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“Family is like that.”
She doesn’t answer right away. Her gaze has slipped farther away again.
“Crow loved that place,” she says after a moment. “It’s only been a few weeks since Lexi offered it to him, but… He named it after his mother. He’d just— He’d finally built something that was his. And Ramsey walked in with a can of accelerant, and—” She stops. Sets her wine down. “He knew what he was doing. That's the part I can’t stop thinking about. When he saw that sign, he knew exactly what that place meant to Crow, and he chose it anyway. Or because of it.”
“Yes,” I say. Because she’s right, and she knows she’s right, and the last thing she needs is me placating her.
“That’s not a man who wants territory,” she says quietly. “That's not a man at all. That’s a monster who wants to cause pain.”
“Territory and pain,” I say. “Both can be true.”
She looks at me. “I guess Franco and Vincenzo were proof of that.”
“You managed to stop them,” I point out.
“This feels different. Ramsey and I…we were friends. Family even. This hits harder. It’s personal.”
“Is that why he’s targeting you?”
She blinks. “What do you mean?” In that instant, whatever’s behind her eyes shutters, and I know she knows.
“He didn’t call the alphas, Mia. He called you.”
She sighs. “Yeah. He thinks I’m the weak link.”
“I don’t believe that for a second, and neither do you.”
“It could be true,” she protests. “Take out the strategist and—”
“Uh-uh. You forget I’ve seen you in action. It only took me one night to see what a force you are to be reckoned with.”
Her eyes soften. In them, I see that night we shared. The promise I made when I walked away. Mia needed to fight that war on her own. But I made no such promises about this one.
“He wants you to work for his side, doesn’t he?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer, but we both know I’m right.
“Ramsey’s had a lifetime to see your strength,” I add. “That he chose you to target—to recruit—speaks volumes.”
“When we were kids, he was always a live wire, but… back then, I could wrangle him,” she says quietly. There’s pain and nostalgia in her eyes now, like she both loves and hates these memories she shares with him. “If he went too far, I could yank him back. Sometimes with a lecture. Sometimes with a kick in the ass. But this is going to be harder than that.”
“Harder because of that,” I say.
“Yes. And the serum will make him more difficult.”
“But it won’t last forever,” I tell her, and my tone makes her straighten.
“What do you mean?”
“Artificial dominance without the psychological foundation to support it does things to a wolf’s aggression that are hard to predict and harder to control.”
“We saw that,” she admits. “With Grey.”
That gives me pause. “It’s hard to believe Grey would take something like that.”
“He didn’t. He absorbed it when he—” She breaks off, looking quickly away.
“When he killed Franco?” I finish, brows raised.
