He waited, silent, until my own voice clawed its way up and out. “We’ve been taking things slow,” I admitted. “It’s been a rough re-entry.”
“Rougher than not knowing?” Bronc demanded.
The shame hit like a second bullet, driving deeper than the first. I’d left her past alone, too afraid to push when she’d already come so close to shattering. Or maybe it was me I feared breaking. The edges had grown so damn sharp these past months.
“It’s all I can do right now to keep her from running,” I said. Her steps were distant echoes across the open plains, across an entire country I could never close between us. Not fast enough. Not sure enough.
He didn’t really get it. We had no history. She didn’t know if she could trust me. It had only been a few weeks. She was free of that nightmare, and I didn’t want her to relive it. I wanted to give her more time.
“Look, I’m trying to give her a little more time. She doesn’t know if she can really trust us. Trustme. After what she’s been through? I don’t blame her. Don’t wanna push her too hard.”
Wrecker kept a sharp eye on me, read me like another unsealed file. He and the other members of the Iron Valor Pack held a united front, solid as their names. He returned his attention to the task at hand. They all did. I should have, too. “Once you get more information, we can update the list. Be sure no one gets overlooked,” Bronc said, already pivoting to the next priority, the next fix. “I’m trying to avoid too much heat from the council. They’re gonna wanna know why we didn’t bring them in. I’m gonna try to frame it like we were just trying to rescue our Luna. It didn’t concern them. That’s our story, and we’re stickin’ to it.”
His relentless pace never failed to amaze me. The man was a machine. That’s why he was such an effective alpha. The Iron Valor Pack/MC ran like a well-honed business. And it was. It wasa living, breathing entity. A world within a world that required a leader who could focus on several tasks at once. I was so damned happy he had found Juliet. She was sure and strong. Just like him.
“Let me know what you find.”
The finality of his words landed like a mark, a mate, a bloody handprint over everything I couldn’t touch. It marked me as a man he counted on to simply handle his business. A promise in the form of a burden, one I’d see through at all costs.
We tangled our way through Sawyer’s absence on the list and onto the next mess. Lucia Kozlov showed up at girls’ night. Bronc mentioned a curious gaze that the vampire princess gave to Sawyer as she left the cabin. I can’t begin to know what that could mean.
“So you had to have the, ‘your college roommate is not just a vampire, but a vampire princess’ talk with Juliet, huh? How’d she take it?”
Bronc’s voice held some humor when he said, “Juliet took it about how I expected. Pissed, then fine.”
She bounced back. Found herself. She was the anti-Sawyer. I could see the thoughts growing, shifting in Bronc’s mind, and I hated him a little for it. We locked eyes. Mine narrowed. Bronc’s twitched with amusement, and we returned to the conversation that I’d never left.
Juliet seemed to get stronger with every wave that crashed against her. Bronc saw that as clear as the bright pink mate mark that showed the world she was his.
“Girls’ night was a bust,” Bronc chuckled. “Maybe I’ll tell her to have another. Without the undead crashing this time.” His humor only half hid the worry.
A mirthless grin ghosted my face. “Huh. I bet Juliet still had a good time.” I was hoping Sawyer would open up some. Especially with Maddie there. She could get anybody to talk. “Can’t believe Maddie didn’t have Sawyer spilling her guts. She’s got a way ofdragging stories out of people.” I mentioned on a laugh. Maddie was famous for her penchant for never knowing when to quit.
The fond look on Bronc’s face showed how much he loved his little sister. It twisted my gut a bit, thinking about my own baby sister I’d lost a few years ago. “Oh, I’m sure she tried. Juliet told me she felt like Sawyer had fun, but was closed off. Until Lucia got there. Then she said things really got awkward. No idea what that could have been about. Could have been nothing more than Sawyer sensing that Lucia was a vamp.” Bronc rested a rough hand against the table, his frustration coming through louder than words. Lucia had that effect on people.
The space shifted around us as Bronc filled in the rest, and I pictured Juliet’s defiant look as he finally admitted her best friend wasn’t only a vampire but vampire royalty. Kazimir Kozlov. He used to be much more difficult when the kings were a threat. The Bratva had as much of an empire as any of the combined packs. No wonder he’d waited so long to bring Juliet into that mess. It would have bit him in the ass no matter the timing.
“Our Luna’s tougher than you thought, huh?” I knew this. “You catch anything else from Sawyer before she left?” I wanted to learn something.Anything. Bronc didn’t want to pry, but I damn sure did. I only needed a direction to go with the pieces I had.
“She looked like a ghost in those woods,” he admitted. Her wild, haunted look entered my mind. “Not sure if it was the undead or my mate that spooked her more. If I were a betting man, I’d put money on Juliet.”
I didn’t know if he was wrong, or if I just wanted him to be. Sawyer had the look of a girl who needed protection and fought against it with every step. I held Bronc’s gaze until he broke with a smirk. His confidence ate at me. I’d never been uncertain about anything in my life. Until now. But he knew what to do. He didn’t even have to thinkabout it.
Lucia’s departure left me as unsettled as Sawyer, but for other reasons. He said she gave a knowing look. “How long was the bloodsucker around before Sawyer bailed?” I asked.
Bronc’s reply was swift, sure, infuriating. “Long enough to shake things up. Short enough not to know how bad.” The circle of cuts and names shifted. Restless. “She’s headed back east.”
I looked over at Wrecker. He’s our guy who knew something about everybody. “You got anything that might help decipher why Lucia would give any kind of odd look at Sawyer?”
His laugh made sense. “You’d need a fucking map to follow anything that Lucia Kozlov does, man. She might have liked her shirt or her hair. Hell, she might swing that way. Fuck if I know.”
I ran my hand down my face. Vampires. He’s right. A look could mean a hundred different things.
The glow of Wrecker’s laptop flared like an uninvited spark in the dim room. Cold light reflected from highball glasses and sweet tea filled Mason jars and washed across grim faces as we turned from vampires and girls’ nights to something more tangible: spreadsheets, missing money, an inside man. We couldn’t afford doubt or loose ends, not with the rest of the operation stalled and not with the pace we’d set for the rest. Skeeter’s betrayal lit the room like the one verifiable fact we could focus on, and this time my mind stayed sure as we closed the net around him.
Wrecker held the room in thrall, casting numbers and letters into black and white truths. “With Juliet’s information, there’s no doubt. It’s him,” he said. The sheets had familiar data in foreign places, scrawled notes that showed how far we’d missed the mark. The light from the projector spread like a stain, details casting longer shadows than even I had expected.
Skeeter’s small-time betrayal stung, but his access worried us more. It fit like another goddamn piece, sure as Bronc’s bite and just as vicious. It wouldn’t end with one man. It never did.
