“No,” Austin whispered, shaking his head. Devastated by the sudden wave of guilt washing across his features.
But Nolan nodded. “She wanted to be like you two. She wanted to be trulywithyou. And she knew you wouldn’t do it. I was the only other shifter she knew. So she offered me cash. She was desperate, and I needed the money.” He shrugged. “And I figured it should be her choice. I didn’t hurt her. I swear I barely broke the skin. She wasn’t even scared. She looked…relieved. It’s what she wanted, and if it wasn’t me, she’d have found someone else. Youhaveto know that.” Another shrug. “So I did it. She gave me the cash, and I shifted so I could bite her. Then I shifted back while she bandaged the wound, and we went our separate ways. That was it.”
“Youmotherfucker,” Bishop snarled.
“I’m sorry she didn’t make it. Truly. But that’s not on me. She made her choice. And the whole damn thing was her idea.” Nolan exhaled, pain etching lines across his forehead. “Turns out that’s more of a choice than my sister got.”
“Oh my god,” Austin whispered. “Goddamnit, Yvette.”
“I worried that’s what Davey had done,” I told them. “It wasn’t. Cam took her. But the idea stuck with me, because it felt…plausible. Like something my sistermighthave done, if she’d gotten desperate enough. And it seemed to fit with Yvette’s cash withdrawal.”
“We didn’t find any money,” Tucker said. “Nothing new in Nolan’s accounts.”
“I put it in my mother’s account.” Nolan aimed his words at the floor, shame threaded through them. “To replace what I borrowed from her and lost at a riverboat casino in Missouri.”
“For the record...” I glanced at Vance, who held up his phone, where he’d been recording the whole thing. “Do you confess to biting Yvette Graham-Mattheson?”
“Yeah,” Nolan said, and his voice sounded thick with fear. He knew what was coming. “But she asked me to. Shepaidme to. It was what she wanted.”
“But you knew it was against shifter law?” I prompted, and he nodded. “And that it would likely lead to her death? Aloud, please.”
“Yes, I knew. But shouldn’t she get to make that choice for herself?”
“That’s not at issue here,” I said. Though it was certainly starting to feel likeanissue. “The fact is that you took cash payment from a human woman in exchange for infecting her, when you knew that was against the law. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“And then you lied about that repeatedly during interrogation, and you took specific measures to hide your crime?”
“Yeah.” Nolan shrugged. “What else was I supposed to do?”
“You were supposed to not kill my fucking wife!” Bishop roared.
“I think that’s enough,” Jace said, and Vance stopped the recording. “It’s on tape, and we have six witnesses.”
“So can I kill him now?” Bishop demanded, and I could practically feel the rage pouring out of him, like heat emanating from a blaze. “I don’t want a gun. I want my hands around his goddamn throat. He fucking confessed.”
“That’s Titus’s call,” I said.
Bishop turned on me, gesturing angrily at Cam’s corpse. “Why wasn’t that Titus’s call?”
“It was. We had authorization to execute, after we got a confession. But he doesn’t know about Nolan yet. We have to do this right, Bishop. The council has…standards. And our methodshaveto stand up.”
Nolan groaned, and I turned to see him curled into a ball, tucked into one corner of his cell, as far as he could get from the puddle of blood beneath Cam’s corpse.
“Titus will be here soon. In the meantime, we have work to do.”
By the time Titus arrived, we’d removed Cam’s body and cleaned up the blood. When the sun went down, we would bury him next to his father.
This time, though, I had no urge to participate in that myself. I wasn’t willing to leave Davey.
“It doesn’t look good,” Titus said, seated in one of the guest chairs across from my desk. Jace sat next to him, but everyone else was in the bar. Waiting. “Two killers in one territory, both infecting and killing human women.”
“Only one was a serial,” Jace pointed out.
“And we caught both of them,” I added. “Doesn’t that part look good?”
Titus sighed, running his hands down the front of his slacks. “That’ll certainly help me put a positive spin on it. Have you sent the confessions?”
