I looked down at Skeeter, blood pooling under his cheek. “You had your shot, asshole,” I said, mostly for myself. “Now it’s someone else’s turn.”
I wiped my hands on my jeans and walked out, the echo of my boots bouncing off the tin walls.
Outside, the dawn was gray and empty. Hands still shaking, I closed my eyes against the first light of morning.
Bronc looked at me sideways. “Guess he’s a dead end? So to speak.”
“Parker’s the answer.” Just saying her name twisted my gut. “I’ll get every bit of information we need out of her.” I told him as I made my way to my bike.
He shook his head. “Something tells me that’s not all you’re gonna get out of that girl.”
I shrugged. “I’m taking everything I can get from her.” I told him as I put on my helmet and slammed down the kick starter on my bike and pulled out into the street.
The door slammed behind me as I kicked off my boots, the silence of my own damn house a relief after the bullshit with Skeeter. Only been here a few months, but already I couldn’t stomach the thought of crawling back to the pack house. Too old for that circus—the constant scent of strangers, the hollow laughter, the parade of women who’d never stick around long enough to learn my last name. Not that I’d give it to ’em.
But lately… fuck. Watching Menace and Bronc get all moony-eyed over their mates had dug under my skin like a splinter. Didn’t help that Parker’s face kept flickering in my head, sharp as a blade. That woman was trouble wrapped in spandex. I’d planted cameras in her house and was quickly becoming obsessed with watching her. I felt like some kind of psycho, but fuck if I cared.
I grabbed a beer from the fridge, the hum of the security feed already pulling me to the screen. Before I could rewind to watch her morning, I saw her on her back deck playing fetch with whathad to be the ugliest dog I’d ever seen. Goddamn if watching her laugh didn’t do something to me.
I’d rewound to her morning—Axel slinking into her place, all smarmy charm. Her twin. My jaw locked as I watched him toy with her. That slimy bastard spinning lies about debts, about owing him. Parker’s fists clenched, her voice cracking raw, and something hot and vicious coiled in my gut. Axel sold her out. Dragged her into Greenbriar’s mess. Of course it was them. Those pricks had been wanting revenge since Menace killed their Alpha years ago.
The fact that she knew doing this was going to get herself killed made me want to punish her in the most painful way. She was willing to sacrifice herself for her good-for-nothing brother. And he sat there as if she owed him. She’s got to know there is no way for this to end in her favor.
I skipped the feed to later in the evening. Parker downed two glasses of whiskey, her throat working like she could burn the day away. Then she stumbled into her bedroom, yanked that new vibrator from her drawer—the one I’d wanted to see in her hands—and fuck, my blood went molten watching her. Hips arching, teeth biting into her lip to stifle the sounds. Should’ve looked away. Didn’t.
But then she went still. Tears streaked her cheeks, silent and awful, and I nearly cracked the screen, gripping it. You don’t cry after an orgasm. Not like that. Not like the world’s caved in. That hollow look in her eyes—it punched me harder than any alpha’s fist.
Now at least I knew she wasn’t a true traitor. Axel’s visit proved that. I should’ve been furious. Instead, I had to think of a way to keep her safe not just from Greenbriar but from Iron Valor also.
Chapter 3
Parker
Iwoke to something warm and insistent licking my cheek. In a better life, maybe it’d have been a lover’s mouth instead of Rocket’s sandpaper tongue. But his scrunch-faced grin was its own kind of salvation.
“Breakfast?”
He launched into a tornado of joy, paws skidding on hardwood. For a heartbeat, I forgot the vise tightening my chest. Forgot the clock already ticking in my skull.
By noon, dread had settled into my bones. My monitors glared like triple suns, bleaching the room. The system taunted me—a labyrinth I’d designed myself, now twisted into snarled knots. Every path I tried unspooled into traps, walls slamming shut the moment I brushed them. Wrecker’s fingerprints were everywhere: phantom tripwires, bridges crumbling mid-step. My code had been elegant. His was vindictive.
ERROR: Transaction Flagged.
The alert burned crimson. Eighth time. Ninth. Tenth. Each failure carved deeper, until I tasted copper where I’d chewed raw my cheek. This wasn’t coding—it was surgery with a chainsaw, hacking blindly at the tumor of my own miscalculations.
Rocket whined, pressing his muzzle to my knee. I choked back acid laughter. Thirty-six hours since Greenbriar’s last “reminder.” Two days before, they’d come for more than threats. Before Rocket’s sad eyes met strangers at the shelter.
I tried brute-forcing the maze’s heart. Smashed through proxies like tissue walls, only to find Wrecker waiting—a ghost in the machine. His countermeasures bled through the code, liquid mercury slipping through grasping fingers. My hands shook as I triggered the killswitch protocol, hovering over the key that would burn it all.
Who protects him when I’m gone?
The phone buzzed—Greenbriar’s silent scream. I drank merlot straight from the bottle, the bite weaker than my shame. Rocket slept curled against my shin while I mapped exit routes on trembling fingers. Every dead end glowed neon: Failure. Fraud. Fool.
Deep in the monitors’ cold light, I saw Wrecker’s triumph—smug and effortless—while I unraveled stitch by stitch. My breath fogged the screen as I slumped forward. Not smarter. Just hungrier. And hunger, it turned out, couldn’t outwit annihilation.
When Rocket licked the salt from my wrists, I didn’t push him away.
“Fuck,” I muttered, jabbing the Enter key so hard it left a crescent in my fingertip. Rocket popped his head up at me from his bed across the room. The system clock glared: 3:08 PM. I’d been at this since 9:00AM, fueled by cold coffee and unchewed antacids. I could still taste blood from where I’d bitten the inside of my cheek.
