It took nearly two hours for Tucker to be up and about, finally shifting back into human form. He was healed but exhausted from the fight and the energy expended in getting better. At least with him back in human form, she could speak to him.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes. I’m fine.”
“I was trying to get back to you, but then I saw Blane and he ran off. When I went around to get him, some more of his pack jumped me. It all got ugly fast. I was so worried. The girls? Did he hurt our girls?”
“No. Our girls are just fine. Gladys has them down in the nursery, along with some others.”
“I killed Marshall. I killed my brother,” he said, his voice full of pain.
“You did what you had to do, what he forced you to do. He came after us.”
“Your ex-husband?”
“Dead,” she told him, having seen Blane laying lifeless on the ground on her way to find Tucker. She wasn’t sure how it had happened, but someone had taken him out. If not for Tucker coming around when he did, she might have just as easily been killed before him. It wasn’t something that mattered right now. It might not ever matter. All that was important right now was that he was gone. What that might mean for her, she’d find out later, she supposed.
He nodded and reached for her hand, raising it to his lips to plant a kiss on it. He gave himself a little bit longer to heal and then stood up, wavering a little.
“What are you doing?”
“I need to go and check on the pack,” he said.
“You need to rest, to finish healing.”
“I’m good enough. I’m their Alpha. I need to go see what I can do for my brothers,” he said.
Leslie knew there was no use arguing with him. She handed him a pair of the coveralls that Mari had dropped off earlier for him and he slipped them on.
“I look ridiculous,” he said, looking down at the pale blue disposable clothes meant for protection, not as a sole means of clothing. “I’ve got some spare jeans and a t-shirt in the office. I’m going in there to change, if you want to check on the kids while I do that. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Okay, love,” she told him, beyond excited that he was going to be okay but incredibly anxious at what might happen after things settled down.
They walked down together, parting as they entered the lobby so that she could go to the childcare area and he to his office. There were still bodies everywhere, though they had now been covered over by blankets. It was going to be grim here for a while. They had all lost friends, brothers, sisters, and even a few children. There was a lot of pain all around.CHAPTER THIRTYOver the course of the next few days, they slowly dealt with the aftermath of the fight that had taken place. Once their dead were buried and the outsiders had been disposed of per instructions from Tucker that she preferred to know nothing about. She suspected it involved the cremation facility run by a friend of the MC. One thing was certain, though; with the worst out of the way, people would now expect answers for what had happened here. Leslie and Tucker sat down to discuss how best to handle the situation.
“Do they know what we’ve done?” Leslie asked.
“Not completely, but they heard enough of what Blane and Marshall were saying to have questions. They’ll want answers.”
“What do we tell them?”
“The truth.”
“The truth? Are you sure you want to do that? What will it do to your position as Alpha?”
“I don’t know, but I think I’ve lied enough to my pack and we’ve had to pay the price for that. There are thirty-two people dead, fourteen of our own. They deserve answers for that. I owe them the truth.”
“I’m so sorry, Tucker. This is my fault, not yours. If they blame anyone, it should be me. I had no idea that Blane was capable of something like this. I mean, I knew he was an asshole, but I didn’t know he was so unhinged as to do this.”
“It’s not your fault. He had help. If Marshall had left things alone, then Blane would have stayed right where he was and done nothing. My brother has a way of winding people up, of getting them to do the unthinkable. He’s done it all his life. It’s how he talked normally law-abiding members of our pack into involving themselves in the drug trafficking business. I shouldn’t have underestimated how far he would go to regain the pack.”
“I don’t understand how he even found Blane. The agency shouldn’t have given him any information. They gave me a completely new life. It doesn’t make sense that they would just cough that information up to anyone that asked.”