“I’m ready to fucking go,” he said abruptly.
I figured we wouldn’t get more out of Montgomery. Though he’d given some insight into the thinking of this maniac behind trying to hurt my pack and my mate, not everything added up. Why would this person go through the trouble of working with Pines and then kill him? What did he have planned? And why, specifically, was he after my pack?
“I’ll be in touch,” I told my cousins as they piled into their vehicles.
Ronan looked back at me. “And Serafina?” he asked.
I gritted my teeth, hating that I felt like I was breaking a promise I’d made to her. “She still hasn’t returned.”
I’d told my cousins that Sera had left the night of the last supermoon. She hadn’t told any of us where she was going.
“We’ll find her,” Noah promised.
I didn’t bother reminding them that she had no intention of being found. Lest she would’ve communicated with them, but they were determined. And if finally finding my mate had taught me anything, it was that there was very little that could stand between a determined shifter and his mate. Let alone three tenacious werewolves.
I couldn’t worry about Sera at the moment. Wherever she was, I was sure she was okay. For the time being.
“I need to contact Christophe,”I told Chance through our brother’s bond.
He gave me a look.
“Have him recheck over all of Pines’s financial statements, security, and traffic camera footage in this area for evidence of his car.”I’d had my brother searching for Pines for months now, but he’d come up with next to nothing. Now that we had a location narrowed down, it might help to find out more about Pines’s movements in the days before his death. Which would hopefully lead us to the person pulling the strings.
Chance nodded.
I ran my hand through my hair, silently cursing myself for not being more dogged in pursuing Pines and this mystery shifter. The days after I brought Reese back from Texas a second time had been consumed with spending time with her, convincing her to stay.
Guilt, once again, welled up in my stomach, making me wonder if I’d become so consumed in my mate that I lost sight of protecting my pack.
* * *
I questionedmyself over the next two hours while driving back to New Mexico. Even as I allowed Chance to remain behind in Colorado so he could do more investigation into who or what had killed Pines. Eventually, the authorities would have to be called in to retrieve the body, and I needed my brother to weed out all of the information he could find before that happened.
The guilt in my gut weighed so heavily that I neglected to call Christophe for the first few hours of my drive. As I reached for my phone to call my brother, it rang with his number.
“I was about to call you, brother,” I answered. “I need—”
“I bet you were,” a nasal voice answered.
The voice sent chills down my spine. It wasn’t Christophe, but I instantly knew to whom the voice belonged.
“Rufus Dalton, why do you have my brother’s phone?” Even as the question pierced my lips, the answers started to add up. Dalton was a part of the Alliance. The way Montgomery described the physical build of the man from the diner matched Rufus Dalton to aT.
Why the hell hadn’t I realized it before? I wondered why I hadn’t scented Rufus in Pines’s basement or in that abandoned shack out in the woods.
“Oh, don’t worry about your brother. He’s right here.” He let out a scornful chuckle. “He’s been a big help to me, your brother.”
My hands tightened around the steering wheel. “What are you talking about?”
“You still don’t know?” He scoffed. “And he’s been under your nose this whole time. Doing my bidding.” Another laugh made me want to put my fist through his narrow face.
“You’re the one working with Pines.”
“Not anymore,” he sneered. “He was holding me back. The buffoon decided to grow a conscience after they found that bitch reporter. Thanks to your mate.”
I ground my teeth so hard that my jaw ached. “Don’t ever speak of my mate again. I will end your entire existence.”
“Is that right?” he replied. “I’d rethink that if I were you. Considering how she’s tied up in the back seat of my vehicle right now.”
