She started toward him before he’d even managed to crawl his way out of the pile of furniture. She growled long and low, making him glance up. His face turned white, and he almost fell backward again. She probably looked like a monster to him, but she didn’t care. He was the monster, not her.
“What did you mean you didn’t let Geraldo get in the way?” she growled, her claws flexing and clenching. “What did you do to my brother?”
Eyes wide, Ernesto backpedaled, shoving some of the chair/desks in her path to slow her down. “I didn’t mean it that way. I didn’t.”
“Stop lying!” she roared, tossing them out of the way. “Tell me what you did.”
Ernesto kept retreating until his back finally hit the wall. He glanced left and right, but there was nowhere for him to go. “I don’t know what happened to you, but we can fix you. We can take you to a priest, or a doctor, or someone else who can help you. I know you’re still in there, and I still love you.”
Selena grabbed the last chair/desk combo in her way and slung it across the room so hard, it bounced off the wall and smashed through one of the new window panes. Eva was going to be so pissed.
“Tell me what you did to my brother,” she snarled, halting in front of him.
Ernesto reached behind his back and came out with a handgun, his hand shaking like a leaf as he pointed it at her. She knocked the weapon away, gouging three shallow lines across the inside of his wrist with her claws.
He jerked his hand back, staring at her in terror. A noise from somewhere outside almost distracted her, her wolf sense telling her there was something going on out there. But she ignored it, focused only on the man in front of her.
“Last chance,” she warned.
“I wanted to go out with you,” Ernesto shouted. “I’d wanted you for a long time, but I waited until you were old enough. Geraldo said no. He said no gangbanger—not even me—was going to touch his sister.”
She stopped. The omega inside screamed at her to kill Ernesto, to shove her claws into his chest and rip him apart. But the human part of her wanted to hear the rest.
“So you shot him?” she demanded. “Because he didn’t want you going out with me and dragging me into the gangs? What about the whole gang war after that? Getting out and going straight? Was that all a lie, too?”
He nodded, taking a deep breath to get himself together. “I didn’t mean for it to happen, but when everyone assumed Geraldo’s death was gang related, I went along with it. When it was all said and done, both of the old gangs were pretty much wiped out anyway. So I swept up the pieces and used them to grow my custom car empire. I got rich doing the same shit I always did. I just did it while wearing a suit.”
She shook her head. He’d lied to her the whole time. The man she’d thought of as a brother had taken away the only other family besides her grandmother she’d had left in the world.
“Why leave the country now?” she asked, fighting to control the urge to kill him. “If you had it all figured out, why run?”
“I got greedy and became personally involved in my latest business venture. The profit potential was huge, but things went to hell when that damned cop boyfriend of yours showed up.”
At first, Selena thought Ernesto was talking about the hunter’s attack on the SWAT compound, but then she realized what this was about. “The energy drink spiked with drugs? That was you?”
He shrugged. “I was set to make millions on that stuff. With the way kids love energy drinks, it would have started a whole new wave in the drug trade.”
The casual way he justified selling drugs to kids sickened her.
“Ruben almost died drinking that stuff,” she said. “Two other people at that same party did die.”
He smirked. “You know the saying…drink responsibly.”
Selena bared her fangs in a snarl. “I should just kill you and do the world a favor.”
Chapter 20
“Can’t you drive any faster?” Brooks growled as Zane’s BMW slid through a curve, fishtailed a bit, then straightened up and accelerated…still moving too damn slow.
“Not unless you want to arrive at the school with a long string of patrol cars on our arse, lights flashing and sirens blaring.”
Brooks responded with another growl, longer, lower, and much more frustrated.
“She’s going to be okay.” Zane slowed down to something that vaguely resembled a stop as they passed through a busy intersection. “She’s more than capable of taking care of herself. She’s a bloody omega, remember? If Ernesto is dumb enough to try to hurt her, she’ll likely kill him.”
Brooks knew that, too, but it didn’t necessarily make him feel any better. Selena was everything to him. The idea of her being scared, even if she could protect herself, tore his insides into pieces.
He and Zane had been at the hospital waiting with the rest of their task force members for Ray to come out of surgery. The older cop had only gone into the operating room an hour ago, and they’d all known they were in for a long night, but no one was going anywhere. The doctors had said all the right things about Ray being stable and in good hands, but everyone had still been worried. Ray was no spring chicken.
