I kept my mouth shut.
When she leaned forward, her gaze speared into each of us in turn, her vow burning in her eyes before the words even left her mouth. “I’m not giving up on this. These people, this group, this man, will pay tenfold for what they’ve done. With. Fucking. Interest.”
Her words slammed into me, pounding in my chest like a second heartbeat. Judging by the sharp grins that spread across the room, the same was true for the others. Bloodlust pooled between us, an unspoken pact, a shared hunger.
This was why Ezra sat at the head of the table—not just her ruthless patience or her razor-wire planning, but her refusal to bend once she set her mind. She carried her promises like iron chains, and none of us doubted her ability to drag an enemy straight to hell with them. Whoever had made the mistake of touching what was ours was already dead. They just didn’t know it yet.
“Until then,” she went on, her jaw tightening, “keep your eyes wide open. Anything out of the ordinary, you chase it. I don’t want another situation like Aniyah’s happening again.”
The way her teeth ground on Niyah’s name made it clear that Ezra took the attack as a personal insult, a challenge she intended to answer in blood.
We nodded as one, and the tension in the room softened when she gave us one of her rare, precious smiles. Ezra’s real smiles weren’t the polished kind she gave to outsiders; they were raw, private things. The kind that saidyou’re mine, I’m proud of you,orI got this.
“Now,” she said, the steel never leaving her tone, “one last thing.” Her attention landed squarely on me. “With everything you’ve got going on, I hate to put this on your shoulders, but I got word from one of my legitimate branches. They need help finding someone who’s gone missing. The last place he was seen was at one of your fight nights in Montana. Can you handle this?”
“Of course.” I straightened, my voice steady with the conviction she deserved. I’d never deny her, not when she asked like that.
“I’ll send you the information in the next few minutes. Keep me updated.”
“You got it,” I said. Needing something to distract me from my own nerves, I was already anticipating the hunt. “After I review the details, I’ll handle it myself.”
Ezra gave a single sharp nod of approval before leaning back in her chair. “Good.” Her gaze swept over the rest of the table. “Anything else to add?”
Silence answered her. One by one, we shook our heads, falling back under her command. She laid out the time for the next meeting, precise as always, then dismissed us.
The moment the call cut, an email chimed. Ezra’s name lit across my screen, and I didn’t waste a second before diving in. She had chosen the right woman for this job. If anyone could sniff out the missing, it was me, and I would not disappoint her.
5
NOVA
“Reece Walton. Twenty-nine. Turned werewolf five years ago. Blond hair, brown eyes, medium build. Works for Rathvan, a wayward house for newly turned wolves.” Zeth paused, then read more. “Last seen Friday the seventeenth at eleven p.m., Whitefish fight night. Wearing a brown leather jacket, denim jeans, and black steel-toed boots.”
Zeth skimmed the file and let out a low whistle. “Turned wolves who actually live past their first change aren’t exactly thick on the ground. He should stand out.”
Werewolves, like vampires, weren’t some ancient race carved out of myth. They were mutations. A demon’s deal in the wrong hands, a mage’s spell layered on top, and humanity suddenly had a new branch on the tree. One that could be passed down through bloodlines or forced onto a body when the supe DNA mixed into a human's bloodstream.
Being born with it was easier; your body adapted from the start, and you had a lot more support on how to control yourself and your urges. Being turned was different, like jamming a new operating system into hardware that wasn’t built for it.Most crashed and burned before they ever made it through the transition. That was why turned wolves and vamps were rare.
Those who survived carried a mark all their own. You could sense it in the aura they put off, the smell in the air around them. Like a human skin was stretched over a wild and restless wolf body, just waiting for its moment to bust out.
“If he was that easy to find,” I muttered, tightening my grip on the wheel, “Ezra would’ve already had him.”
His job at Rathvan set alarms buzzing in the back of my mind, and I finally understood the connection to Ezra. It fit her recruitment playbook to a T.
She was always planting roots in projects that looked noble on the surface—orphans, shelters, scholarship programs, training centers. On paper, they were lifelines. In practice, they were hooks. People ate because of her, slept under her roof, and learned skills on her dime. Gratitude turned into loyalty, and loyalty made good foot soldiers. By the time the Syndicate asked for payback, you were already in too deep to walk away.
“Does it say why he was here?” I asked, flicking a glance at the file. “Last I saw, he was based in San Diego.”
Zeth flipped a few pages. “Came for the brother of a dead friend. Robert Delton—human, got strung out, OD’d. His brother Jeremy hit the bottle hard one night and wandered into the wrong woods, wrong night, ended up under someone's claws, and was turned. Reece lived with him for a while, helped him get on his feet, then Jeremy found work here in Montana. Looks like Reece just kept tabs on him… until about a week ago when he finally showed up.”
I nodded, trying to wrap my head around the situation. “We got a work-up on Jeremy?”
One question kept circling in my skull. Why had Reece needed to come all the way here to check on him? A phone call could’ve done it. Hell, a damn video call would’ve been better, but no, he flew out, showed up in person, then vanished. That reeked of something wrong, and the only one who could possibly have the answers was Jeremy.
Zeth tapped at his phone, exhaling sharply. “Not yet. He kept himself off the radar, cash only. Everything under the table, nothing that left a trail. I’ve got guys digging, but he’s slippery.”
I ran my tongue along my teeth. The more I heard about Jeremy, the more I was convinced that he was the pin in the grenade. Find him, and we’d find Reece.
