Instead of maintaining the status quo, they had made Vegas their home base while setting up lieutenants and interconnected groups to handle day-to-day operations across the United States. That expansion had extended the Syndicate’s reach, pushing into suburbs and outskirts that had previously gone unmanaged.
For their generation, most of the pictures and videos, evidence as to how they ran the Syndicate, had been scrubbed from the internet. A small few had been left out there, feeling more like a purposeful warning than something forgotten about.
One video showed Avery Glovefox leaning against a wall, twirling a wedding ring on his finger as he sang a haunting song.The werewolf in front of him held a knife to his own chest, carving out letters to the song Avery was singing. He screamed as the blade sliced up his skin and bones until, finally, he’d torn out his own heart and collapsed. Avery then walked up to the body on the ground and crushed the heart beneath his shoe, all while complaining about getting blood on his wife’s new gift.
It wasn’t until they had Calix, Ezra, Nova, Riot, and Aniyah that those kinds of videos and photos stopped appearing publicly. My guess was that even criminal parents wanted to limit what their kids saw of them. Still, there were stacks of eyewitness accounts and he-said/she-said tales suggesting everything remained vicious and bloody—just not for public consumption.
It wasn't until five years ago that the kids had officially taken over, seizing their parents’ seats and spreading out from their central base in Vegas, reclaiming the locations their grandparents had previously vacated. Each of them had taken over the faction that best suited their skills rather than simply inheriting the seat that “belonged” to their species, which rocked the Syndicate status quo.
Even with the distance, the Syndicate bosses operated as one organization, but it did appear Ezra Desmond had assumed the head leadership role.
She ran the money side of the Syndicate, though she was handling it differently from her predecessors, rubbing elbows with human politicians and big-business CEOs. She’d launched a string of Syndicate-funded orphanages for supe children, as well as other charities, while also setting up legitimate business ventures. It seemed her goal was to change the Syndicate’s reputation from a bunch of thugs to affluent business owners and entrepreneurs.
When I asked around, although it was clear the Syndicate still struck fear into most supes’ hearts, public opinion had started to shift. Some praised the newer generation for creating clean jobs and supporting the supe community; others condemned them for trying to infiltrate human businesses and blurring the clear species lines.
I figured that was why my captain had it out for Nova, wanting me to focus on her operation and report if any humans were involved and/or harmed. He didn’t care if she mercilessly beat and killed other supes. He wanted me to find any dirt that could be considered a breach of the treaty so he could kick her out of the state.
He was not alone in his feelings against supes.
Hell, I’d always felt an ache of resentment that crawled beneath my skin whenever I saw supes swagger through town like they owned it. Their superiority wasn’t subtle. The glances, the smirks, the way they moved as if the ground bent for them. Just because they were faster and stronger didn’t mean they were better. Didn’t mean they could look down on us humans.
This had been my family’s home long before their kind arrived with their shiny cars and modern mansions, building over land we’d bled for. They prowled the streets in packs, confident, untouchable. The human kids around here had started mimicking them—picking fights, posturing like wolves. I’d seen what that imitation turned into. Infected everything. Beatings ended up going too far. Aggression rose with no purpose. Poor humans turning to them, willing to work underneath them for just a scrap of that power and money. It was manipulation and chaos.
Becoming a cop had felt like a way to take back some of that power, to reinstate order when the world had gone wild.
But that illusion hadn’t lasted long.
Flashes of the night I was turned still tore through me. Claws raking my back, the girl under the brush crying for help as the forest filled with unnatural growls that no normal animal could make. I’d carried her out of there, bleeding and shaking. I’d saved her but condemned myself. That first night, the pain that had ripped through me was unbearable. The tearing of skin, the unrelenting fire that burned in my veins until I was covered in fur and standing on four legs. Everything had changed.
In just one night, a single claw mark to my back, and I was no longer on the outside looking in. I was the monster I’d spent my life hating.
I could still feel the ache in my knuckles from that first shift, how the bones broke and reshaped, how my lungs burned. The next morning, I’d woken up naked, caked in dirt and blood, a mangled deer sprawled beside me. I’d stared at it for hours, waiting for the nausea to come, but what I’d really felt instead was fear because, deep down, some part of meliked it.
The strength. The clarity. The wild pulse in my veins that whispered, “You belong to this now.”
Clenching my fists, I reminded myself that I was human. Took a few slow, deep breaths to ground myself. To focus.
The mission. Infiltrate the Syndicate. Gather proof. It should be easy, especially now that I’d caught her attention.
Mate.
The word pulsed inside my skull, the beast’s low growl curling through my head. I shoved him down hard, burying him under the same walls I’d built to hold back everything else.
Mate?I almost laughed. I didn’t know anything about that. Didn’twantto. But the image of her body against the forest floor lingered. The memory of her heat against mine, her scent that took over my senses, the way her gaze dared me to try to resist.
I wasn’t a beast. I was a man. A cop. I didn’t stalk women, didn’t take what wasn’t offered, didn’twantto throw her to the ground and fuck her until she forgot her own name and only called out mine.
Except I did.
The thought had acid crawling up my throat.
My gaze landed on the Armani suit she’d sent, still in the box, smooth and immaculate. Earlier, I’d run my hand over the fabric, afraid to touch it too long, afraid I’d ruin it. Was this her idea of control? To show off what she could do? What she could buy me?
I should be disgusted, should throw the suit into the dumpster, but my legs and arms wouldn't move. A single thought had completely captured my mind.Why do I crave her attention?
Lifting my arm without thinking, I inhaled my skin, filling my lungs with her even as I hated it. Her scent, wildflowers and sweet honey, still clung to me from our fuck in the woods, and I couldn’t stop gulping it down. I wouldn’t have pegged that scent for her, not with the way she carried herself, but somehow, it fit. Somehow, it felt like itshouldbe hers.
And worse, it felt like it should bemine.
