by Olivia Arran
Hurrying forward, she laid it on the desk. “I didn’t see the significance when I first looked at it, but here, don’t you see?” She jabbed the photo with her finger, urging us both to look.
“It’s Sid,” I stated, staring at my friend. He looked happy in the picture, his familiar smile as broad and open as I remembered. I rubbed my chest, massaging the tightness that threatened to strangle me.
“At the club?”
I peered closer, clocking the gaudy decor and steel furniture. “Yes, that’s the club we used to drink at.”
“And are his pupils dilated? Does he look like he’s high yet?”
I squinted, trying to make it out.
A magnifying glass thrust in front of my face.
“No. He looks normal.”
“Look closer. Specifically, at that guy’s watch.”
Even with my shifter enhanced eyesight, I could barely make out the digits. “2.06 a.m.,” I murmured.
“And what time did you leave that night?” She was starting to enjoy her role as detective, I could tell.
“Around 2.15 a.m., maybe a little later.” I remembered because Sid had died at 2.33 a.m. The date and time was scored into my memory.
“And where are you in this picture?”
“This doesn’t mean anything. It could be a different night—”
“Uncle, just look at the watch.”
Fuck. I waited for him to process what he was seeing. The watch in question was one of those old-fashioned ones, the kind that would be called retro now. A cheap-looking, digital watch displaying both time and date.
“Where did you get this, Grace?” I turned to her, my amazement clear in my voice.
She waved off my question as unimportant. “Astrid gave it to me, but, Vin, I think you’re missing something.” I followed her finger.
A low growl filled the room as Sidney snatched the photo up. “She will pay for this.”
I could still see the photograph; the detail Grace had pointed out shocked me to my core. “Tamara?” I couldn’t believe it, but the camera had caught her in the act of passing a drink to Sid.
“I have to believe that’s why Astrid gave me the photo, so we could find out who my cousin’s real killer was,” Grace murmured, her face drawn in sorrow.
“I was only gone maybe five minutes, tops,” I mused, trying to wrap my head around it. Tamara gave Sid drugs? Maybe? It would be hard to prove. But that still didn’t explain— “Did Sid have a bad heart?” I demanded. I had carried this guilt for years, built my life around a lie. I deserved the truth.
Sidney walked over to the far side of his desk and poured himself a drink. Downing it in one swallow, he hugged the crystal tumbler to his chest. “He did.”
“But—? How?” Grace’s exclamation was unsurprising. Shifters were a healthy lot, immune to disease and could heal almost any injury. For Sid to have a heart condition…
“He was sickly as a pup, always catching colds on his chest…we hid his condition because we had to. No one would understand, the Council especially, and he was my son! My first born. He deserved the best chance at life.”
I cleared my throat, drawing him out of his memories. “What was wrong with him?”
“We don’t know, never found out. He grew out of it eventually but it left a mark. His heart was weaker than it should have been.”
“And I punched him in the chest.” The guilt came rushing back, burying me in a hole of darkness.
“Uncle, had Sid ever been punched in the chest before? Had he ever been in a fight?”
“Of course he had. Even with a damaged heart, my son was still a shifter. It just took him a little more effort to regulate his pulse and to heal any injuries.”
“So, when Vin punched him, if he hadn’t been drugged, it wouldn’t have killed him.”
Light dawned on Sidney’s face, followed swiftly by regret. “No, it wouldn’t have. Look, I’m sorry—”
I cut him off. “Don’t say it, you don’t have to. I miss him too.” A look of understanding passed between us. Whoever had done this to Sid was going to pay. His father would see to it.
Sidney returned to his chair behind the desk, dropping into it with a sigh that spoke of years of sorrow. “Why are you here anyway?”
In the trip down memory lane and all revelations afterward, I had conveniently forgotten what I’d come here to do. Forgotten what I suspected him of having done. With great effort, I shoved my compassion for the man to the back of my mind and locked it away.
This wasn’t the time to let sympathy get in the way. I had a job to do.
Drawing myself up to my full height, I slowly let my power unfurl, my wolf flashing into my eyes. “You’re going to tell me what you’ve done with the missing shifters.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Grace
Shit! I backed away from the two men, keeping them both in sight.
Heat was rolling off Vin in waves, his muscles flexing and bulging as he stared at my uncle.
“What missing shifters?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Vin growled, taking a step forward.
My uncle seemed to shrink in his chair, his hands turning white where they dug into desk. “I don’t. Now, I think it’s time for you to leave—”
“I’m not going anywhere until you start talking.”
I wanted to scream at my uncle, beg him to either confess or submit, but being the stubborn man that he was, he surged to his feet, strain bracketing his mouth.
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” he snarled, rounding the desk.
I didn’t see Vin move. He was just a blur, and then he had my uncle pinned against the wall. “You will tell me where they are or I will end you.”
But my uncle wasn’t a submissive wolf. He might be older than Vin, but he was a powerful Alpha, the leader of his line. His fist connected with Vin’s jaw, followed by an elbow to the gut.
This time my scream echoed around the office as I felt each punch, suffered every blow. And then…nothing.
“You’ve mated with her?”
In the back of my mind my uncle’s shocked words registered, but I was still reeling and fighting the urge to throw up.
Vin didn’t answer, but he shot me a look of concern, his dark eyes filling with what looked like horror.
I waved him away, my nausea receding as suddenly as it had begun. He had to concentrate and not let my uncle distract him.
“We’re not mated,” I said, adding helpfully, “yet.”
“Then…” My uncle’s eyes lurched from me, to Vin, and back again. His eyebrows shot up, his eyes widening in shock. “You need to shield her.”
“I realize that now,” Vin growled. “Eyes back to me.” His lips curled back from his teeth. “You have something to do with the missing shifters. I’ve been sent to find them.”
“Sent?”
“Answer the question.”
“You didn’t ask a question…”
The muscles on Vin’s forearm corded, bulging alarmingly.
“…This time!” my uncle squeaked out around Vin’s grip on his throat.
Vin dropped him, striding away.
Gasping for breath on the ground, I watched in fascination as the ruddy color receded from my uncle’s face, a glow of health returning. What I wouldn’t give for some of that shifter healing ability. I was pretty sure Vin had crushed his windpipe, but for a shifter that was more like a tickle.
And what had he meant when he’d said that Vin needed to shield me? Shield me from what?
Vin turned, his heels grinding into the beautifully handcrafted Persian rug. “Enough playing around. I need your answer now.” His eyes bled to molten bronze, his features hardening and lips thinning.
The hairs on my arms lifted, goosebumps erupting and dancing along my skin as the air in the room grew thicker and heavier, humming with an energy I could sense but couldn’t touch.
My uncle fell to his knees, his face distorted in
agony. Digging his hands into the floor, he snarled and snapped at Vin, more animal than man.
“Tell me where the missing people are.” Vin’s voice boomed through the room, the low guttural growl of his wolf leading the charge.
“I…don’t…know…what…you’re…talking…about!” my uncle roared, his eyes wide and glassy with pain.
“Vin! Please! He said he doesn’t know!” I screamed, rushing to his side. We had our answer. It wasn’t him.
My uncle groaned, his back bowing under an invisible weight.
I glanced at Vin’s face. Deep lines had formed around his mouth, the strain of holding another alpha down taking its toll.
“What is going on in here?” My auntie’s voice made me jump, but Vin didn’t move a muscle, his control absolute. “What is he doing here?” She rushed to my uncle’s side, then rounded on Vin, a snarl marring her usually pretty face. “Let him go, you animal!”
I caught my auntie’s eye, silently begging her to let me deal with this. “He doesn’t know where they are,” I murmured to Vin, carefully placing a hand on his arm.
His bicep twitched, but he didn’t answer me, his eyes rooted on my uncle.
“Doesn’t know where who are?”
I ignored my auntie’s question, instead asking one of my own. “What’s he doing to him?”
“He’s inside his mind, fighting with his wolf. Tell me, what does he want?” She was on her knees, her arms wrapped around her mate as he writhed in agony.
“Some shifters have gone missing, all taken at different times and from different places. The only thing they have in common is they were all friends with someone connected to the Council,” I explained in a low voice.
And then it stopped, the charge in the air disappearing with a pop that had my ears ringing.
My uncle collapsed to the floor, his face white and chest heaving as he struggled to suck in a breath.
“He’s clear.”
I rounded on Vin, my fists bouncing off his chest, blow after blow. “You didn’t have to hurt him! Not like that!”
He grabbed my wrists, cradling them gently but firmly against his chest. “What did you think I did? Tickle suspects for answers?”
I backed away from him, unable to keep the horror from my face. “You do this to every suspect?”
Pain flickered across his face. His eyes closed, and when they opened again his emotions were shut away. “Only shifters. With humans we use more…traditional techniques.”
The nausea from earlier surged again.
“It’s what I do, Grace. Protect those who need protecting.”
“You got it wrong this time.”
A frown tugged at his lips. “The paper trail leads back to this house, to a company called Ever Happy Solutions—”
I didn’t need shifter hearing to hear my auntie’s horrified gasp.
“No!” The word came out as a soft whisper of denial, but one look at her face and I knew it was true.
“But, it can’t be them!”
“Caro, what did you do?” My uncle pushed himself up off the floor and wrapped an arm around the stiff woman.
“I just wanted a baby! They said they’d give me a baby!”
Horror dawned on my uncle’s face. Ignoring us, he tilted her head until she was looking at him. “Who did?”
“The IVF clinic at Ever Happy Solutions. I…I was desperate. We’d been trying but it hadn’t happened. I just wanted to see, to find out if they could do anything. I couldn’t go to one of our doctors because they don’t know the first thing about IVF, and I didn’t want to embarrass you, Sidney. I thought it would be okay because I’m human! And I registered under a false name! I just wanted another baby to love!” Her hollow cry clawed at my heart, the anguish and heartbreak sinking in its claws and drawing blood.
“Vin, she didn’t mean to.”
“I know.” He met my eyes briefly, but I couldn’t get a read on him.
He’d shut down, and it wasn’t surprising after my earlier reaction. But what did he expect? I hadn’t trained for this, hadn’t hardened my heart against seeing people in pain. I practiced Aikido, for fuck’s sake!
Vin crossed his arms, tension radiating from him. “From what we could find out so far, the clinic specializes in providing discreet treatment for the rich and connected, and IVF is just a small part of what they offer. We’ve only managed to scrape the surface, but it appears that they funnel most of the money from private patients into genetic and molecular research, and we suspect that they might be connected to the government.” He paused, concentration creasing his brow. “Something in her blood must have triggered their interest.”
“But…she’s human!” I blurted out.
Vin sighed, shifting from one foot to the other. “It’s not wide spread knowledge, and the American Shifter Council is still looking into it, but initial findings suggest that the mating bond does register on a molecular level.”
I digested the information, trying to wrap my head around it. It makes sense: Auntie has the youth and vitality of a woman half her age and she never gets sick…
At my uncle’s impatient gesture, he continued, “And it wouldn’t have been hard to track her down, despite giving a false name. All they had to do then was monitor who she came into contact with and expand their search from there. Foreigners would have been the easiest target because they wouldn’t expect anyone to miss them, at least not for a while.” His eyes locked onto my auntie. “I need you to confirm their address, Caroline.”
My auntie’s face had crumpled at his words, silent tears tracking down her cheeks, but she nodded. “Find them, please. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if something happened…” Her words trailed off.
I grabbed a pen and a piece of paper off the desk, and crouched down next to her. “We’ll find them, I promise.” Taking the scrawled directions off her, I pulled her into a hug. “It’s not your fault.”
“It is. I was greedy, wanting something—”
“No,” I said firmly, giving her shoulders a small shake so she’d look at me. “You wanted a baby, there’s nothing wrong with that. You didn’t abduct these people or hand them over to this research company. You didn’t know!” I glared at her, daring her to contradict me, but inside I was dying. Elle was out there, having God knows what tests done to her. I meant what I said, but right now, my understanding for Vin’s need for violence had taken an upturn.
She nodded at me before folding back into her mate’s arms.
“I’ll explain everything…about Sid,” my uncle promised to Vin. Newfound respect shone in his eyes, with no sign of any animosity for the pain Vin had inflicted. But then again, shifters respected power and strength, and Vin had displayed that in spades. “You’ve grown up well,” he added, tilting his head down a fraction in a show of submission.
Standing up, I met Vin at the door.
At his raised eyebrows, I crossed my arms and tapped my foot. I had a good idea where this was going. “What?”
“We?”
“I’m going.”
“No. You’re not.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“Do you want to bet on it?”
“I know the address. I’m either going with you, or I’ll follow you. Elle’s my best friend—”
“Fine.” With that he turned and stalked out of the room.
The wind completely knocked from my sails, I trailed after him. I might not be a trained operative like him, but I wasn’t without a handy skill or two. He’ll be glad he took me with him, I decided, ignoring the ripple of fear at what we might be walking into.
It didn’t matter. There was no one I trusted more than Vin to have my back. We were going to kick some ass.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Vin
“What’s the plan?” Grace’s hissed whisper carried on the night air loud enough to wake the dead.
I froze, my hand held up and to the side.
She ran into my back with a thud. “
What did you stop for?”
Turning around, I tried not to smile, but with a black wooly hat pulled down over her hair, eyes big and rounded, and with green camo smudged in random stripes all over her face, she was the cutest thing I’d ever seen.
And annoying. What was she doing coming out here with me? How the hell was I supposed to keep her safe and rescue the missing people?
So I scowled at her instead. “I need you to do exactly what I say, no deviations or bright ideas. Got it?”
“Bright ideas? I’ll give you a bright—”
I popped a kiss on the end of her nose, the corners of my lips twitching. And this was why I’d brought her along. Left to her own accord, she’d have followed me up here and probably tried to stroll right on in through the front door. “If it comes down to it, and I have to choose between you and the missing people, there’ll be no competition. So don’t make me choose.”
I watched as she swallowed back her tirade and nodded, her lips setting in a determined line.
Good. If she remembered that then tonight would go off without a hitch. Reaching the edge of the small woods, I scanned the immaculately manicured grounds, searching for a patrol. Nothing obvious. Though I did spot the cameras mounted on the side of the large, stately looking house.
And that was where Greg came in. I tapped my ear, connecting to my teammate via satellite. “You there?”
“Where else would I be?” His voice came through as clear as a bell, despite the distance.
Got to love technology. “I’m looking at the house from the southwest side, three security cameras active, no eyes on enemy.”
“Got it. Running a search now. I’ve sent blueprints to your phone.”
Swiping the screen, I hit the download button and waited a second. Architectural plans filled the small screen. “What am I looking at?”
“Third diagram, it’s a basement. I’m pretty sure that’s where they’ll be holding the objective. It’s a new addition, built about three years ago. I had to dig a little to find it.” Which meant he’d had to break into a couple of secure servers to retrieve the information.