“I hope your dear cousin isn’t one of those involved in collusion, conspiracy to aid and abet serial killers, and money laundering,” Claudia said quietly. “I also hope you aren’t on that list because then we’d have to find a replacement for you both as a cop and on the Coalition.”
“You’re behind this or Kamari is,” he growled. “Sam will pay if I lose my job or any of us are arrested.”
“Better be careful,” Claudia told him as she strolled to the door and gripped the knob. “You might end up as invisible as Jericho.”
“You know Sam killed him, don’t you? And you’re withholding that from the Coalition, which is punishable by—”
“Report me,” she said mockingly. “I don’t give a shit any more than I care if Sam did kill Jericho because the more I learn about the kind of bastard he was, the more I rejoice at his death.”
“You bitch,” he snarled and came to stand toe-to-toe with her, eyes snapping with rage. “You think you and those coyote butches can take over this town, you have another thought coming. I’m going to make sure you’re buried.”
“When you get out those shovels, make sure you dig your own grave first,” Claudia told him softly. “Because you can’t take all three of us on and survive, even with Astor and Forbes’ help.”
“Watch me.”
“Coyotes don’t lay down for wolves, especially we alphas.” She pulled open the door. “Have a good day and try not to get hit by any arrest warrants.” She gave the empty space a pointed look before meeting his gaze.
Jenner snarled and stepped over the threshold only to turn to look at her. “You’re going to regret sticking your nose in this, Mayer.”
“The only regret I’ll have, Jenner, is not killing you dead where you stand right now.” She closed the door in his face.
He was a fool, and she hoped she didn’t have to be the one to kill him. He was being used by someone and poisoned by his own anger. Misdirected in her opinion, but he was the one who’d regret he started this fight because he’d just made her an enemy.
****
Surveillance wasn’t the most boring way to spend a morning, but the fact the man was doing almost nothing was, Kyra mused as she leaned against her seat, eyes glued on the building where Marco, Russo’s brother worked.
He worked for an export/import business near Stonington. She’d already put a tracker on his car, but it looked like the operative Wes had sent down to help her would be tracking him tonight.
She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and her heart jumped when Marco came strolling out of the building in his expensive navy suit and white shirt. He got into his car and she glanced at her watch, realizing it was just past noon.
Kyra started her car and followed him as he pulled out of the lot. He drove until he came to a park and pulled in. She drove past the park and came back to find him getting out of his car and strolling toward the interior of the tree laden grounds.
She parked, but before getting out of her car, Kyra drew in a deep breath and let it out. Light filled her entire being making her invisible. Then, she climbed out and tracked them easily using her keen sense of smell and direction.
She thought she’d been mistaken when she didn’t find them, but their voices drew her in their direction.
“Why are we meeting right now, Carlo?” Marco asked impatiently. “This isn’t the best place or time.”
“Dad told me to deliver the information in person,” Carlo said. “He’s concerned you haven’t made any progress in gaining the Coalition.”
Kyra’s ears pricked up and she leaned against a tree and removed her phone from the holster attached to her pants. She set it to record before bending down to set the phone on the ground atop a fallen tree. The partially raised branch obscured it a little.
Then she made herself invisible again.
“I’ve done my job so far,” Marco said coolly. “There will be no more problems there as long as you do yours tonight.”
“I always hold up my end,” he muttered. “Why do you think I’m on the hook for murder?”
Marco snorted. “I’m the one who put the kill shot in Timmons and his wife. I’m the one who blew up that damned agent’s home in New Haven, not you. I’m the one who set that bomb at Coyote Closet last night, so don’t come around here with that bullshit. You’re just a snot nosed kid still learning the ropes.”
“I’ve proven myself,” he growled and paced away from his uncle a few steps. “I’m the one who killed that new prosecutor’s FBI agent brother when he got too close, remember?”
Marco laughed. “One kill and money laundering. Big whoa.”
Kyra bit back her own laugh at that. She’d had more kills to her name by the time she was nineteen than he had in his entire life of crime it seemed.
“Have you at least managed to track down the person who snatched Bradley’s property right from under us?”
“I got the deeds last night from his office,” he said. “Summerfield and Blacklaw tried to steal ownership with some cyber shit, but our people have already killed that. All we need for you to do is make sure the Coalition squashes them.”
“Make sure they don’t get the property back,” Marco told him.
“What about Mayer? I heard she was a problem.”
“From who?” Marco demanded and the growl in his voice made her coyote growl, too.
The very thought of them turning their attention on harming Claudia made her animal angry.
“Our ally on the Coalition,” he said. “He said she won’t be any easier than Summerfield.”
“I’ll have her removed,” Forbes said. “I’ve already gotten her suspended. It won’t be hard with most of the Coalition having something to gain by allying with us.”
“She has a smaller pack than the others, but I hear she’s not to be underestimated,” Carlo commented. “Maybe I should have our friend talk to her.”
“Don’t. She’ll be suspicious,” Marco said shaking his head. “I’ll deal with her.”
“She’s recently started seeing someone or it could be just talk,” Carlo murmured. “Small towns are notorious for gossip.”
“I’ll test the waters,” Marco said. “Who is it?”
“A dancer from Coyote Closet. Kyra something. She’s relatively new to the town.”
“Send me what you have on her, including a picture.”
“I’ll get on that,” Carlo agreed. “Dad also wants you to take that meeting with Astor and Carpenter tomorrow night.”
“Why can’t you do it?” Marco demanded. “I’ve got enough on my plate making this thing happen and hunting down your grandfather’s killer.”
“I need to be in court tomorrow and from now on,” Carlo told him. “Dad wants you to take Carpenter out of commission permanently.”
“You do it and set Summerfield up for it,” Marco ordered. “Just don’t use Bradley’s moles. Use the other two.”
Other two?
She smelled trouble brewing and saw a picture of this pretty little town after Russo had taken it over. Snowbury would no longer be the idyll it was now once he’d brought drugs and violence to it.
“Fine, but what about Lena?” Carlo replied. “With them gone, that will give Lena courage to continue with her plans.”
“With her brother gone, she won’t be much of a threat. Once she has things running smoothly here, she’ll go back to doing what she does best—running her shelter.”
“It’s a risk we can take for now.” Carlo shrugged. “I need to get back if I’m going to set my plans in place before I leave.”
“Call me after.”
Carlo gave him a nod. “Will do, but don’t forget who this town belongs to. You’re just the front man,” Carlo said and walked away.
“Keep dreaming,” Marco said to himself.
Kyra leaned against the tree as Marco trekked away from her. She stood where she was until she heard Marco leaving. She picked up her phone and pocketed it before following in his wak
e.
He turned and growled, low and menacing as if he sensed her. She looked up for a low hanging branch and jumped as he reached into his jacket pocket and removed a small weapon.
Just then a bird exited a tree and a squirrel scampered over the ground where she’d been standing. It stopped, and Marco watched it a long time before turning and striding away.
Kyra let out a slow sigh and released the limb to land lightly on her feet allowing the cloak of light to fade.
She retraced her steps and when she reached the parking lot, Kyra spied Marco leaning against his car talking to a man. She tilted her head up to the sun and drew in its light allowing it to blur the features of her face, making them indistinguishable as she moved in closer.
“Don’t waste time on this,” Marco was saying.
“No.”
She moved closer, and Marco’s gaze riveted on her. He growled and leaned toward the man to speak to him in a low voice. Kyra slowed in her stroll across the lot, the coyote sensing the sudden shift in climate.
The man with him pulled out a gun and started for her. Kyra cursed and turned to head back into the trees, though with the vast majority of them being bare, there would be little cover.
His footsteps pounded the ground behind her, and her heart beat a harsh tattoo as she tried to think where she could hide.
Then she heard a low howl. He was closer than she thought, fast, too. Kyra stopped in the middle of a clearing and the tell-tale snarl of a jackal had her slowly turning around.
“Back off, mutt,” she ordered as her own animal came to the fore. Her eyes narrowed slightly, and light shot from them to slice across the jackal’s forehead.
The animal whined, but started for her. Kyra’s coyote filled her mind. She felt the power and the heat of it surge through her. More light shot from her eyes and into those of the jackal. It stopped in its tracks to whine and writhe on the ground.
Kyra turned and took two steps only to pull up short as a man jogged from around a tree. He let out a howl, and Kyra didn’t waste time, or her animal didn’t. She threw out a wave of golden light that went wide taking bark from a tree and setting a few leaves on fire.
The man charged her and knocked her off her feet moments later. She let out a cry as the strength crushed her beneath it. He straddled her and grinned darkly down at her.
“You like to spy on other people’s conversations?” he whispered. “Well, too bad you won’t live to tell anything you heard.” He closed a hand around her throat. “I’m going to enjoy watching the life drain out of you.”
She growled. “Get off of me, idiot.”
He laughed and tightened his grip. “Who are you working for? Who sent you here, pretty girl?”
“Your maker,” she told him acidly.
He laughed. “Funny you should say that when I’m the one with his hands around your throat. Now, who sent you?” He gave her a shake. “Did you record anything?”
“Everything pertinent,” she said. “Like your death for posterity.”
“Where are you two?” Marco called.
Kyra allowed her face to fill with light then, not ready to kill Marco. When he blinked, a thin sliver of golden laser light tinged with red-orange protruded from her forehead and burned into his. He collapsed on top of her soundlessly, his face contorted into a mask of horror.
Breathing hard, Kyra used the strength of the animal to shove him off her and got to her feet just as Marco’s footsteps drew closer. Kyra drew on the sun’s energy.
Again, Kyra was nothing more than light, a shade invisible to human eyes as she watched him with a dispassionate stare.
“Naren,” Marco raced over to him and Kyra walked past him. “No!” Marco let out an enraged cry, but she kept going. “Show yourself, you coward.”
Kyra kept walking, the animal uninterested in exacting vengeance for him setting those men on her. On the other hand, the very human part of her wanted to cook him. She warred with her conscience, the mental fight a brief and bloody one when the darkness of her animal nature was spurred by the chance of getting rid of an enemy.
In the end, humanity won out, and she left him with his dead bodies and an anger that hung in the air thick as a cheap perfume.
Chapter Eighteen
“I’m going home early, if that’s okay, Mayor,” Annabelle said from the doorway. “I’m not feeling well.”
“Fine,” Claudia told her. “I’m heading out myself.” It was only fifteen to five so it wouldn’t hurt for either of them to call it an early day.
“I’m kind of surprised,” she said. “I would have thought you’d be working late after that agent’s visit.”
“Why would I be?” she asked. “He has a job to do and mine is done for the day.”
“I just think you’d want to try to protect Jenner and the others who might be arrested.”
“Why would I, Annabelle?” Claudia asked with raised brows. “They’re cops and lawyers. They all have a job to do. If I interfere, it’ll look like I have something to hide, and I don’t. The truth will be their best defense.”
“I guess you’re right,” she said with a frown. “People are saying, though, that Mallory Blacklaw is a killer. Why aren’t they here for her?”
“Whatever crimes she might have committed weren’t interstate,” Claudia explained. “Jericho’s crimes and those possibly involved in them were from what I’ve learned, which isn’t a lot right now.”
She wasn’t surprised Annabelle was pumping her for information. Her mate’s cousin was one of those on the hot-seat. His reputation as a banker could be tainted by association.
“Oh. Well, I guess that makes sense,” she said with a frown. “But how did the FBI come to the conclusion that Jericho and the others actually committed crimes when the D.A. ruled Kamari’s information to be false?”
“They did their own investigation, Annabelle, and there is more than a hint of impropriety on their part in handling the information Kamari gave them.”
“I think the coyotes have just found a way to set them up,” she muttered. “How can you be a party to that?”
“I’m on the side of right here,” Claudia told her coldly. “If there are arrests, I’m sure everything will be done properly.”
“I doubt that,” Annabelle retorted. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Good evening.” Claudia sighed as Annabelle closed the door.
She wouldn’t lift a finger to help the wolves who found themselves in the cross-hairs of human law. They’d done this to themselves by aligning with criminals. So, they had to deal as best they could.
The muffled voices outside her door drew a groan from her. A rap followed.
“Yes, Annabelle?”
The door opened, and Annabelle stood there wearing a smile. “It’s Mr. Forbes. He would like a word with you.”
“Show him in,” she said with a frown. What the hell was Forbes doing here? Did he seriously think he could turn her against Sam and Mallory?
“I’m Marco Forbes,” he said after closing the door behind him. “I replaced Bradley, remember?”
“What do you want?” Claudia asked, motioning the man to a chair. His brown eyes were enigmatic as they held her, and he moved with the confidence of a man used to getting his way.
“I thought it would be a good idea for me to introduce myself to you personally. We might be working together a great deal in the future.”
She studied him, but her coyote couldn’t pick up anything. Bradley had led a wolf pack, but this man didn’t have that slightly musky scent male wolves tended to have in their human form.
“I didn’t get the impression you really gave much of a damn about my opinion so why are you here? I suspect it’s because mine and Mallory’s absence is creating a problem for you wolves.”
“Not really,” he drawled. “We know where we stand. I just wanted to establish a sense of you as an alpha.” He slid into one of the chairs, and she took her own seat. “Bradley didn’t have a great
deal to say about you or your politics.”
“So?” She asked coolly.
“The duo of Summerfield and Blacklaw is intriguing. They work in concert, but you seem to act alone or with Dunbar.”
“Get to the point,” Claudia ordered. “I have plans for the evening.”
“My point is, they are both going to be expelled from the Coalition. The investigation into their drug issues will be brief and to the point, especially after the fire at their club. There is some rumor that they knew of the possibility of a problem and did nothing.”
“And you’re telling me this instead of talking to Mallory, why?”
“Blacklaw will fight her expulsion rather than merely walking away as Summerfield has done and this will be problematic for her, considering her relationship with the drug cartel, Shadow.”
Claudia studied him, sensing a dark malice in him that told her he was or knew who’d been behind that video of Sam and Mallory’s drug buy. “I’m not buying that video,” she said patiently.
“You should. The fire was a warning, the dead a message,” he said conversationally. “If she’s smart, she’ll walk away before this gets any uglier, and you’ll make sure you don’t back her or Summerfield’s plays whatever they are.”
The coyote bristled at the threat and the light of malice in his eyes. “A man who passes messages through an emissary rather than going straight to the source, is the mark of a weak leader. I’d check that if I were you.”
His eyes flashed black with obvious offense, but she merely gave him a benign smile.
“Make no mistakes, Mayer, I’m not a weakling. I was merely giving you a warning to stay out of their fight. The Coalition will be dealing harshly and swiftly with Blacklaw.”
“Your little attempt to frighten me into backing the Coalition in action against Mallory just ensured I won’t, and neither will I stand by and allow you or any of the other members of that body to hang a charge on her that isn’t true.”
“Think carefully,” he said softly. “That is a mistake you might not live to regret.”
Claudia fought back the growl threatening to bubble from her throat as she stared into those hard eyes, so sure he had the upper hand.
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