Owned By The Possessive Alpha, Bounded To My Mate novel Chapter 57

Chapter 57

Chapter 57

DENISE

“Mostly,” Reyes repeated, and I could see him deciding he liked this.

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Kieran came to stand beside me, not quite close enough to be a statement but close enough to be a fact, and looked at his friends with the expression of a man accepting a situation he hadn’t arranged and making the best of it

“They are generally better than this,” he said to me. “I want to be clear that this is not their standard presentation.”

“We’ve had a long morning,” Callum said.

“It’s nine forty-five,” Kieran said.

“Long,” Callum repeated, without elaboration.

I looked around the room-at the cleared coffee table that had clearly had things on it recently, at the window still being worked on by a second person who had decided the first opening wasn’t sufficient, at the general architecture of an office that had been the scene of something more energetic than a standard morning meeting.

“What was on the phone?” I asked.

The room went slightly still.

Maddox and the original phone-grabber-Luca, I placed him-exchanged a look that was trying to be neutral and wasn’t quite getting there.

“Nothing relevant,” Maddox said.

“It was relevant to me,” Luca said, and then seemed to remember they were in front of an audience and stopped.

Reyes looked at the ceiling. Jayce pressed his lips together.

“It was a photograph,” Callum said, with the expression of someone deciding that honesty was simply more efficient than whatever alternative was being constructed. “From last week. From the Grand Aldric.” He paused. “Of Denise. Walking down the

stairs.”

I looked at him.

“Maddox took it,” Reyes offered helpfully.

“I didn’t take it,” Maddox said, “I was sent it.”

“You saved it.”

“I appreciated the composition.”

“You showed it to everyone.”

“It was a significant moment in recent-”

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Chapter 57

He has it as his phone wallpaper,” Luca said.

The room, for a brief and specific moment, became very quiet.

Maddox looked at Luca with the expression of a man experiencing profound betrayal.

Kieran looked at Maddox.

I looked at the window because it seemed like the safest direction and pressed my lips together very firmly.

“I will be changing it,” Maddox said, with great dignity. “Today.”

“Immediately,” Kieran said.

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“It’s already changed.” He looked at his phone. It had clearly not yet been changed. He looked at his phone more intently and then put it in his jacket pocket. “Done.”

Reyes made a sound.

Callum cleared his throat again, clearly deciding that authority required someone to perform it. “In any case.” He looked at me with the expression of a man attempting a reset. “It’s good to formally meet you. We’ve heard a great deal.”

“From Kieran?” I asked.

A pause.

“From several sources,” Callum said diplomatically.

“The footage,” Reyes said, because apparently he had also decided that honesty was the better direction. “From the police station. Kieran shared it with the group.” He paused. “It was very well received.”

I looked at Kieran.

He had the expression of a man who had been standing next to a fire he’d thought was contained and was watching it expand in real time.

“You shared it with all of them,” I said.

“It was a closed group,” he said. “Ten people.”

“You shared it with ten people.”

“People I trust completely.”

“The “did I ask you to part?” I said.

“Particularly that part,” Reyes said, with the enthusiasm of someone who had forgotten they were supposed to be making a good impression. “We watched it many times. Lena–she’s not here today-Lena said she was going to get it tattooed.”

I looked around the room at five men-powerful, significant, the kind of people who sat on councils and ran companies and moved through the world with the easy authority of those who had never had to fight for space in it-and thought about all of them watching a police station security camera clip of me taking apart Dante’s logic in a plastic chair with a concussion.

“Wonderful,” I said.

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Chapter 57

“You handled it extraordinarily well,” Callum offered.

“We were impressed,” Luca added.

“Maddox made it his wallpaper,” Reyes said.

“I said I was changing it,” Maddox said.

“You haven’t yet.”

“I’m getting to it.”

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Kieran put his hand briefly at my back-the same light, certain contact from the Grand Aldric-and said: “Conference room. Now. All of you.”

There was movement toward the door.

“It was genuinely well done,” Callum said to me quietly as he passed, with the sincerity of someone who had decided that this specific thing was worth saying plainly. “The whole evening. Not just the footage.”

I nodded.

Reyes paused in the doorway and looked back at me with the openly interested expression of someone who had been waiting for this meeting and found the reality satisfactory. “Lena is going to want to see you this week,” he said. “She’s going to say forty-eight hours but she’s been counting since the Grand Aldric.”

“I’ve been told,” I said..

He grinned and left.

Jayce was last. He paused and looked at me with the expression he used when he was being direct rather than social.

“For what it’s worth,” he said quietly: “The wallpaper thing was the stairs photo, not the police station clip.” He paused. “Just so you have accurate information.”

I stared at him.

He nodded once and walked out.

Kieran stood beside me in the now-empty office, which still smelled like the aftermath of several competitive Alphas and had a fan running in the window, and looked at the door they’d all gone through.

“Generally better than this,” he said again.

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