My lips set like a tomb, like the grave I’d be putting that boy into. “How long?” I asked.
“Been going on for years,” Wrecker said. “Started back when Axel kept the books. Small at first. Less than a grand a month. But then last March, after Axel disappeared, it picked up.” He drew his fingers over the bank records like a map, an architect of treason. “Last deposit was yesterday. Someone’s gotta be using him. This is more than Skeeter. Question is, who? Bigger question is why? That son of a bitch has been a patched-in member of this club for over twenty years. Been a member of this pack his entire life.”
I heard that clear enough. We’d start with the man and finish with whoever pulled his strings. The lines and columns lit our plans as fast as Wrecker called them, a more orderly run than I’d had in months. “We’re not waiting to find out who,” I said. “Bronc?”
His answer was as sharp and deadly as expected. “Same as we always do. Round up every last son of a bitch.” The circle around us grew tighter as he spoke, flanking him, anchoring him. Supporting the push of a freight train across the Texas plains, and nothing could stop it.
Arsenal shifted the focus back to action instead of outcomes, filling the void of every ghost in the room. “This time tomorrow, he’ll know better.” He grinned like the vengeful devil he was, eyes cutting the room for loose threads. Finding none.
Loose threads. They choked me like a hangman’s noose these last months, and I wanted nothing more than to cut them all. This was one I’d snip. It was the only one I could.
“He expecting anything?” I asked, as though I hadn’t heard the reply before it came.
“Works next to me every goddamn day as though he’s still family,” Bronc answered, leaning into the leather of an enforcer’s chair. “That they’re in the clear.”
I could see the strain it had put on our Alpha. With what he’d just gone through with Juliet, this was a burden he didn’t need, andit made me want to drive my fist through Skeeter’s face. This man would lay down and die for this pack, so to see it repaid with betrayal made the blood boil in my veins. My eyes scanned the faces of my brothers around the table. Big Papa, Arsenal, Doc, Wrecker, all of us wore the same murderous look.
We all leaned in with him, sharing his look of imminent triumph. A look I hadn’t seen since we bashed in the doors of that lab weeks ago.
“Figure it’ll just be me and Bronc,” I said, sorting names like card tricks. “Then Wrecker, Arsenal, Papa. We need y’all for the haul in.” Their feral grins returned the expectation. They’d take care of it all right. I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t fucking wait. “Doc, you can come if you wanna. Figured you’d like to sit this one out. It’s basically just gonna be a grab him and go.”
Doc didn’t get his hands dirty on every run we made, being a healer and all.
“I’m good sitting it out. As long as I’m notified immediately upon completion.” He answered with no sign of grief.
Papa asked the big question. “We gonna just lock him up and let him stew until we’re ready to shake him down?”
Bronc was thoughtful. “Yep, we’ll hold him. I want him secured while we’re handling the council shifter disappearance notifications. One major crisis at a time. But I want my fucking shop theft stopped. Skeeter has stolen his last dime from me.” Bronc gave a single, satisfied nod. “We know where it’s headed.” He stood, a monument to everything the rest of us tried to be. “We’ve got a plan. It executes tomorrow. Tonight, the wolves run.”
Our confidence cast shadows as we rose, solid as the cuts we wore, dark as the purpose we took to the field.
The shift tore through me like wildfire, bones cracking and fur erupting from skin—painful yet familiar, a gateway to freedom. My paws hit the earth as my human thoughts blurred into instinct, into hunger for speed and moonlight. The forest blurred as we launched forward, pack leaders surging like shadows givenpurpose. Wind ripped through my coat; pine needles and frost sharpened the air in my lungs. This was primal truth—no laws, no walls, just movement. Just pack.
We wove between trees in a symphony of snarls and panting breaths, each stride synchronized by decades of muscle and blood memory. Bronc’s massive black form cut through the dark ahead, our Alpha’s presence a beacon none dared outpace. But tonight wasn’t about hierarchy. It was about teeth bared in grins, claws shredding terrain as we raced toward nothing and everything. The bond between us thrummed louder than heartbeats: together, we were avalanches. Together, we were lawless gravity.
A fallen oak loomed in our path—Bronc leaped first, a black shadow against the sky. I followed without hesitation, muscles coiling mid-air as moonlight bathed my underside. For a breathless second, I floated weightless…then slammed back into rhythm with Wrecker and Doc flanking me. Their warmth brushed my fur; their resolve mirrored mine. Threats would come—they always did—but I grinned wider. Let them. We’d tear through steel for this brotherhood, crush throats for this thrill of belonging deeper than bone.
When Bronc’s howl fractured the night—low, defiant—ours answered in unison. The sound shook stars loose from clouds. No hunt tonight. Just running. Just proving to the shadows that we owned them. Every snap of underbrush beneath our paws was a vow: try us.
The pack wouldn’t break.
The world would bend.
And we’d savor every scar it took to make it so.
Chapter 3
Sawyer
It was a devil’s choice. The kind that left my hands trembling around a cup of tea and my heart a snared rabbit’s heart beat inside my chest. Even in my tiny apartment, with its warm tones and welcoming furniture, it left me breathless and broken. He’d found me. There was no other way to read Lucia Kozlov’s unexpected appearance at girls’ night. My father had sent her to drag me back to Martha’s Vinyard like a captured prize. Kazimir and my father must have mended fences. Last I knew they hated each other.
The only other explanation was that fate was playing a cruel game of coincidence. I suppose it was possible that Lucia was truly Juliet’s friend and was concerned about her. Seems ridiculous that Lucia could truly care aboutanyone. But Juliet had that effect on people. Hell, I fell in love with ‘all things Juliet’ within hours of meeting her. She is Goddess-blessed, and the perfect Luna for her pack.
So, this left me with a frightening dilemma. Did I run again? Did I abandon my new life and Menace in an attempt to protect him and the Iron Valor pack? Or did I risk staying, keeping my true identity a secret, as I continued to lie to the man who I believed was my fated mate? If I told him who I truly was, the circumstancesof why I lied, what would that look like? What would Menace expect his Alpha to do? I was terrified to find out.
Menace was a man who valued integrity. He was ex-Delta Force, for God’s sake. Loyalty and honesty are what kept his men alive. And here I was, lying straight to his face every day. It was a lie by omission, but a lie was a lie was a lie.
The couch groaned under my weight as I sagged back, the soft floral fabric suddenly a straitjacket pinning me to the harsh reality of my past. Tapping fingers against a porcelain teacup, darting eyes to the window, I sat like prey expecting a predator to pounce. It would take my father’s men no time at all to reach me. A deep, raw ache threatened to split my ribs as I thought of Menace and the devastation I’d leave behind. I felt my wolf pace behind my ribs. She was having none of it. She refused the idea of leaving who she’d already considered her mate. My agitated state only increased.
