Wolf Shield Investigations
D E E B RI D G N O R TH
Copyright © 2019
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
PART I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
PART II
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
PART III
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
PART IV
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
PART V
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
PART I
Chapter One
The night was dark with only a half-moon lighting up the sky when the clouds didn’t cover it, and clouds covered it more often than not as Jace McGill squatted beside the metal-walled warehouse, dressed in black from head to toe and whispering into the microphone positioned next to his mouth. “North side, all clear.”
“South side, clear.” That was Zane.
“West, clear.” Sledge.
“East, clear. Guard retreated three minutes ago.” Braxton.
Logan, keeping watch in one of the trucks, grunted into their earpieces. “Remember: there’s a kid in there. We don’t need any cowboys on this mission.”
“It would’ve been easier if we’d come as wolves.” Zane again. The youngest member of the team, he had been training to perform as an Army sniper when an IED blew his tank sky-high with him in it.
“No kidding,” Jace snickered. “But wolves don’t carry big guns, do they?”
Zane had a point, and they all knew it. But complaining that they wouldn’t be able to use their superior wolf senses was a waste of time, and it took their heads out of the mission. The fact was even without the shifter abilities so generously gifted to them by the United States government, they were the best at what they did.
Logan cleared his throat. “Any time you ladies are ready,” he muttered. “Val? How we lookin’?”
“Lookin’ good, fellas.” Val Myers, their resident genius, worked exclusively from their offices in northern New Jersey. She was currently hacked into a satellite feed focused on
that warehouse and the acres of woods that surrounded it. “No bodies in the woods or within the perimeter of the warehouse except for you guys. Inside, thanks to the marvels of modern technology, I can tell you we’re looking at a guard standing in front of the west- and east-facing doors.” Braxton and Sledge would have to be careful when they stormed in.
“What about the kid?” Logan asked, referring to the hostage they were there to rescue. Twelve-year-old Trinity Granger, daughter of an ambassador, had been kidnapped thirty-six hours earlier and, according to the team’s not-insignificant intelligence gathering, was being held in that very warehouse.
“There are two more guards in a small room along the warehouse’s north side between the northern door and the western wall. An office, maybe. With them is a third figure much smaller than the others.” That would be their girl, waiting for them even if she didn’t know she was waiting.
“That’ll be you, Jace,” Logan said.
“Got it,” he confirmed, bracing himself for what was to come. Just as he always had, he went through the motions in his head, planning how things would go before he even stepped foot inside.
In through the door. Head to the right where he’d meet Sledge. They’d go into the office together, prepared to disarm the guards.
Or blow their heads off, if need be. In cases like this, it mostly fell to the bad guys to determine how things would turn out. If they decided to get cocky, that was the end of that.
“On my count. Three. Two. One. Go, go, go!”
They went, all of them darting to their respective doors. If the doors were locked, a few rounds would take care of that.
And they did, the rapid rat-a-tat-a-tat of gunfire filling the air in the same instant Jace threw himself into the half-lit warehouse. His wolf senses screamed at him, filling his awareness with the stench of piss and stale water and mildew, years of cigarette smoke and stale farts.
The building was empty except for a few chairs, a table littered with bottles and cans, and old bloodstains on the cracked concrete floor in the few places where the leaky roof hadn’t left stagnant puddles.
Sledge’s guard was on his back, as was Braxton’s. Sledge darted toward the office practically before the body hit the floor, and the two of them kicked the door in together.
A high-pitched scream.
A deeper, guttural scream.
Gunfire.
A choked cry.
Fresh blood, overriding all his other senses, filling his awareness.
Jace didn’t have time to react to Sledge hitting the floor, blood blooming across the front of his black tee. The girl screamed again, taking Jace’s focus.
The guard Sledge had hit was sliding to the floor, his back to the wall. The second guard held Trinity, his arm around her neck, a semi-automatic pointed at the side of her head.
“Let her go!” Jace shouted, aimed at the man’s forehead. “I’ll blow your brains out. Let her go!” Meanwhile, he heard Braxton and Zane shouting into their mouthpieces that Sledge was hit and to bring the truck around to the east side of the warehouse.
Trinity’s dark eyes were wide, terrified, her mouth twisted in a grimace as she wept in fear. Jace’s wolf longed to burst free, to tear apart the piece of garbage holding her, to bathe in his blood.
Instead, he shot the son of a bitch through the head and caught Trinity in his arms before the body hit the floor. She was weak, probably stiff after sitting in the same place for a day and a half, and the rush of fear and adrenaline wasn’t helping.
“You’re okay, Trinity. We’re here to take you home.” He removed his helmet in an effort to calm her, to let her know he was just a guy—even if he was anything but. Not only had he trained as a Navy SEAL, but the time he’d spent in service and the nearly fatal injury he’d sustained toward the end of his training had turned him into the wolf shifter he’d become.
They’d all become wolf shifters, every one of them—all thanks to nearly dying, all thanks to the testing done on them by nameless government lackeys.
“Where’s that man? The one who was shot?” Trinity asked as Jace carried her from the warehouse in his arms.
“He’ll be just fine,” Jace assured her. “You can trust me on that.” And it was true. Unless Sledge had somehow been decapitated or his brains were blown out, he’d heal just fine.
He was probably on his way to healing right then, curled up in the back of the truck. Though he’d been shot through the chest and stomach, he’d be up and on his feet by the time they made it back to headquarters. The blood-stained clothes would be the only evidence of anything happening at all.
After three years, it still came as a surprise sometimes.
Logan took off the instant Jace, still holding Trinity, was in the passenger seat. “You’re safe now, kiddo,” their team leader said. CEO of Wolf Shield Investigations, Logan had come up with the idea to put their new talents to good use upon their escape from the hospital—more like a lab but the doctors and scientists who’d turned them into who they now were had insisted on calling it a hospital.
“How’s that man?” Trinity asked, still curled up against Jace’s chest. Her pulse was beginning to slow. He couldn’t smell any strange drugs working their way through her system, and her eyes appeared normal, clear, focused.
“Sledge? He’s fine. Right, Sledge?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard in the back.
“Just fine,” Sledge said. “Don’t worry about me, kid. Glad you’re okay.”
“Your parents are gonna be so glad to see you,” Jace assured the kid, who still trembled slightly. “You must be hungry and thirsty.”
“And tired,” she added, resting her head against his shoulder.
“You close your eyes and relax,” he murmured, keeping his voice low and steady. “Maybe you’ll fall asleep, and when you wake up, you’ll be with your mom and dad again.” Trinity did as he advised, though he doubted she’d fall asleep that easily. She’d want to see her parents first, and even then, it might not be so simple for the poor kid.
They dropped her off with the ambassador’s security team in the parking garage attached to their apartment building. “You aren’t coming up?” she asked when Jace handed her over.
“Sorry, kid. We’ve got other people to help.” They didn’t just then, actually, but let her think she’d been rescued by superheroes whose only mission in life was to rescue people in situations like hers.
She wouldn’t be completely wrong if she thought that, either.
Once it was just the five of them again, they could breathe more easily. No more need to be normal, to not let their mouths get away from them. Jace ran his hands through his thick, black hair and sighed. “That was almost too easy.”
“Speak for yourself,” Sledge said from the back.
“Sorry. You know what I mean. They were completely unprepared.” He glanced at Logan, whose strong profile was motionless as he drove. “What do you think?”
“I think I hate it when you’re right,” Logan finally admitted. “Yeah, they weren’t as well-funded or prepared as we thought they’d be.”
He touched a finger to his earpiece. “You hear that, Doc?”
Michael “Doc” Kressley, part of their eyes and ears back at the offices, scoffed loud enough for everyone to hear. Jace turned on the truck’s Bluetooth feature so they could switch their earpieces off and speak normally. “I didn’t know it was something to be sad about, getting out of a mission in one piece,” he muttered. “And if anyone bothered to ask my opinion, I’d say you all had an easy time thanks to the amount of preparation provided by the people you leave back here.”
He had a strong point. Without Doc providing psychological context for both the victims they rescued and the criminals they thwarted, Val’s tireless research and hacking abilities, and her partner Hawk’s genius for systems and weapons, they’d all be in the weeds.
“Fair enough,” Logan agreed in a conciliatory tone.
Doc heard it for what it was
. “We can discuss whether the chicken or the egg came first later. Now, we have another job to tackle.”
“Another one? Already?” Zane asked, with Sledge grunting in reply. Braxton was too busy pulling lead out of Sledge’s abdomen to offer his feelings on the matter.
“This is a personal sort of situation. Logan, Salvatore Rossi called from a secure connection in upstate New York.”
“Sal Rossi? Jesus, there’s a name I haven’t heard in forever.” He glanced in the mirror, toward the rest of the team. “One of my old man’s buddies from Nam. Went into private security. Last I heard he was working for some politician.”
“It seems that a politician’s family received a threat tonight. Val’s already gathering intel on the family and any known threats to the senator in question. He’s already contacted the senator and told him you’d be on the way.”
“Presumptuous,” Jace muttered.
“If Sal’s anything like my dad, he’s old school, which means he doesn’t call in the cavalry unless it’s an honest-to-God emergency,” Logan mused. “I’d hate to turn him down. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him. Maybe this is his way of calling in an old favor.”
“He was in the middle of a fishing vacation when the senator reached out to him,” Doc explained. “He’ll be in on the first flight, but he doesn’t imagine arriving before late tomorrow evening thanks to a storm rolling through up there.”
“I think we can manage until he gets back,” Logan decided. “We’ll be with you in twenty.”
“Like I didn’t know that,” Val snickered. It was easy to forget she tended to listen in on these group chats and that she was tracking their every move.
Another mission. Already. Jace closed his eyes, trying to catch a few minutes’ rest before their arrival, but arrival came too soon. It seemed like no more than a moment passed before they were pulling in along the front of the nondescript building in a nondescript parking lot in the middle of an office complex owned entirely by Wolf Shield for the purpose of protecting them against curious eyes.
The rest of the team was waiting inside, the copious amounts of information Val had already compiled displayed on a wall of monitors at the front of their command center.
Zane blew out a low whistle at the photo positioned in the middle of it all: a beautiful girl, smiling brilliantly at them. “Damn. She’s hot.”
“Very,” Braxton agreed. “I wouldn’t mind having that shot blown up poster-size and hanging at the foot of my bed.”
Wolf Shield Investigations: Boxset Page 1