Then hope died. A second SUV—a black Dacia with diplomatic plates—lurched from a side alley, cutting off our access to the Peugeot, spraying gravel as it blocked us. Two more wolves, these burly and cropped close like Eastern Bloc prison guards, leaped out with silenced pistols drawn. The Peugeot’s driver floored it, fishtailing through the broken glass, and in the chaos, both cars vanished down the service road, trailing black streaks and howls.
Wrecker barked at Papa. “Go! They’ll double back through the tunnel under the A14.”
I looked to the backseat of the van and saw Nanette huddled in the corner weeping.
“Where’s Gwen?” I shouted over the sirens.
Wrecker didn’t look back. “Paramedics got her. Doc’s with her. He put Nanette in the van and then ran back to ride with her to the hospital.”
Papa squealed the van's tires. The van was a civilian Mercedes, nothing fancy, but he drove it like a battering ram. Weshot through a red light, horn blaring, and banked hard toward the underpass.
Parker chimed in on comms, breathless but laser-focused. “I have camera pings on both vehicles. Papa, if you cut through the next alley, you’ll intercept two blocks ahead.”
He grunted and yanked the wheel, sending us lurching over a curb and down a cobbled side street. The G-forces pinned me to the seat, but the tunnel vision was worse: every heartbeat, every breath, was a flicker of Harper’s panic, the bond sparking wild in my head. She was awake now, fighting hard, but the wolves had her boxed in.
Nanette moaned in the back seat. “Please,” she whispered. “Don’t let them take her. Don’t let them…”
The Peugeot reappeared at the next intersection, listing hard, metal grinding on pavement. Ahead, the black Dacia spun a fast U-turn, cutting off a city bus and triggering a chorus of horns. For a moment, both cars slowed in the snarl, trapped by traffic and bad luck.
Papa jammed the van into park and popped the side door. “Now!” he barked.
Wrecker and I spilled onto the street, dodging scooters and angry pedestrians. We reached the Dacia first. The two wolves inside had already spotted us, and the passenger lunged out, brandishing a pistol. Wrecker didn’t even break stride; he grabbed the man by the wrist, twisted, and slammed him face-first into the hood. I heard the pop of bone and the squeal of pain.
The driver tried to gun it, but I was already there, yanking the door open and dragging him out by his lapels. He went for my throat, but I boxed his ears, then slammed his head against the window until he sagged. All the while, my eyes tracked the Peugeot, where Harper’s pale arm flailed in the shattered window, fighting to reach the outside.
Behind me, the Dacia’s engine screamed, then stalled. I turned in time to see Wrecker use the wolf’s own pistol to shoot out the tires—one, two, three, four, fast as a metronome.
I made for the Peugeot, but the driver had recovered. He floored it again, swerving around the wrecked Dacia and aiming for the open road. I gave chase, lungs burning, but after three blocks the adrenaline ran out and the car was gone, leaving nothing but a haze of exhaust and the echo of Harper’s terror.
I dropped to my knees on the curb, gasping for breath. Wrecker caught up, bruised and bleeding. A wince marred his face.
“They got away,” I said, the words sour in my mouth.
He put a hand on my shoulder. “Not for long.”
Parker buzzed through the comm again. “I’m tracking the Peugeot—last sighting near Nanterre, heading west. They’re trying to get out of the city center, probably toward a secondary safe house. I’ll keep eyes as long as I can.”
I slumped into the passenger seat of the van, wiped the blood from my face, and tried to center myself. The bond to Harper pulsed in my head, an SOS too loud to ignore. She was scared, but she was still fighting.
That was all I needed.
Papa put the van in gear. “What’s the plan, Arsenal?” he asked.
I didn’t hesitate. “We follow. We hunt. We don’t stop until we have them back.”
Wrecker grinned a feral grin. “That’s the Arsenal I know.”
We barreled west; the city blurring past, every nerve tuned to the hunt. I didn’t know what waited at the end of the road, but I knew who’d be standing when it was over.
We were wolves, and we’d just tasted blood.
The safe house was a nondescript house at the edge of Versailles: the kind of place that got rented for cash, no questions, no lease, keys waiting in a taped envelope under a chipped terra-cotta pot. Inside, the blackout curtains filtered the noon sun to a nicotine haze, and the furniture was a random inheritance from a hundred other safe houses: a slumped corduroy sofa, a pilled rug, folding chairs around a chipped Formica table. The smell was a chemical war between bleach and ancient cigarettes, but it was safe, and for now that was enough.
We tumbled in, bloodied and wild, and the first thing I did was check the bond. Harper felt farther away than she ever had—a blip on the edge of perception, too faint to track by gut alone. I knew she was alive, but there was a coldness in it, like she’d slammed every door behind her on the way out.
Rafe’s men had picked up Doc and assembled a team to help thanks to Papa making the calls. He, Marcel, and Etienne were welcome faces. “Well, amie’s you almost got away unscathed. But it seems you just got away, and you seem to have lost precious trésor.”
I shook my head. “Not for long. Now, are you fuckers going to help get that treasure back or are you just going to continue to point out the obvious?”
