I was drowning, every desperate gasp filling my lungs with dread.
“Dominic won’t care how many men you’ve let between your legs. Would you be surprised to know that your future husband and father are on this jet? They think you’re still knocked out. Guess I’ll go tell them you’re awake.”
I was nothing to them. Just a bargaining chip, a piece of flesh to trade and own. The metal walls closed in, the vibration drowning out my thoughts. Desperation flared brightly, consuming a fire in my blood that defied my brother, my father, my fate. I clung tothe bond I had with Menace, sending out wave after wave of fear and agony and need. He would feel it. He had to.
My hope strained against the darkness, fragile and uncertain. But it was all I had.
I felt the life I wanted slip further from my grasp with every heartbeat, every thunderous, relentless roar of the engines. The plane climbed higher, faster. Blood trickled down my chin, and I let out a silent scream, its echo filling the hollow spaces inside me.
Chapter 13
Menace
The hired driver wore a charcoal suit so stiff it could have stood up on its own, and his jaw never unclenched once during the hour he ferried us from Birmingham’s jet center to the estate on the far side of the city. Security at the first gate checked our IDs, then checked them again, as if we might have morphed during the two minutes it took to cross the outer perimeter. “Standard protocol,” the driver explained, lips barely moving. “King Rafe’s got a few more eyes on him these days.”
I caught Bronc’s smirk in the rearview, a crooked edge that said he expected nothing less from an old friend with more enemies than friends. The grounds themselves sprawled in a low, rolling way—tennis courts, horse paddocks, the water hazards of a golf course flashing blue between stands of moss-draped trees. The house: colonial, three stories, portico lined with white columns big enough to hold up the damn sky. Workers in overalls and polo shirts zipped past in utility carts, not one of them looking up. I felt the weight of the place before we even stepped inside.
A woman with a platinum helmet of hair and a drawl so sweet you’d get diabetes from it ushered us into the entry hall and through two sitting rooms, both styled like the furniture catalog had a sale on “Confederate-Chic.” We passed a man polishing silver trophies, who looked up and gave us a polite, lethal once-overbefore returning to his rag. “The king’s not quite ready,” the woman said. “Y’all will be in the Magnolia wing tonight.”
We followed her up a split staircase, down a hall painted the color of wet clay, and she unlocked a double suite with a card key that beeped like a miniature alarm. Ten doors lined the corridor. No other guests, no signs of life. Just us. She pointed out the minibar (“compliments of the king, of course”), asked if we required a wake-up call or “special accommodations,” then left us to it.
I shut the door behind her and dead-bolted it before Bronc could say a word. “I got it from here.”
He nodded, crossing to the wet bar and pulling out a beer. I went straight for my duffel and unzipped the first layer—Wrecker’s travel kit. First, the bug scanner. I thumbed it on and swept the ceiling in methodical arcs. The scanner whined low in my palm as I paced the perimeter. Light fixtures, vent grates, even the crown molding. Nothing on the readout. I kept moving.
Bronc drank his beer in three gulps, his gaze following me like I was a lab rat and he was waiting for the data.
“Pretty sure if Rafe wanted to off us, he’d have invited us to a barbecue first,” he said finally, voice softer than usual. I ignored him and moved to the bathroom, scanning the mirrors and the showerhead. Again, nothing. Either this place was cleaner than the goddamn CDC or the bugs here ran on tech I’d never seen.
I pulled out the fiber-optic scope next and started on the air vents. “Just because a man’s smiling doesn’t mean he wants you alive,” I muttered, not even bothering to soften it. “You taught me that, Bronc.”
He grunted, took the two adjoining steps to the bathroom door, and leaned in. “Yeah, but I also taught you to recognize when a king’s just got more to lose than you. Rafe’s not like your maybe, soon-to-be father-in-law.”
I finished the vents and set the scope on the marble sink. “With all due respect, you only served with him for a coupleyears. You grew up with my family, went through the loss of my sister because someone decided the rules didn’t apply.” The words came out flatter than I wanted. It’s not like I planned to air my shit in the first five minutes, but sometimes the bottle bursts when you shake it too hard.
Bronc loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his dress shirt. The edge of his mate mark was visible, still faintly pink even after all these months. “You think he’s responsible for what happened to her?”
“I think he was in charge of the territory when Greenbriar took her, and I think he’s the only king who managed to look the other way for a solid year before the Council called a trial. So yeah, I don’t fucking trust him.”
Bronc was silent. That silence stretched out, filled the cracks between the marble tiles and seeped into the grout. I could hear the echo of my own bitterness ricocheting off the walls, but I didn’t care. I cleared the two bedrooms then set the bug kit back in the duffel, zipped it, and looked at myself in the mirror. The man in the glass looked tired, skin pulled too tight across his cheekbones, a five o’clock shadow that made my scars look like fresh wounds.
Back in the suite, Bronc was on the couch with his boots up on the coffee table, a full glass of whiskey balanced on his knee. “So what’s your plan, Bridger?”
I shrugged off my jacket, hung it neatly on the closet rail, and checked the windows for visual contact points. “Plan is simple: keep my mouth shut, watch what Rafe does, and don’t take a drink from anyone unless I see it poured myself. If he’s playing us, we’ll know in the first five minutes.”
Bronc took a slow sip, his eyes never leaving mine. “You’re not the only one with skin in this game, you know. If Juliet gets so much as a hangnail because of this, I’ll end him.” His voice was graveled, flat as Texas earth.
I met his stare, and for a second, it was like we were on some goddamn roof in the desert again, waiting for the next mortar. “Copy that,” I said, and it was as close as I could come to thank you.
We didn’t say much for the next hour. Bronc scrolled through his phone, typing out messages to someone—probably Arsenal or Wrecker, maybe even Juliet. I watched the dusk bleed through the plantation shutters, the blue outside fading to a dirty gray. My hands itched for the comfort of a weapon, but I settled for the cool bite of the whiskey Bronc eventually poured for me.
I drank half, then stared into the glass like it had answers.
Memories came slow, the way they do when you’re in enemy territory and trying not to let your guard down. My sister was seventeen when she vanished. All-American, dark hair, sharper tongue than mine but sweeter with kids and horses than anyone alive. She was on my mind all the time, but more so in places like this—places where power grew in thick, humid air and no one ever really left a door unlocked.
The day we found her, she was more dead than alive. The bastard Greenbriar Alpha wouldn’t take no for an answer. We knew they were the ones who had her. We went through channels. After Bronc told him his marriage proposal had been declined, he was furious. Two weeks later, Emma disappeared. We immediately went to the council with our suspicions. There was an “investigation.” Came up with nothing. Thenweinvestigated. Took two hours before we found her in a camouflaged cell outside their compound. Wasn’t even well-concealed. She was so badly beaten, malnourished, and wrapped in silver, she couldn’t heal. I killed that motherfucking Alpha myself when we raided. Could have taken that pack. Should have. But Bronc said to let the Council handle it. Haven’t fully gotten over taking his advice on that one.
Emma never really recovered. Wrapped her car around a tree two months later. Closed casket. My mother’s hands, fists balled in her lap so hard her knuckles split. The way that BigPapa’s mouth didn’t quite close between words, like he’d run out of things to say. I remember vowing never to let my guard down again, and hating the world for daring to expect anything else.
