His gaze drilled a hole in my skull. “I’m not your enemy, Arsenal. I would’ve helped. You know that. But you could have put our entire pack at risk by going off half-cocked. And Wrecker, you should fuckin’ know better. You’re my VP. I expect better from you. Can I no longer trust the men who are supposed to be closest to me?”
I nodded. “Shit, sir. I just… I’d never felt driven like that. My wolf wanted to bust out of my skin to get to our mate. I know it was reckless.” I stopped.
He let the silence hang. Then he looked at Wrecker. “What about you? Did I make a mistake picking you to replace Menace as my VP?”
Wrecker shrugged. “Somebody had to back him up. If he’d gone alone, he wouldn’t have made it back alive. I’m certain of it. Plus, we got vital information while we were there. It was a fuckity fucked way of doing things, but wedidaccomplish a few things.”
Bronc’s mouth twisted. He tried simply to be mad, but I could see the worry underneath. He laced his fingers together on the desk, knuckles still white.
“Alright,” he said, voice low. “Let’s do it proper. Start at the top. Give me your full sitrep.”
I did, breaking it down into five points, just the way I’d have done in the Corps.
“One: Harper is there under duress. Two: The club is run by Waylon Steiner, but there’s clear evidence of witch coven involvement. They’re not just employees; they’re part of running the operations. Three: Physical security is ex-military, not pack. Four: Steiner is facilitating human trafficking. We suspect the supply goes through the Houston Ship Channel. Five: It’s all being handled off-books. No good digital trails, but we think if we dig deep enough, we’ll find ties to Maltraz.”
That last word changed Bronc’s face entirely. The anger melted off, replaced by a hard, cold focus.
“Maltraz,” he said. “You sure?”
“As sure as we can be without further research. But we had our suspicions back when he was trying to infiltrate our bank accounts. That fucking demon king deals in the nastiest, most evil enterprises known to man. There are few things more evil or lucrative than human trafficking. We’d talked about his involvement in something like this before. This would be right in his wheelhouse. And I could swear I noticed a demon or two inside that club.”
Wrecker chimed in. “We’ll pull records of companies we had our eyes on back when he was trying to screw us over afew months ago, checking for shipping companies specifically. I guarantee we’ll find trucking companies that drop cargo at the Houston docks.”
Bronc leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. Then he leaned forward again, elbows on the desk. “So Steiner, what, owns the docks?”
I shook my head. “Maybe. But it feels like he’d get more out of it than just doing what Maltraz says. Steiner’s not the type to work for anyone. He’s too proud for that. But no way he’d cross the demon king. The way he sets up his security, the way he acts around the witches. He knows that they have more power than he does.”
Bronc stared at the desktop, then at us. “So what’s your plan?”
Wrecker looked at me. I spoke.
“That depends on you. How far do you wanna go? The main thing I care about is extracting Harper. Getting her safe. Past that? It’s up to you. I hate the idea that there are women, maybe wolves are being taken and sold or God knows what else. Don’t know if you wanna just pass the info to Rafe and let the king take it and run. Maybe we need to bring him in anyway. If Maltraz is involved, it becomes bigger than Iron Valor for sure. I just want my mate back in my arms.”
Bronc nodded, just once. Then he stood and came around the desk, standing over us.
“Alright. You’re going to run this op. Both of you. But you’re going to do it my way. That means no more cowboy shit, no more going off the reservation. You check in at least every other hour, even if it’s just a ping. I want Parker working comms. You got that?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
He put a hand on my shoulder. Heavy, warm. “Jess. You get her out, and you bring her here. She’s family now. But first, yougather every piece of information you can about their operation. And then you’ll create an extraction plan and bring it to me.”
I didn’t say anything, but my wolf wanted to howl.
He squeezed once, then let go. “Now go. Brief Parker. I have to inform Rafe. The same way I expected to be informed as your Alpha, he expects it as my king. And if you even think about going rogue, I’ll have Doc shoot you myself.”
Wrecker grinned, stood, and clapped Bronc on the back. “Wouldn’t have it any other way, boss.”
I got up, and Bronc followed me with his eyes. “Don’t fuck this up, Arsenal.”
I nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
We left the office, and I could feel the shift in the air. The tension was still there, but it was pointed outward now. At an enemy, not each other.
We were a pack again. And nothing on earth or hell was going to keep me from getting Harper back.
Wrecker’s tech room was the nerve center of the Iron Valor compound. He’d recently built an addition to his ranch-style house to accommodate more equipment. The large room was wired with enough power to light the Dairyville night. The inside was chaos: every inch of wall hung with monitors, whiteboards, cables, and at least three different flavors of tactical vest. The table in the middle overflowed with laptops, tablets, paper files, and coffee mugs of Parker’s fancy pour-over coffee she was famous for.
Rocket, Parker’s dog, was sprawled across the worn leather couch but hopped up the moment we entered. He made a beeline for me, tail a jet turbine, and jammed his head under my hand for a scratch.
