Chapter 19
14 – Ryker
Edward’s celebration ceremony at dawn was heartfelt and moving. He really loved his pack and put his whole heart into its survival. His Beta introduced me as their new Alpha so there was a face to go with the name and the voice.
I met as many people as I could and offered any who wanted to join me the option
to run the pack border putting one final scent trail to secure the border before I returned home and as a final goodbye to Edward.
Almost the whole pack joined. A few stayed back to watch the pups too young to shift, but it was powerful. A true statement of how tight this pack is.
I shifted into my jet black wolf which is twice the size of their Beta and I know my wolf’s red eyes are terrifying. Many kept their distance, but didn’t turn tail and run. I’m not sure if that was out of loyalty to the pack or fear though. Once we were done everyone dispersed to their various parts of the pack and I headed to Edwards office with his Beta, Gamma and Delta.
I sit behind the desk and just take a look around. Edward seems to have been fairly organized and he did give me a quick rundown of this pack’s basic operation, but I always like to dive in and see for myself. I have found out more times than I can count that what the Alpha thought was happening, was in fact, completely wrong. They just gave too much freedom to people they delegated tasks too and far too many took the lack of checking in as a confirmation of bad behaviors being fine. It may be micromanaging, but I require regular scheduled updates and I check in at random too, just to keep everyone on their toes.
“Beta Samuel, I am going to need full access to this computer and any passwords and logins connected to all financial accounts p>
“That is easy, Alpha Ryker. Alpha Edward was old school.” He chuckles and the rest of the guys smile. Beta Samuel walks over to the framed aerial painting of the pack lands and pulls it open like in an old movie. The wall safe has a huge dial that has to be older than my father and I have to smile and agree with their assumption. We use safes too for hard copies of documents, but they are all upgraded systems. He opens the safe and hands me a very old leather bound journal, a ledger and a notebook.
“Like I said, old school. He had a secretary that would import this,” he taps the ledger, “into our spreadsheets on the computer, but he did everything by hand p>
“Tell me about your main source of income for the pack?” I ask all three of them and they look confused. Again they assumed that Edward and I had discussed this. We did, but I want their take on it, without assumptions of my knowledge
“Our primary source is construction. Mainly industrial projects, but we will also take on contracts for housing developments if they are big enough. We travel pretty far so we can charge a premium.” Delta Jacob informs me.
“Who’s in charge of soliciting and approving these projects p>
“Alpha Edwards’ secretary headed up the team that found available projects. She will compile all of the information that is needed and work with her team on supply costs and budgets. When she had all the information including estimated start and completion dates she would bring it to Alpha Edward and he had the final say. Typically if Linda got that far in the project research it was viable and more than likely would be approved. From there I would manage the projects p>
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That’s what I wanted to know. It sounds like this secretary had some pull, an influence I was not made aware of by Edward himself. I don’t want to assume the worst, but I don’t know her so I’m going to ruffle her feathers by digging into the most recent dozen or so projects that she put together and then closely monitor several new projects.
If she’s really as good at her job as everyone seems to think, she will enjoy the challenge and want to prove herself. If there was anything remotely shifty going on, she would be defensive and angry about her work being looked over with a fine toothed comb.