Read Wild About You for Free Online Page B

in the kitchen, then hurried down the narrow hallway to his old bedroom.
    While his laptop booted up, he looked around. The twin bed still sported an NFL comforter in red, white, and blue, and the small window had matching curtains, although faded to the point that the names of football teams were barely legible. His old trophies were still lined up on the dresser.
    He sighed, remembering how much his mother had cried when he’d left for college. He’d kept in touch with her over the years, and she’d always pretended like he was coming home to visit soon. He hadn’t reminded her that he could never return. He knew if he mentioned his banishment, she would burst into tears.
    He dragged a hand through his hair. His mother had suffered too much because of him. She acted like everything was rosy now that he was home, but when he gazed around his old room, he cringed at the thought of his mother keeping it exactly the same for twenty years. The poor woman had lost her husband, and then years later, when Howard was eighteen, she’d lost him, too.
    After he’d tossed Rhett Bleddyn off the cliff, Rhett’s father had threatened to annihilate the were-bear community if Howard wasn’t punished, so the Council of Elders, which included his grandfather, had banished him for life. But Howard no longer felt obligated to honor the old decree, not when he obviously hadn’t managed to kill Rhett. Rhett’s father had passed away a year ago, and Rhett had emerged from hiding to become the new Pack Master. As far as Howard was concerned, he could now go home whenever he wanted. And he’d make sure that Rhett finally paid for his crimes.
    He sat at his small desk where he used to do homework and downloaded the flash drive onto his laptop. He’d managed to steal a ton of information. Bank accounts, financial records, files on all of Rhett’s minions. Just as Howard suspected, Rhett wielded a huge amount of political power. One Alaskan senator and several congressmen were actually werewolves who had sworn allegiance to the Bleddyn family. Rhett also controlled numerous Lycan politicians at the state and local levels.
    Rhett’s financial records revealed a tangled web of businesses and organizations from all over the world. His net worth was easily over two hundred million, with bank accounts not just in Alaska but in Canada, New York, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Australia, and Singapore, as well. The tangled design appeared purposeful, so that money could be shifted around, even hidden, and it would be difficult for Rhett’s business partners and shareholders to know what he was up to.
    No doubt, if Howard had broken into one of Rhett’s numerous business offices in Alaska, the records for that business would appear clean. But he’d hacked into Rhett’s personal computer, hoping it would pay off. And it did. After an hour of digging around, he discovered Rhett’s dirty little secret.
    Rhett had a hidden bank account in the Cayman Islands under the name of a bogus business. And there, he had been paying himself a salary of five million a year. The account now had fifty million in it, so he’d been embezzling from his other businesses for ten years.
    Fifty million. Howard smiled. If he spent some money from the secret account, what could Rhett do? A police investigation would reveal the company as bogus, and he’d be in big trouble. Hoisted by his own petard.
    “Thanks for the play money, Rhett.”
    Howard compiled a list of all candidates who were running against Rhett’s political puppets, and then, using an untraceable Internet card, he made hefty donations to their campaigns. He chuckled, imagining how Rhett’s puppets would react when they discovered their master was suddenly supporting their opponents.
    His friend Harry had been investigating Rhett’s activities, and he’d learned that the bastard had been harassing small towns that were in debt, trying to buy them out so he could turn them into exclusive werewolf