Adam didn't sleep that night, calling all the humans to see if they had found her. Then he searched the minds and eyes of the other werewolves. Finally, the men and the werewolves, tired of answering their cell phones and having the Alpha on their minds, and not having a positive answer for him, said they would keep looking, and as soon as they had news, they would let him know. Even so, he couldn't force his body to go to bed, and stayed in the office all night drinking.
Jenna called Anna's father, who answered quickly, as she never called unless it was urgent. He couldn't ignore her. His daughter must have been thinking the worst of him, but he was determined to explain to her what had happened.
"Jenna?"
"It's me."
"It's good to hear your voice. I'll call Anna tomorrow. She must be very upset with me..."
"I didn't hear from her either until a week ago. You should put me on your list of priorities. Or am I nothing to you but a spy?"
"I'm sorry, darling. I couldn't talk about you to anyone. I was afraid I'd be found out."
"I see... It's too late for that... Look, Adam sent word that your daughter has disappeared."
"What do you mean, disappeared?" Dad was worried. "How does he know you can contact me?"
"Anna's escaped from the hospital. Adam is dropping the mask. He was probably already creatively preparing some painful torture for me."
"Anna escaped from the hospital? What was she doing in the hospital?" His voice was now more forceful, as Jenna remembered.
"I think Sarah pushed her down the stairs. She only had a sprain... But there's something you need to know that Adam isn't aware of yet... Anna is pregnant. She told me to come and find a cell phone she stole, but I was tricked. I'm sorry. Anna unknowingly acted just like you."
She heard the breathing on the other side change immediately.
"Didn't Adam take care of himself? I warned this kid to be careful..."
"It doesn't matter anymore. She's pregnant and there's no going back. And she's missing. Adam's men are looking for her..."
"I'm going to the United States right now. I know detectives who will find her in no time. Adam is incapable. He won't be able to find my daughter. And because of that, because he didn't look after her properly, he'll never see her again." He said and hung up his cell phone.
Jenna was furious that he hadn't allowed her to ask him to come back with her when he found the girl. Because she knew he would find her. She had seen him determined before, and he was no different now. She sat down on the bed and decided that she would wait as long as it took. Even if she was seeing other men, there was no other recourse. She was hopelessly in love with Anna's father.
...
A week later, the mood was still bad in the mansion, and to make matters worse for the werewolves who were being forced to live with the feelings of anger and frustration that the Alpha felt, as the inevitable effect of the natural connection that everyone had with him, Adam was drunk all the time. Every day, the maids found him sleeping in different places and in different positions around the house. He hadn't showered or shaved since Anna ran away.
Kate couldn't go near him because he blamed his wife's flight on her insistence on staying there.
Three weeks later, the men and the werewolves gave up the search. Caricature then came to talk to Adam and found him at seven o'clock in the morning, already with a full glass in his hand, sitting on the floor. As Adam was taking the glass in his mouth, Caricatura quickly approached and took it from his hand and put it on the table. They were in his office.
Adam stared at him, only now realizing that he was in his presence.
"Give me back the glass." He ordered in a drunken voice.
"No."
"Do you think I won't kill you? Give it back, or I'll kill you right now!"
Caricatura held out his hand to help him up, ignoring the threats that continued to be made, and Adam accepted. As soon as he stood up, he picked up the glass from the table and was about to put it back in his mouth when Caricature stopped him.
"Stop that. The men have been concentrating on finding Anna for three weeks now, and the werewolves can no longer live with you drunk in our minds, drinking like a skunk. This isn't helping at all. I've come to tell you that we're calling off the search today. We have tasks that require our attention. This is a job for professionals. Hire detectives, because I believe that your wife is no longer here in Nevada. And take a shower and pull yourself together. Apart from the bad smell, if the woman comes back and finds you with that beard, she'll run away again. If the werewolf form scares her, you as you are now will make her shiver with fear...You are, first and foremost, a businessman. So take care of them. For in the shadows, someone is trying to take over your empire. And he's coming here to talk to you today, and if he sees the powerful Alpha and head of the mafia in this state, he'll attack us in two steps." Caricatura said mercilessly. "And boss, I summoned the men who work here and talked to them for long hours. It's time for you to live surrounded by the certainty of loyalty."
"And I bet you're going to tell me how I'm going to achieve that feat, right?" Adam asked, thinking about swinging an axe at Caricature's big head.
"It's simple, boss. Turn them into werewolves. They want it. And they're loyal. They deserve it." Caricatura said with his usual seriousness, and left.
Adam put the glass back on the table without drinking. Caricature was right. He took a deep breath and went to shower and take care of himself.
When he got out of the shower, he went to the table to have coffee and Kate looked at him with surprised eyes, which reminded him that he had treated her badly. He wouldn't apologize, because deep down he knew that Anna had run away, more because of his stubbornness in keeping her rival there than because of what had happened between them. He sat down and observed that among them, because there were some of his men having coffee there, among them was Sarah, and without knowing why, he was disgusted by her. He didn't see her whining about her despair once, and every time he looked out of his office window at the pool, she was there with a glass in her hand.