanned the others in the room. Though everyone stood alert, that didn’t seem to shake him in the slightest. The most dangerous thing about Graves was his sheer insanity. Sure, I was a cold, dangerous person, but Graves took that quality to a whole new level. He was a psychopath and sociopath. Three of the most powerful Alphas in the region were gathered here, and he looked completely unfazed, like he was in his own damn room.

“I’m here to see Thea. What the hell do you think I’m doing here? Coming to see your pathetic ass?” he asked with a wicked smile.

Gold began to flash before my eyes, my wolf snarling and grinding his teeth. I clenched my fists, fighting to keep him from taking action in the fucking hospital. This was where Thea was, and I absolutely couldn’t let that happen.

“You really think we believe you?” Damien asked him. “You kidnapped her just a few months ago.”

He turned to my brother, his eyes radiating a bone-chilling coldness, as if the man had no soul whatsoever. Maybe he didn’t. Who the fuck knew?

“Honestly, I don’t give a fuck what any of you think, because I’m not here for any of you,” he said without losing his cool. “Now tell me how she’s doing, or should I find her physician myself?”

His condescending tone and attitude irritated the hell out of me. I didn’t even understand why he’d show up in the first place. Why should I tell you anything? For all we know, you could be the bastard who ordered…

He whisked his eyes at me, then threw his head back and laughed, the sound echoing off the waiting room walls. When he abruptly stopped, his gaze locked onto mine.

“Trust me, if I wanted Thea dead, she’d be dead,” he said, his tone utterly flat.

“If you’re not the one behind this, why are you here? I don’t understand what her health has to do with you,” Seraphina spoke up.

His gaze left me, scanning the others. It finally landed on someone behind me. I turned slowly to see who. It was Sophia. His gaze lingered on her for a moment. He looked almost fascinated, and Sophia seemed unable to look away. Finally, he visibly struggled to drag his gaze away.

Interesting.

He focused his attention on Seraphina. “She’s carrying my niece, of course I care about her,” he said.

He delivered the statement so calmly, yet it stunned every single one of us. The guy had to be delusional or something. There was no way I’d heard that right. How the fuck could he be this pup’s uncle? As far as I knew, he had no blood relation to Thea. Unless he was her long-lost brother.

“That’s—that’s impossible,” Iris stammered.

From Seraphina and Maximus’s reactions, Graves couldn’t possibly be their son, so if what he was saying was true, his connection to the pup had to be through some other means.

I studied him carefully, and suddenly it clicked. “You’re Kane’s brother,” I stated, seeing the similarities between them flash through my mind.

“Bingo,” he replied.

The Enemy of My Enemy – 1

“But how is that possible?” Seraphina whispered. “When we adopted Kane, we were told he had no other living relatives.”

“I was in another state at the time. I learned about Kane being in the foster system from one of my father’s underlings. I had them tamper with his records to make it look like our father was his only living relative,” he paused. “Like I told Thea, I wanted him to have a chance at a normal life. So I gave him that chance. I didn’t want him becoming a criminal.”

“Yet he still ended up in prison,” I said sarcastically.

He smiled, but this time it wasn’t cold. It was almost warm, if you could call it that.

“Thea said the same thing.”

We were silent for a moment until Maximus spoke up.

“From your tone, it sounds like you’ve been in contact with my daughter.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘contact’… we’ve been corresponding,” he began to explain.