I logged in early, booted the central laptop from the network closet, and locked the door behind me. The connection was solid, audio crisp. The light from the single bulb overhead cut everything into blue and black; the rest of the room faded into the kind of gray that looked like water on asphalt after a rain.
At 0900 sharp, the icons started popping in.
Bronc’s video feed was first: clean desk, the old Army flag in the background, beard trimmed down to regulation, eyes flat and pale as glacier melt. The man never looked more dangerous than when he was being polite.
Next was Rafe Mayfield, King of the South. The frame caught him from the chest up, all six-foot-four of him crammed into what looked like a lawyer’s home office. He wore a white shirt, the top button open, a crimson and white Alabama tie tossed on the back of the chair. His beard was perfect; his eyes dark enough to look fake on camera. He sipped coffee from a mug that said, “Roll Tide, Y’all.” Didn’t blink. Didn’t smile. Just waited.
Third up: Kazimir Kozlov, vampire king of the East. The screen struggled to color-correct his skin, which was so pale it made printer paper look tan. His hair was black, slicked into a widow’s peak. He wore a silk bathrobe over a t-shirt that read, “Fangs Out For Freedom.” The background was all glass and nighttime skyline—Philly. There was a woman at his elbow: Lucia, his daughter, her black curls tied up, face a painting of boredom andmischief. She waved at the camera. Her nails were red, the kind that drew blood just by looking.
Last: Menace. Midwest Wolf King, and still our bastard at heart. He showed up from the seat on his big front porch. He wore mirrored aviators and a leather jacket with an Iron Valor patch, his white-blonde hair cropped and styled, with an attitude you only get by living through a thousand bar fights and coming out the other side. He was muted, but his smirk did all the talking.
Bronc gave the intro. “Thank you for coming, gentlemen. And lady,” he added, nodding at Lucia.
Rafe gave a two-finger salute, the Southern version of “let’s get this over with.” Kazimir smirked, canines out for the party, just visible. Menace raised a thumb, then dropped it.
Bronc ran through the formalities. “Two weeks ago, Greenbriar Pack attempted a major hit on Iron Valor. They failed, but not before blowing the clubhouse sky high and nearly killing one of our own. Intel suggests they are not acting alone. Now, their entire pack is MIA. They moved lock, stock, and barrel. Don’t know if they’re even in Texas. We tracked them in four different directions. This is now an interstate problem, and unless handled,willescalate to the Council.”
He let that hang.
Rafe spoke first, slow and precise. “Greenbriar is unfortunately a Southern pack. If they have relocated; the Alpha moved without prior notification. This is, of course, against the Council charter rules and would need to be addressed.”
Menace: “Midwest is clear. Any movement, I’d know. I got scouts who patrol the entire territory. Nothing’s come up yet.”
Kazimir ran a tongue over his teeth, eyes on Bronc. “My territory runs twenty-four-hour surveillance on stray shifter activity. As you know, we’re careful of what wolves we let mix in vampire clubs. If Greenbriar comes here, I will notice. But I doubt they are that smart.” Lucia snorted into her phone. The sound came through as static.
Bronc glanced at me. “Wrecker, you want to run down what we know?”
I did. I leaned into the camera, letting the light hit the scar on my chin just right. Then I proceeded to give them the entire run down on Greenbriar’s activities for the past several months, from the theft of funds from the motorcycle shop, escalating to trying to drain bank funds, to the attempted hacking of our networks. I paused for a moment to be sure everyone was keeping up.
“Things escalated when Bronc’s sister Maddie went missing. We took a team to Greenbriar to find her. We were only 30 miles out when my mate who was watching and listening to surveillance feeds heard they planned to blow the clubhouse, thinking it would be crowded with pack members prepping our annual toy run. Thankfully, we’d moved that operation offsite. The guys that had nabbed Bronc’s sister returned her to the compound, hoping she’d make entry in time to be killed along with everyone else.” You could see the anger rising on their faces.
“Parker ran to the compound, thinking Maddie was inside. My little mate has a hero complex, apparently. I was on the line with her when the bomb went off. She was the only one inside at the time.”
Kazimir shook his head. “They intended to kill entire pack?”
I didn’t flinch. “All that they could.”
Rafe spoke up next. “Your mate. She’s okay?”
I nodded. “Yes. Once we dug her out of the rubble and got her to the hospital. It was only through what I suspect was divine intervention that she’s still alive.” I glanced at Menace.
His voice was a steel rasp. “You want me to send a team? I’ll drive a tank through their front yard.”
Bronc shook his head. “We want to contain. Council gets wind, we’re all in the soup. Rafe, so nothing from the Alabama connection?”
Rafe shrugged, a slow roll of muscle under his shirt. “Nothing reported so far. I’ll have my men sweep again tonight.They’re good. If Greenbriar so much as farts in a Waffle House, I’ll know by dawn.”
Kazimir cut in, “Why not just let them run? Wolves never last more than a season without territory. They’ll die off, no?”
Bronc said, “That’s not how this works, Kazimir. They have resources. Apparently they’ve been running fight clubs, casinos, strip clubs, all over west Texas, all underground. Silas has a mountain of his own cash. He’s also playing with what he thinks is my money. He hasn’t realized yet it’s all fake. No better than Monopoly money. If he’s leveraging with that to buy favor with anyone dangerous, that could get him killed. But I’m not comfortable with waiting for his own stupid ass mistakes. I owe him. He’s taken it one step too far.”
Kazimir laughed, dark and low. “I like the optimism. But if they come at me, I will simply eat them.” Lucia put her hand over the mic, but not fast enough.
“He will, too,” she said. “With ketchup.”
I ran my tongue along my teeth. “We have a couple of other concerns. Parker had seen a couple of raggedy vampires at the Greenbriar compound. Don’t know if they were possibly rogue or if that’s even possible. Kazimir, that’s your territory. And she also flagged something weird in the transfer logs. Most of the money siphoned didn’t stay with Silas—just bounced from Greenbriar through a shell, then vanished. The signature looks like a demon mark.”
Rafe leaned forward. “Maltraz?”
