I looked back at the failed lab data, a reminder of what waited. Cold inevitability wound through me. Yes, I would have her in myhands. Her mother’s blood would lead us to the serum. It would lead us to everything. Juliet would lead me to satisfaction.
Intercepting the car was easy after the driver picked up Renda Bettencourt from her private club. I waited in the shadows, timing the pulse of each second with steady breaths, watching. The sleek black van rounded the corner, headlights like slashes through the thick New York air. Every precaution taken. Every camera in the vicinity had been hacked. The team, all donned in Hollywood production-level masks, moved in, swift and clean, as they forced the car to a stop on the quiet side street. Within moments, they had the driver subdued. The rear van door opened with perfect timing, and the street seemed to exhale into silence. Empty. Unknowing. They reached for the elegant woman still unaware in the backseat, and I felt the slow coil of success. Each action deliberate. Renda barely managed to register surprise before the syringe slid into her arm, neat and clinical. Drugged. Secured. A faint smile crossed my lips as they lifted her into the van and disappeared down the street. Not a single movement wasted. I turned, and the shadows seemed to close in behind me as if I had never been there.
They followed a calculated route, one we’d gone over a dozen times. The van wove through the maze of New York City streets, places they might be remembered. Not that anyone would. The city didn’t notice things that weren’t flashy enough to demand attention, and our actions were all deliberate silence and shadows. We drove to the secluded private airfield where my jet was fueled and waiting.
Everything was as expected. Everything but the time it took us to reach this point. Even then, there was an order to it, a structure I’d expected even in its delays. I let out a controlledbreath as the van halted near the small plane, and I could see Renda’s inert form, head resting like she’d fallen into a faint. Elegant even in her captivity.
Another car waited at the hangar, ready to pick up the trailing operatives. I’d timed it to the second, ensured that nothing felt spontaneous or unplanned.
The side door of the jet opened as they pulled up. A metal staircase jutted to the pavement. Renda’s dress shimmered in the hangar’s overhead light as they moved her from the van to the plane, taking care not to mar the image she projected. I watched the tableau from the doorway, knowing the silent spectacle of it would make Dane’s team nervous. But they wouldn’t question my methods.
Another brief flash of movement. The team worked with machine-like precision, securing Renda’s drugged form into the plush seat, as though they were kidnapping royalty. In some ways, I supposed, we were. Bettencourt’s fortune could be considered vast by any standard.
The hum of the jet engines replaced the van’s low rumble. Everything was swift, clinical. The crew’s smooth motions were like punctuation, hard and clear, on the page of my design. They buckled Renda’s limp form into her seat, knowing she wouldn’t stir until they landed on the airstrip miles from the lab. By the time she realized where she was, it would be too late for anyone to find her.
I knew how fast they’d move. Jules Bettencourt was a shark when it came to the appearance of family devotion. He’d make statements, hold press conferences, wring his hands for the media, pretend he hadn’t offered his daughter up like a sacrificial lamb for his business deals. And she, his prized jewel, his bet, his folly—she would see the reports, be lured into thinking she could save the woman who turned a blind eye to her own abuse. We’d underestimated her once, assumed she’d been too sheltered toknow how to get far. But I understood her more now. She was a survivor. A runner. I’d use it against her.
The transfer to the jet was seamless. I felt the anticipation of inevitable results, of looming success, a heady thrill just beneath the cold precision. The only loose thread was Juliet herself, and that would be quickly tied off once she surfaced. Once I had her in my grip, she’d understand the depth of her mistakes.
I stepped back from the window where I watched, one last glance at the jet. The team was exiting, a last sweep through the hangar before they returned to New York City and resumed their watch. Even they didn’t know everything that was at stake here. Not yet. I’d make sure it stayed that way until there was no room for error or questions.
I checked the app on my phone to see the interior of the jet’s cabin. Renda’s hair gleamed under the overhead light, and her head slumped to one side, helpless. I could see the steady rise and fall of her chest, the muted thrum of life. She was as vulnerable as I needed her to be.
The hangar fell silent once the doors shut, echoing emptiness where the team had just stood. I held the weight of it, felt it settle like a shroud. Juliet Bettencourt was about to make the biggest mistake of her life, coming out of hiding for a woman who’d given her away like an object to be bartered. I knew what family meant to them, which was to say nothing at all. She’d learn it soon enough, but by then it wouldn’t matter.
The plane roared to life, a low growl that shuddered through the hangar and faded into the thick night as it pulled away. The headlines would follow by morning, I knew. We’d laid the groundwork for it. I let myself savor the inevitability, how every move I’d made since she ran would draw her in, pull her back to me. She wouldn’t know the danger; wouldn’t see it coming until it was too late.
They’d arrive at the lab in Costa Rica by morning. Her blood would give me the answer to the only question that had evermattered, the question that haunted me, consumed me. I’d have the serum. And I’d have Juliet. It was all there, laid out, waiting.
I turned from the hangar, the hum of the departing jet already lost in the dense air. The night swelled up, closing around me, and the next chapter of Juliet’s life would be mine to write.
Chapter 20
Juliet
“Looks like your wolf is gettin’ sharper by the day,” Bronc said. He was close now, hands resting on my shoulders. His voice was soft, but the sound filled up the shop, carved through the noise of tools and engines.
“Pretty sure those receipts were covered in barbecue sauce.” I flipped through the pages, knocking out mysteries and making endless notes and discoveries.
He smiled a confident smile. “You amaze me. I know you’re having to be creative with the system you’re creating to keep up with the mess.” His blue eyes went past me for a moment, narrowed in on Skeeter as he pushed a cart through the bay door and tried too hard not to look our way. Then they flicked back to mine. “Got the other things you found?”
“Three or four parts orders that don’t add up, but it’s like there are chunks missing. Here, look.” I twisted the ledger so he could see the page and inched closer to him. Our shoulders brushed. “Maybe more, I don’t know.”
“I do,” he said. His breath ruffled a loose strand of hair, left me wanting more, and then he moved back to his full height. “Same kind of shifty numbers we’ve seen a couple of times.” His mouth quirked when he saw me catch the pun. “Whoever is running thisshow had been at it for a while. Any ideas who else we need to keep tabs on?”
“Not sure yet,” I said. I wanted to be sure I got it right before I threw out an accusation. I shut the ledger. Its echo made me flinch. “Skeeter, definitely. I just… I’ve got this weird sense that something big is going on, and it’s making my skin…” I tried not to squirm and didn’t finish the sentence. We both knew this was going to turn out to be something bigger than he wanted to have to deal with.
His eyes stayed on me a beat too long, and the weight of it pushed a breath from my lungs. His fingers squeezed my shoulder, and the heat was electric. “Whatever comes, we’ll handle it,” he said. “Together. Take a minute. Then meet me in my office. Show me everything you’ve got.” The way his gaze held mine was different from before—urgent and unwilling to let go. He knew what the shifting inside me meant. More than I did.
His steps echoed when he left. I spent the time reining in my racing pulse. The wolf’s pulse. The strangeness of it tangled with my hair at the back of my neck and stayed until I felt myself slow again. Saw myself settle back to human, to paper and ink and numbers. Saw Skeeter sneaking another glance as I worked through the mess of lies he’d hoped we’d never catch. Saw Arsenal look his way, suspicious and unreadable as he stripped down the engine of a black Road Glide. No one looked at him for long.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that every gaze was meant for me, whether furtive or concerned or sharp enough to slice through the knot of my tensing body. Even Bronc’s, when I ducked through his office door and he looked up like he’d been listening to the pattern of my footsteps to know when I was close.
“Juliet,” he said, and the way my name sounded was more serious than sweet. “Take a look at this.” A list of the parts that should have been there and weren’t took up the whole whiteboard. “Your findings confirm what we thought.”
The irregularities were too big for someone who didn’t understand to catch. And for some reason, they were too close for him to let go of. “Looks like they were trying to be careful for a while. Then they got careless.”
He laughed and dragged a hand through his hair. Dark strands fell back in place, mingling with the silver, just the way I liked it. “Well, honey, they didn’t expect you,” he said. “You’re way beyond run of the mill when it comes to lookin’ at numbers. They could hide stuff before. Now you’re uncovering all their misdeeds.”
