“Not dead,” I said, breathing cold into my lungs. “Alive in a cell and prosecuted.”
Mate or not, law mattered now. Proof mattered. Evidence mattered. Living witnesses mattered.
The pack grumbled; there were words in the dust afterward. Mateo’s jaw worked as Rivera read the rival his rights. Petty voices. Old rules. I walked away and found Mia waiting by Rivera’s cruiser, cheeks hollowed with exhaustion, holding herself the way a parent tries to be calm for their child.
Her eyes slid to me, to the man in cuffs, then back to me.
“You came,” she said. It wasn’t gratitude. It was a ring of accusations around a single question.
“I came,” I said. It was all the truth I planned to give.
Rivera told Mia what they’d secured—the comms, the receipts, the motel sheets. “This ties into the courier network,” she said. “We’ll have probable cause for a prosecutor.”
Mia’s fingers closed on the folder in my jacket. Her hands were small and stubborn. She sifted through printouts like someone counting coins. I wanted to touch her hand, steady her, tell her I’d never let go. Instead I listened to her breathing, counting seconds until she looked up.
“You did the right thing,” she said finally. Her voice had a cracked edge. “No blood.”
“No blood,” I agreed. “No cover-up.”
She nodded as if that solved a calculus problem. It didn’t. The world didn’t change because we chose restraint. It only changed shape—less violent perhaps, but more exposed. The police lights were honest; they would go on paper, into reports, become records.
Rivera asked Mia for a statement. She signed. I let her. I stood close enough to smell the citrus of her hand soap—the safe, homey scent that made me think of pancake mornings and bandaged knees. For a breath I wanted to pull her against me and protect her with nothing but my body. There were witnesses and cameras and men who still thought they owned violence as currency. I kept my hands where they were and let Rivera take the statement.
When the suspects were in custody and Rivera had thanked us—professionally, no softness—Tanner came up. His face said a thing that canceled out a grin and settled into a knot. “Mate,” he said, the word a warning and a benediction. “You did good.”
We’d smashed a cell of the ring. We had proof linking the courier and the burnt token to the rival’s network. We had a chain of evidence clean enough to hold in family court. Ana would like it. Ana had already texted: “Ensure chain. Keep supernatural mentions out.”
But raids bring witnesses. Patrolmen. A detective who might talk. And a pile of confiscated comms that would smell like a story to someone with a press pass.
Back at the ranch, Tanner handed me his phone. A tabloid site I’d never paid attention to had a headline up already—thin and speculative, throwing hints like bait. “Strange saviors? Rancher’s men, ‘animalistic protectors’ intervene.” The photo was shaky, a blurred image of me near the barn. The comments were louder than the article: rumors, guesses, threats disguised as outrage.
My chest tightened.
We’d handed rivals to the law. Worse: someone smelled a page and turned it into sensation. Tabloids stitch facts into monster tales. A mouthy headline could turn our chain of evidence into fodder and not a case. It could recast Mia’s victim story into something weird and dangerous in a courtroom that liked clean answers.
“Who leaked?” I asked.
Tanner shrugged. “Detective desk, maybe. Someone with a camera at the market. A friend of the rival showing off. Any of a dozen stupid sources.”
“Find them,” I said. “Lock down Rivera’s feed. Keep Ana updated. No one else touches this file.”
He knew what that meant—keep the pack quiet, keep our people from talking, keep Mia’s name out of the sensational lines. Necessary, not easy.
I called Ana. Her voice was a blade wrapped in velvet. “We’re good on the case,” she said. “But if the press angles this around anything other than criminal conspiracy, they’ll try to tie you and your people into it. The custody judge will not like fairy tales in the docket.”
Her final words slid through like ice: “If that runs, Mia’s custody could be reframed around the ‘shifter factor’ instead of the ex’s crimes.”
My mouth went dry.
I thought of Mia in Rivera’s lot, counting receipts like rosary beads. I thought of Leo—small, stubborn, trusting in a way that made something ache behind my ribs. I thought of the rival alpha in cuffs and the photographer who’d seen a grocery list and turned it into a monster.
There are fights I know how to win with my hands. This one would require law and silence, a kind of careful diplomacy older than scent-marking or howl.
Ana softened. “You did the right thing, Caleb. But move fast to control the narrative.”
“We will,” I said. I didn’t tell her I was already thinking in chains and wire and men who could keep mouths shut until subpoenas landed. I didn’t tell her how quick my pack would obey if I gave the order to bite.
Instead I thought of Mia’s folder. I counted the seconds until the first reporter called. I wanted to be ruthless with the world, to tear it down and rebuild it safe. Tonight I would let the law run. Tonight I would swallow the animal hunger and use an instrument that left scars on paper, not flesh.
