Michael didn’t hesitate, already hauling me away from the table. “Let’s meet in the middle and call it twenty.” Malone nodded reluctantly, and my brother shoved the door open, tugging me into a short carpeted hallway.

My father followed us into the living room of the rented lodge, where he stopped to stare out the broad picture window at a breathtaking view of the Rocky Mountains, so different from the Lazy S, my family’s East Texas ranch. My father peered out at steep, tree-covered slopes and snow-topped peaks, lit by the afternoon sun. He’d been doing that a lot lately—staring at nothing in particular, as if he had something important to say but couldn’t quite figure out how to say it. Which wasn’t like him at all.

“What’s going on?” I demanded, jerking free from my brother’s grasp to settle onto the arm of a worn couch.

Before Michael could answer, a door opened on the far side of the room, revealing a young tomcat in jeans and an open button-down shirt, munching from an orange bag of Doritos. Behind him, I glimpsed two unmade beds and a pressboard dresser like those found in hotels all over the world. Though his name wouldn’t come to me, I recognized the tom as one of Blackwell’s enforcers—one of his grandsons, in fact. Blackwell and the toms accompanying him were staying in the main lodge, where my hearing was being held.

To the immediate east of the main lodge, out of sight from the front window, sat three smaller cabins, the first occupied by Malone and his men, the second by my uncle and the enforcers he’d brought. My father and I shared the last cabin with Michael, Jace and Marc.

Michael’s wife, Holly—an honest-to-goodness runway model—thought he was off on a father-son camping trip with our dad. Since there were no children to miss either of them, she was spending the week in Acapulco with her sister.

Our group had reserved the whole Oak Trails cabin complex for an entire week, though no one expected the hearing to take that long. It would have been a lovely place to vacation, complete with private hunting and fishing sites and beautiful nature trails, but that wasn’t why the council had chosen it. Oak Trails was the only location both neutral and isolated enough to suit all the Alphas, and we’d had to wait more than two months to reserve the entire complex. Giving all the employees time off had raised a few eyebrows, but they’d been delighted to have a free vacation.

Michael frowned at the young tomcat for breaking through our semblance of privacy. “In there,” he commanded me, gesturing toward an empty bedroom opening off the other side of the living room. “We need to talk.”