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“What comes next,” he says, “is your choice. Join me, or keep watching people you protect die. Those are the options.”

“There’s a third option.”

“Is there?”

“I find you,” I say, the threat lacing my voice. “And I end this.”

Another pause. Longer this time.

“I look forward to seeing you try,” he says. And hangs up.

I stand there for a moment with the phone in my hand and the smell of smoke in my hair and the shaking in my hands that I cannot make stop.

Then Nash is there.

Not touching me. Just close. His voice low enough that only I can hear it. “Talk to me.”

“I’m fine.”

“Mia.”

“I'm—” The word fractures somewhere in the middle. I press my lips together. Look at the burned-out shell that is Solano’s. The sign that isn’t there anymore. “He’s not going to stop,” I say. “Crow. Claire. He'll go after Dutch next, or Razor, or—” My voice cracks, so I drop to a whisper, determined to keep my shit together out here. “He knows exactly where to cut me.”

Nash doesn’t tell me it’s going to be okay. He doesn’t offer reassurances or tactical optimism or any of the things people say when they don’t know what else to do.

He just says, “Then we find him first.”

And something about the way he says we, like it’s already decided, like I am not in this alone, like the weight I’ve been carrying has a second set of hands on it whether I asked for that or not, does something to the shaking.

It doesn’t stop it.

But it helps.

I look at him. He looks back, steady and unhurried, soot from the scene faint on his jaw and dark on his hands.

“Okay,” I say. “But when we get him, he answers to me.”

8

NASH

The first sign Mia is not okay is that she lets me drive. The second is her shaking hands. The third is her soft eyes as she stares at nothing in particular on the way over. I don’t mention any of them out loud, but I tuck them away into my mental file labeled “understanding Mia Reyes.”

At the scene of the fire, I watch her soften for her friends Crow and Claire. Then I watch her harden into a weapon when she takes that phone call.

It’s Ramsey; I know it without having to ask.

Nor do I have to ask why he’d call her with his threats instead of the pack alphas. After all of one day observing the mafia pack, it’s clear Mia’s their biggest asset. It doesn’t surprise me at all that Ramsey would target her directly. It’s what I would do if I wanted to shake them up. Or recruit her to my side. I wonder which game he’s playing or if he’s fine with either outcome.

I don’t mention any of that. Instead, I watch and give her space. And when the call ends, I’m already beside her, offering the only thing I can: myself as a weapon against her enemies.

It seems to help. Or at least bring her back to herself.

Then, I hang back while she speaks to Crow again. The way his face flushes with fury. Then Razor and Dutch arrive, and the four of them disappear for a few minutes. I’m glad she has people who care about her, but by the time she returns, my wolf is anxious to be the one at her side again.

I still can’t quite believe fate has brought us back together again, however threatening those reasons are. I never expected a second chance with the red-haired goddess before me, but I’d be an idiot to let it pass me by again.

The three males veer off, heading for the law enforcement still securing the scene. Mia aims for me, which pleases me more than it should. When she walks up, I shove my hands into my pockets to keep from reaching for her. My fingers close around her car keys in my front pants pocket.