Gemma
6 min leff
1 fold my arms across my chest and glare at Reyna,
When I don’t hop to do what she says, she leans in threateningly and says, “You heard me, inventory girl. You’re too stupid to do anything else. Go, Get, Coffee,”
“Get your own damn coffee,” I sny. Then I shoulder past her and make a show of looking up at the screen where the schematics of the plane are projected.
It might be surprising to some people that the mafia has a team of engineers working for them, but that’s just the Smokewind Pack. They don’t do anything by half measures,
That’s why they are as powerful as they are.
“Besides, Reyna, am I the stupid one? Because I’m standing in a room full of people who are supposed to be smart, and none of you see the solution that’s staring you in the face.”
Reyna bares her teeth, and I see her wolf flash in her eyes. She drops her voice so no one else can hear and says, “Watch yourself, wolfless freak.”
I put a hand on her chest and calmly push her away from me. Then I point at the screen. “You’re trying to figure out a less
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obvious place to put in hidden compartments for smuggling things, right?”
She doesn’t answer, just glares at me.
Some of the engineers in the room start to whisper.
“What the hell is this woman doing?”
“Doesn’t she know who she’s messing with? Reyna is Alpha Blackwell’s girlfriend!”
“Girlfriend? I heard she was his fiancé.”
“Stupid low–level pack members. She’s going to get punished for her insubordination!”
I ignore them, walk up to the screen, and thrust my finger at it. “Look here and here. You can easily put in false panels that look permanent but can be popped off to store merchandise.”
Silence falls at my words, and I keep talking. “You can use the seats, themselves, too. But have people on the other side actually sew things into them. On this end, we can use seam rippers to carefully remove the stitching and get the merch out.”
I look over at Reyna and the engineers. Reyna says, “N–no, none of that will work…”
But the engineers start whispering among themselves again,
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leaning over a paper version of the schematic they have laid out on the table between them. They start sketching on it and making notes.
I turn to face Reyna directly and raise a cool eyebrow. “Looks like it will work. Who’s stupid, now?”
Reyna growls, low and dangerous, and I hear her wolf in the sound. Old fear shivers up my spine and I have to fight not to duck away.
She’s hurt me before.
But I can’t back down.
“Do you know how much of the pack’s money you wasted with your inefficient design?” I ask her. “We could have been carrying twice the amount that we have been. Which means we’re spending twice the amount on fuel we need to.”
I flip my hair back over my shoulder and say, “It’s not cheap to fly planes, Reyna.”
“What do you know about it, you useless bitch?” Reyna snarls. “No one here even knows you or cares who you are. Cassian is going to divorce you any day now and propose to me!”
I have to hide how deep her words cut me. I know they’re probably true. It’s a fear I’ve been living with for three years.
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Except now I’m starting to wonder…does Reyna have the power she thinks she has over Cassian?
I’ve been demanding a divorce from him for a long time, now, and he still won’t give me one.
I’m not silly enough to think he might actually love me, but he even said that as long as Grandpa Donovan wants us to stay married, we’ll stay married.
Cassian loves his grandfather, and I know he wants to do his duty to the family and the pack.
I lift my chin and say, “That’s not going to happen, Reyna. You’re deluded if you think it is.”
Just then, a deep voice from the door says, “What’s going on? Gemma, what are you doing in here?”
Cassian stands in the doorway along with his Beta, Liam. Cassian is glaring at me. Reyna takes the chance to jump in before I can.
“She just walked in here and started talking like she knows anything about anything, Cassian,” Reyna purrs.
I note that she doesn’t call him, “Alpha Cassian” even though we’re in public. It’s overly familiar.
Has she always addressed him like this? I assume she has, and I
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don’t like it.
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“Gemma–” Cassian starts. Then he catches a glimpse of the engineers bent over the schematic on the table, scribbling away at it with pencils as they add sketches and notes.
“Alpha, you should come take a look at this,” Liam says.
Cassian walks over and looks down at it. When he sees what they’re doing, his brows go up.
“What’s this? Was it Reyna’s idea?” he asks.
I can see Reyna take a breath to claim credit for my work. But before she can, one of the engineers says, “No, Alpha. It was the warehouse girl. She’s brilliant!”
“Yeah!” another one says enthusiastically. I never would
have expected brains like that from a random low–level pack member.”
Reyna rolls her eyes. “She’s not brilliant. She just had a lucky guess!”
Cassian turns to her and his eyes narrow. Then his gaze zeroes in on me and he says, “Of course, she’s brilliant. She’s my wife.”
B
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