Silence soaked the room, thick and nervous. I could feel the wolf inside me pacing, counting the heartbeats of everyone here.
Malvex broke the silence. “Why not just poison the kids? Less collateral. No witnesses.”
I stared at him, enjoying the discomfort as I ground the cigarette out on my own wrist. “Because I want Bronc to see the bodies. I want him to hear them scream. I want him to feel what I felt when Menace gutted our Alpha in front of everyone. I want him broken, not dead. Not at first.”
Dagger looked at me, hunger in his eyes. “And after?”
“After, we bury them. Burn the compound to the ground. No survivors.” The memory of my old Alpha’s last gurgling breath rose up like a ghost, and I smiled to let it pass.
Vex slid the map toward herself, studied the fence lines, then looked up. “You ever think about what happens if they see us coming?”
I shrugged. “They won’t. They’ll be too busy playing nice for the community and the news cameras in the days leading up to the run. And like I said, I have a plan to take his eyes off of the minor details of the run.”
Rook folded his hands. “And if it all goes to shit?”
I leaned in, letting them all see the scars on my face, the truth of how much I’d already lost. “If it goes to shit, we tear them apart the old-fashioned way. There’s no scenario where Bronc gets out of this alive. That’s a promise.”
The vampires and demons exchanged looks, silent communication passing like static. I saw what they were thinking: if this failed; we were all dead men. I wanted them scared. I wanted them sharp.
I let the silence fester, then stood and walked to the window, taking all my strength to stifle the limp in my left leg. Outside was nothing but dead trees and darkness. Our world had already ended; and I was determined to yank it back from the dead.
Behind me, chairs scraped. Deals were struck. Blood was owed. I felt the promise of violence hardening in my chest, cold and absolute.
“Dismissed,” I said, and listened as the predators slithered out.
The war room emptied, but I stayed behind, staring at the map, fingers tracing the lines again and again until the paper tore under my nails.
This is going to be beautiful; I thought.The perfect massacre.
And Greenbriar would be the last ones standing, even if it killed me.
I lingered for a while longer, watching smoke curl from the dented ceiling fan and spiral into the dark. The meeting had gone better than I’d expected. Wolves, vampires, demons—usually you get three minutes of civility before they start measuring dicks and pecking order, but tonight everyone was hungry enough to swallow their pride. Nothing bonds a room like the promise of blood.
I gave it another five minutes, then followed the drag marks on the floor to my office. The room was comprised of stark cinder block walls. You’d think it was a prison cell if not for the furniture and pictures displayed here and there. Our dead alpha didn’t go in for much in the way of decor or nice things. I, on the otherhand, tried to upgrade things as much as I could without looking like a pussy. There was a fine line with this pack, but bringing up our reputation from trash to a pack to be respected and feared had been a goal of mine. I might be about to blow that to shit with murdering an entire pack. I didn’t know how we’d land. But I lived with the motto,‘might makes right.’Guess I’d see if the rest of the supernatural world believed that as well.
I dropped into my chair, let the pain in my shoulder pulse through me, and watched the camera feed from the perimeter. Everything outside was frozen and motionless. But inside the compound, you could practically taste the anticipation—the way everyone moved a little too quiet, eyes always just a hair too bright. They all knew what was coming. They were just pretending it wouldn’t matter.
I thumbed through the reports on Iron Valor my people had been compiling. More promising than I’d hoped: two officers already at each other’s throats, their Luna’s moods were wild and erratic. The toy drive was shaping up to be the best-attended in years. The perfect setup. I laughed, then coughed, the old scar tissue in my throat buzzing like an electrical burn.
On the next page: the latest from Parker Reid.
Parker wasn’t like the others. Most hackers? Pathetic scavengers—cash or fear bought them. But her? She was a blade sharpened on stone, cold and precise. The kind that cuts deeper the harder you grip it. I’d dealt with lone wolves before, snarling things who thought themselves untouchable, but Parker… she wasn’t that. No, she circled Iron Valor like a storm that returns each month, predictable only in its inevitability. Full moon runs, shifts, vanishing before dawn. No attachments. None that I could find, anyway. Her brother? A weeping cockroach. Offered her up like a trinket when I came to carve my due from his ribs. Weak blood. How had they shared a womb?
First time I saw her, I almost laughed. Expected some mousy code-rat, hiding behind thrift-store armor. Instead, she walked inlike she’d spun her own gravity. Five feet of nerve and hunger, wild dark hair tinged with pink, eyes electric blue. Didn’t blink when I let the monster breathe. Just stood there, tasting the danger, wrists loose at her sides—ready, not afraid. “Will this save his life?” She asked, no tremor, no plea. As if her brother’s worthlessness was a fact, not a regret. I admired that. Hypocrisy’s a stench I can’t stomach.
She made my skin itch. Not because she defied me. No, any fool can bark. But because she mirrored the parts of me I’d buried under corpses and ash. Same gnawing void behind the ribs. Same contempt for rules that aren’t hers. Wanted to crack her open just to see if she’d bleed ambition instead of red. Wanted to… well. Monsters have appetites.
She’d worked for a few weeks on a plan to siphon over a hundred grand from Iron Valor’s accounts without tripping alarms. And that’s just the beginning. The bank security gave her friction, firewalls, encryption, singing hymns in binary. But she’d bent it. I’d gotten an email from her telling me as much. Wanted to meet to give me the details about how it’ll go down. That girl was an artist when it comes to this shit. Tonight, I’d sit back and watch her create a masterpiece.
Once she triggered the worm in Iron Valor’s network, every financial asset they had should be rerouted through a chain of shell companies that all led, eventually, to me. They’d be bled dry as a gutted stag. It wasn’t about the money. It was about humiliation. The only thing Bronc cared about more than his pack was his reputation. Stripping him bare would be the real kill shot.
I leaned back, propped my boots on the desk, and let my mind wander. If Parker worked out, if she stayed on the leash, we could take more than Iron Valor. We could bleed the vamps in Kazmir’s kingdom, sabotage the demon lord’s empire. She could be a weapon, a bomb I could drop wherever I wanted. Or I could just watch the world burn, take her with me, see who survived.
There was a knock at the door.
“Come,” I said, and Parker slipped in, hood down, hair wild, shoulders squared. She looked like she’d spent the last six hours in a server room or a bar fight, maybe both.
She closed the door behind her, then took the chair across from me. “Looks like you’re set to go,” she said, voice even. She nodded at my laptop. “Can I show you?”
