“Dad.” My voice comes out thin. Strained. “Dad, please. I need you to stop.”
He doesn’t look up from the monitor right away. When he does, his expression is steady. Not cold, but… removed. A doctor looking at data, not his daughter.
“Three more minutes,” he says. “You can do three more minutes, Iris. Remember why we’re here. What we’re working toward.”
I close my eyes. Three more minutes. I can do three more minutes.
I repeat it to myself like a prayer, gripping the chair until my knuckles ache, breathing through teeth clenched so tight my jaw screams. Three more minutes. Three more minutes and this part is over, and I can go home and crawl into bed and remind myself it’s worth it. That one day, all of this will be worth it.
3
DECLAN
We followthe truck at a distance.
It’s not hard. The road out here is long and straight, cutting through miles of forest with nowhere to turn off. We don’t need to stay close—Kyran’s people have already confirmed the route Dr. Moore takes home every night, and it hasn’t changed once. The man is a creature of habit. Same truck, same time, same road. You’d think someone running illegal experiments on shifters would mix-up his routine every once in a while. I guess arrogance has a way of making people predictable.
Cole drives. Zeke rides shotgun. Kyran and two of his bears follow in a second vehicle, headlights off. I sit in the back seat with my window cracked because that scent is still out there. Faint, but present and pulling at my mind. I can’t shake it. I don’t want to, which bothers me more than the scent itself.
I press my forehead against the cool glass and watch the taillights ahead of us, two red dots winding through the dark. Focus. That’s what I need right now. Focus on the mission; focus on the plan. Follow him home. Wait for the house to go dark. Move in. After that, we deliver a message he won’t be able to ignore.
The truck turns off the main road after another twenty minutes, onto a private drive that winds uphill through thick rows of towering oak trees whose branches form a canopy overhead. When the trees thin out, I get my first clear look at the house.
It’s not a mansion, but close. Two stories, stone and timber, with a wide wraparound porch. There’s a detached garage, a garden that’s been put to bed for the season. It resembles a real home where a family like mine might live. I can’t make the image match to what I know about the man who owns it.
Cole pulls off the road well before we reach the driveway, easing our vehicle into a gap between the trees where it won’t be visible from the house. He kills the engine before Kyran’s SUV slides in behind us, silent as a ghost.
“There,” Zeke says quietly, nodding toward the house.
The truck has pulled into the driveway. The driver’s side door opens, and Dr. Moore steps out. Even from a distance, I recognize him from the photos Kyran’s contacts provided—tall, thin, silver-haired, moving with the speed of a man who considers every wasted second a personal offense.
But he doesn’t go inside. He walks around to the passenger side, and that’s when I realize he’s not alone.
The passenger door opens, and a girl stumbles out, catching herself on the doorframe. Moore is by her side immediately.
She’s small. Blonde hair falls around her face, shoulders hunched looking as if she’s cold, hurting or both. She leans into him as they make their way toward the front door, her feet unsteady on the gravel until he practically has to carry her to the porch and up the steps.
Something swells in my chest. Not the anxiety I’ve been carrying for weeks. Something sharper. A tightening behind my ribs that has nothing to do with the plan and everything to do with the way she’s moving. Barely holding on to consciousness.
“Who is that?” Cole asks, lowering his binoculars.
“His daughter.” Kyran’s voice comes through the cracked window from where he’s standing beside our vehicle. “Iris.”
So that’s her. My thoughts turn to the reports I’ve reviewed. Twenty-one. Lives with him, works at the facility in some role or another.
Knowing it and seeing her for myself are two different things. I watch Moore guide her through the front door before it swings shut. His daughter, and she could barely stand.
What the hell is he doing to her in that place?
I shove the question down. She’s not my problem. The mission is, and the mission is clear: get to Moore, deliver the message, get out. Whatever’s going on with his daughter is a separate issue that has nothing to do with my pack.
So why can’t I stop staring at the front door?
“Declan.” Cole’s watching me again, wearing that same frown from earlier. “You good?”
“Fine.” I pull my gaze away from the house. “We wait for the lights.”
It takes over an hour before any lights move through the house—downstairs first, then upstairs, room to room. I track them, building a rough layout in my head. Kitchen on the left, living room on the right. Staircase in the center.
