HEllo. So there is a book, on wattpad where the writer is writing a werewolf/mafia/shifter book. I started reading it and stopped because I felt as though it's a watered down version of my plot in the series. It's not the same, but if you've read my book I feel like... it's weird. It feels as though someone has taken a thesaurus to my story. It's not word for word, but I easily pick out things that I feel they've read in my book, were inspired but not creative enough to not use key ideas. ugh. it feels as though I'm reading fanfiction of my series but they're claiming it's original. The main lead in that story could be gabriel and the whole mafia/werewolf thing is what started rubbing me the wrong way. On the flip side, it's doing well and i also figured that if it was similar to mine I'd have someone tell me so already... so maybe it's in my head. IDK.

Chapter 53 – Robert Delaney (Ansel Conrad POV) Pt.2

"Dad you want someone to take over?" I ask my father by way of distraction from the information Naomi dropped on us. "We've yet to really make any true stop," I add on, knowing that Jonah Conrad – my father – could never just sit and let someone else drive.

He wanted to be helpful in anyway he could.

From the minute that Antone had handed the Den over to me, my father and he took active roles in making me the best Den leader I could be.

When he shakes his head, in denial, I accept it, moving on.

"Have you heard of this Betray No Elder thing?" I ask him, while my mind stops for a moment, replaying what Naomi actually said.

"She spent nearly five years working on a top secret biological weapon."

"Biological weapon."

If dad answered me in the minute or two after I inquired to the extent of his knowledge pertaining to Betray No Elders, I certainly did not hear it.

"The Elders are making a biological weapon," I whisper looking at my trousers, the words played on loop in my mind. "That's basically what you said of your friend?" I look up at Naomi dread filling my gut up. Had it been food, a physical meal, I'd have been satiated for days on dread alone.

In that very moment, fear pierced me fully. "I – the next time they contact us, I – I think I'm going to have to ask Faith for us to – how could – does Nick know – poisonous air," I gasped pitifully.

My thoughts were being tugged in multiple directions. Overall safety for my family and those in the Den had a piece of my attention. Leaving Bend was done with a stopwatch ticking away in my head; would we get out safely? Now, a part of my concentration was on this new time clock that materialized. Worse, the time until darkness would be upon us – unfortunately – was ambiguous.

If there were a task that my siblings and I loathed, but it had to be done, when we were younger, we would draw straws. The person with the shortest one had to bite the bullet.

Here? Right now? I had all the straws, and I was the one that had to bite the proverbial bullet.

As if impending doom was not enough to keep my thoughts occupied, there was the little problem of what we left behind in Bend.

Devin and her ridiculous hacking had made our system weak, which was another direction I was pulled in. Nick wanted to play himself under the bosom of the Elders of all people. It was as though he had no sense of self-preservation.

No. That is actually not quite true.

The people that followed him, they were the ones that lacked it. I did not need to keep in contact with a single individual to know that Nick was going to throw those that followed him right under the bus.

I could not fathom why anyone that knew Nick thought he'd be a trustworthy leader. The man was misogynistic, temperamental and had a chip on his shoulders the size of all of North America.

Not to mention his narcissism knew no bounds. A part of my attention was thinking logically in the background, contemplating my next move to keep safe from whatever Nick had up his sleeves.

It would be wonderful if my worries ended there but I there were still three mysteries that I left Bend before they could be put to rest.

Who sabotaged our plane? I lost Silas.

Who attempted to murder Talia? That was unknown.

Who blew up the bridge used to enter the property?

As each thought took a piece of my sanity away with it, I added a final thought.

Faith knew nothing about money. She had much of it left by Dmitri, but the Walsh explained to us that bartering, trading labor and using trained skills is how Dmitri raised Faith.

"Dad she said that her friend worked for four days to get her a forty thousand dollar record player."

"Dad pull over," I order needing to get off the bus for just the briefest amount of time. Granted we had only been driving for forty-five minutes at the most, I still felt as though the walls were closing in on me.

All inquiries on what Naomi's friend was working on become lost in the rough currents of my thoughts.

Doing as I say, my father slowly pulls off to the side and once he does, I'm off the bus in seconds, panting as though I had just ran thirty miles at full speed. Lifting my arms above my head, when I lean my head back before straightening up, I lock my hands behind my neck, elbows jutting out.

Not inclined to show my Den followers my panic, I turn my back to the buses and trailers, walking a few feet away, focused on nothing that was physically in front of me.

Heck, it just was not registering.

"Why would he raise her this way? Believing that money was of no use that people bartered and did labor for what they wanted? Why make her clothes? And not giving her a cell phone? Or a landline?" I had asked Kalenah, Walsh, Patricia... how many nights did Kalenah and I contemplate this until we slipped into a fitful nights sleep?

"He left her everything guys," Walsh answered me.

It had been so long since I shifted into my animal that I felt unnatural in my own skin. It had caused me to experience a crawling sensation that felt as though it was tingling under my skin, sending me into a shivering mess.

The very last person I expected to hear spoke after a few minutes. "I never meant to cause you such suffering-" I wheeled around to face Naomi, the absurdity of her apology written on my face.

"I'd be a fool to hold any of the truths you have kindly given us at an expense I do not know, against you," I tell her with as much conviction as I could.

I had knowledge that I felt as though I could not truly begin to fathom the devastation that would be upon us.

Between Faith and Naomi, they had given us a fighting chance that I appreciated, but felt all too guilty about. At this point, within hours I had accepted the bottom line.

There was no more 'what ifs' just, 'when.'

I'd at least had once mystery solved.

All the money Dmitri had left for Faith was to build places like the plans that they had faxed us.

"There is a Japanese Proverb that says, 'Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare,' so you see, right now, you know best that your time should not be spent here on the side of the road," she waved her hand around us.

It was slightly strange that this was coming from a girl that looked no older than my Talia.

"You are all too right," I answer, inhaling deeply, squaring my shoulders and returning to the bus. I knew what had to be done; now I just needed to make it all happen.

As I stalk back to the bus, Naomi flanking me, she speaks softly. "There is much you are not aware of," she says and while I feel slightly judged and looked down upon, I take her tone into consideration.

It was not meant to be patronizing.

Back on the bus, when I sit, and rub my temples, pulling out all the faxed documents Faith and Samson sent us, no one spoke.

First things first, I pulled out the second laptop, sitting next to Angela and taking a piece of paper. For now, some things were to be put on the backburner.

Though I could feel everyone's eyes on me, I tuned them out for just a moment and began a list. Writing everything that needed to be done in no particular order, I quickly managed a list of eighty things that I needed to set up. When I put the pen down, Angela leans over, her eyes scanning the bulleted list.

"You want us to live in a gated community?" she narrowed her eyes on one of the notes I scribbled.

I shook my head, "right now, I'm focusing on everything as a whole, I'll put these in order as we go, making calls so that equipment and supplies are ready and waiting. However," I paused, pulling out just the top piece of paper Samson faxed with the part that shows the security that Dmitri set in place.

"For safety purposes, I want this type of system up in two to three days at the most. If we have people gunning for us, then they're going to need to find a way to get onto the property first."

It's silent for all of ten minutes while Angela eyes the paper I wrote on, going onto her computer, checking out prices and adding data to the list, better helping me when it came time to come up with a true plan of action.

"I – uhm, I have a question?" Peter, Michelle's son, my cousin murmurs, unsure. Glancing up, I shift my gaze over to him, "The uhm tattoo... what was that all about?" he asks me, but I flick my gaze over to Naomi.

"When you are one of those whose name in the anagram for Betray No Elder, you take on a marking. Some tattoo the words as they are, others use initials, or put it in their body work hidden, so they can show it off," she answers bitterly. This was something that bothered her.

I saw how she cared for not just Andy, but his siblings. He might be her Charge, but I had to wonder if maybe Naomi was just the compassionate type of person that when she found her Charge, she did not just do the bare minimum.

She became a guardian in every sense of the word.

Just how much did she know though?

"Well, I started going through my list of people, searching and making sure I did not know someone that fit the anag-" Angela did not get to finish her sentence.

"If only it was that easy," Naomi said with more bitterness. "I gather you kept everyone safe but by not interacting with many other clans, dens and packs, you are at a bit of a disadvantage. Not all know what I'm telling you, but I believe there are few that have the information." She eyed the room, just shifting her gaze from me to Peter, then Angela, my wife and my parents before returning her gaze to me.

"Who is Robert Delaney?" She says aloud, again glancing at each person for just a second before moving on. Frowning, I follow her gaze wondering if she expected someone to know this Robert Delaney she asked of.

"Do you suspect we know a Ro-" Angela says stopping, and cocking her head to the side, "That...it's an anagram name," she points out, making me check in my mind as well.

Sure enough, Robert Delaney could be written as the anagram, Betray No Elder.

Curious, I forget about everyone else in the room, focused on Naomi. She asks one more time, and when no one answers, I expect her to become frustrated. Instead, her shoulders sag, and she exhales shakily. "While some have the obvious name, they are not the only threat."

This was the more that I did not know part.

"There are different groups within the Elders army. My friend without her knowledge was a Researcher in their army." I blinked processing, listening.

"The man that killed her, he was an Unseen," my brows furrowed, but I did not speak, just waited while Naomi exhaled, holding onto her composure. "An Unseen, unlike an individual with the anagram name, they do not need to be supernatural. They can be humans that agree with the Elders," she pauses holding up her hands and making air quote bunnies "vision."

"Nick," Angela says shaking her head glancing at me. A part of me wants to chuckle at her tone, the dry certainty.

Naomi cocks her head to the right, "I do not think your Nick is an Unseen, or at least he hasn't been inducted just yet."

There was no reasoning with Angela though, she seemed to hold steadfast that Nick was somehow deep in whatever the Elders were cooking. Little did he know he wasn't the taste tester, oh no, Nick was more like the appetizers – I was willing to bet.

"So," Peter said softly, "if you don't have an anagram name or tattoo, you're an Unseen?"

Naomi shook her head, the frame of thick black hair swaying around her face. "If not the name, then you can ask them, 'who is Robert Delaney?' when you do, they have this," she purses her lips, "this riddle that they repeat back, it's almost like breathing to them. There is no way for them not to say that 'they are Robert Delaney, Robert Delaney is me."

"How exactly did you come across this information?"

For the first time in maybe an hour my mother spoke.

"My friend, she is the one that told me of the anagram names, though she did not immediately sense it out. As she explained, it merely escaped her attention. She said that she had six people in her life that had the anagram name, however, three had no connections to one another."

Though I should be working on my list, I find I should pay attention to Naomi's explanation. While I was immersed in her recount, Angela continues working.

"They were to be married, she still had her suspicions that something was off, but when she was working on her guest list, writing down the names of those to be invited, that is when she finally pieced together the names."

"The very first professor that sought her out to attend Sophia University, his name was an anagram. A supervisor she had while completing her internship, her name-"

"It can be both women and men?" my mother interrupted.

"Yes, the Elders believe in complete gender equality when it comes to their minions that will help them with their planned destruction." Though I thought Angela was only focused on the list, when she begins laughing and covers it up with a fake cough, I know better.

Mom nods, after throwing a disproving glance at Angela. She kept her head down so I do not believe it was worth the shade mom was throwing.

"She wrote the names and having everything laid out in front of her, it is no hardship, she said, to see the pieces."

"It was just too late for her," my mother whispered. Again we hit an interval of silence, and when I read Naomi's mood, I return my attention to Angela. I had work to do, people to protect.

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