"Can you determine if it was actively transmitting?" Finn moves closer, tactical mind already calculating consequences.
"Give me five minutes." Rafe pulls out diagnostic equipment and starts analyzing the camera's internal components.
Those five minutes stretch into eternity. I watch Rafe work while my tiger paces beneath my skin, agitated and violent, sensing the trap closing around us. The syndicate has evidence. Maybe not clear footage of faces or identifiable features, but enough to confirm their suspicions. Enough to know the warehouse operation was compromised. Enough to deduce that someone inside their organization is bleeding information to enemies.
"It was transmitting." Rafe's voice shatters what little hope remained. "Active signal until approximately twenty-three hundred hours. Then it went dark when the power was cut."
"What did they see?" Finn demands.
"Grainy footage. Poor lighting. But they would have seen movement at the north entrance. They would have seen vehicles positioned for extraction. They would have seen cargo being loaded while the transaction proceeded at the south loading dock." Rafe sets the camera down carefully, like it's evidence in a trial that hasn't happened yet. "The feed went dark when Finn killed the power, but combined with Catriona's investigation pattern and her presence at the warehouse tonight, the syndicate can deduce she's working with us."
Everything slots together with brutal clarity. The Russians suspected something was wrong. They planted surveillance to watch their own operation. They captured footage of the extraction. They know she's investigating their trafficking network. Her involvement threatens their infrastructure enough to warrant elimination.
And now Dimitri and his entire crew are dead, which means the syndicate will send someone to investigate. Someone powerful. Someone who won't accept convenient explanations or rival crew theories.
"We're compromised." The admission burns on my tongue. "They know someone inside their organization is workingagainst them. They have proof linking Catriona to tonight's operation. When they send people to investigate, they'll connect the dots."
"Not if we control the narrative." Finn's voice carries authority. "We make this look like internecine violence. Russians killing Russians over territory or payment disputes. Whoever they send will find exactly what we want them to find."
My phone buzzes against my thigh. Unknown number. International area code I recognize from previous syndicate communications.
I answer without speaking.
"Kian O'Donnell." The voice on the other end blends Russian accent with something older, darker, more dangerous than mob hierarchy.
"We need to discuss what happened tonight. I'm sure you have many questions. I have answers. And perhaps we can reach an understanding about mutual interests."
The line goes dead before I can respond.
Thirty seconds later, my phone buzzes again. A photo from surveillance. Catriona at her desk in the police station, reviewing files, completely unaware she was being watched. The syndicate knows exactly who's investigating them.
I stare at the image, cataloging every detail with predator focus. The angle suggests the camera was positioned high, probably in the corner of her office near the ceiling. Professional placement. Long-term surveillance, not a quick snapshot. She's leaning over case files, one hand holding a pen, the other pushing hair back from her face in that gesture I've seen her make a dozen times when she's concentrating. The timestamp in the corner shows it was taken three days ago, before the warehouse operation, before she knew what she was really up against.
They've been watching her. Documenting her movements. Building a file on the cop who threatened their operations. And now they're letting me know they have that file, that they can reach her whenever they want, that she's vulnerable in ways she doesn't even understand yet.
Below the image:We should talk about mutual interests.
My tiger roars inside me, demanding blood and violence and the elimination of anyone who dares threaten what's ours. They photographed her at work. They know who she is, what she does, where to find her. The message is clear: they can reach her whenever they want.
The claiming urge slams into me with force that nearly doubles me over. My tiger wants her marked, claimed, bound to us in ways that would make the syndicate's threats irrelevant because she'd be protected by everything I am. Forcing a claiming bond would destroy whatever trust exists between us, but my tiger doesn't care. She's in danger and the solution is simple, primal, permanent.
I grip the phone hard enough that the screen cracks under my thumb. Silver mist starts swirling around my clenched fist, responding to the tiger's fury, threatening transformation I can't afford right now. The beast wants out, wants to hunt down whoever sent this message and tear them apart the way we tore apart the Russians at the warehouse. Wants to track Catriona's scent back to the safe house and claim her before the syndicate can touch her.
"What is it?" Finn's voice cuts through the fury.
I force the need for violence back down, shove the tiger into submission with effort that leaves me shaking. Then I show him the phone. The photo. The message. The threat wrapped in civilized language.
His expression hardens. "They're escalating. That's not a local crew's play—that's orders from higher up in the organization."
"Someone will come." My voice comes out rough. "Someone powerful enough to get answers about what happened to Dimitri."
"And when they do, everything we've built will be at risk." Finn's jaw tightens. "We need to be ready."
Blood still stains my skin from the earlier violence, dried now but permanent in the way trauma leaves marks that never fully fade. I killed six men tonight. Tore them apart with tiger claws and human weapons. Crossed lines that can't be uncrossed.
"Cleanup continues as planned." Finn's voice pulls me back to immediate concerns. "We finish sanitizing this scene and prepare for whoever they send, because when they arrive, everything we've built will be at risk."
The brotherhood moves with practiced efficiency, destroying traces of our involvement and arranging corpses to tell the story we need them to tell. Shell casings disappear. Blood patterns get altered. The Russian surveillance camera gets dismantled and destroyed, its footage lost in the chaos of internecine violence that never actually happened.
