I step closer, my voice firm. “We’ll handle it. You’re not doing this alone.”
She turns to me, eyes meeting mine, and the challenge makes my alpha want to…purr?
“Why? Why are you doing this?”
I stare at her for a long moment, my chest tight with a thousand things I don’t know how to say. Finally, I settle on the truth. “You’re ours. Pack takes care of pack.”
She turns away, but not before I see her cheeks flush.
I’m turning to head back to the lead detective, ready to demand a full rundown, when my gaze locks with Dane’s on the gallery floor.
He doesn’t even speak loudly, and yet his voice has a quality that makes every head in the room turn.
“Rett.”
I meet his gaze across the gallery floor. He’s standing near one of the damaged paintings, his posture rigid, his eyes locked on something at the base of the frame.
He doesn’t need to say anything else. I see it in his expression. The cold, controlled fury of an alpha that has just caught the scent of a direct threat to his pack.
I cross the room, weaving through the scattered debris. Dane steps back just enough to let me see what he’s found, his jaw flexing in tightly reined anger.
It’s spray paint. A single word scrawled in red across the bottom corner of the frame, crude and ugly against the elegant brushstrokes above it.
BITCH.
The word hangs in the air, the sharpness of it cutting through the chaos of the gallery.
Behind me, there’s a sharp intake of breath. “My god,” Helen gasps, her hand flying to her mouth. “It must be one of my competitors. They’ve been trying to poach my clients for months! There are people in this city who would do anything to see this gallery fail. Anything!”
I look back at her briefly, but my focus shifts immediately to Zoe.
She’s standing a few feet away, her face pale, her arms crossed tightly over her chest as if she’s holding herself together. She doesn’t say anything, but I can feel the weight of her silence. The tension rolling off her in waves.
Dane’s gaze flicks to me, then to Zoe, then back to the spray paint. He doesn’t need to explain. None of us does.
We all know who this is really about.
“It wasn’t a robbery,” Dane says, his voice low and lethal. “It was a message.”
Helen looks between us, confusion etched on her face. “But—what does that mean? Who would?—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I cut her off. My focus is locked on Zoe, who’s staring at the word like it’s burned into her vision.
I step closer to her, lowering my voice. “You’re not staying alone tonight.”
She blinks, finally looking up at me. “Rett, I can’t just?—”
“It’s not up for debate.” My alpha is snarling, but I try to keep my tone gentle. “This wasn’t random, Zoe. They knew what they were doing, and they knew who they were targeting.”
Her throat bobs as she swallows hard, her eyes flicking back to the word on the painting. “You don’t know that,” she whispers, but there’s no conviction in her voice.
I step even closer, lowering my voice so only she can hear. “Yes. I do.”
For a moment, she looks like she’s about to argue. But then her shoulders sag, and she nods, her voice barely audible. “Okay. Just… just for tonight.”
Behind us, Diego, Tristan, and Dane are already there.
It’s instinct. Pack instinct.
