by Paige Tyler
Weird.
Lana stepped out of the bathroom to find the big man still standing in the hallway, blocking the way to the restaurant. That was when she noticed something that made her gums tingle and fingertips ache all over again—a second man standing at the far end of the hallway, near the emergency exit.
The first man took a step her way, smiling without any humor.
A metallic taste filled her mouth like she’d bitten her tongue, and a tremor of something halfway between anger and fear rumbled up her throat.
“Lana, there you are!” her mother said, coming toward them from the restaurant. “What the heck is taking you so long?”
Relief washed over Lana as the big man who’d sprayed her wrist with perfume earlier brushed past her and headed for the emergency exit. The second man shoved it open, and they disappeared outside.
Why hadn’t the alarm gone off?
She had no answer to that question, just like she had no way to explain why her body stopped buzzing and tweaking the moment the door had closed behind the two men.
“Who was that?” her mother asked.
“He said he was an officer from Central Division,” Lana said, not wanting to alarm her mom or attempt to describe all the weird stuff that had just happened.
Her mother frowned. “Really? I didn’t recognize him. What’s his name?”
That’s when Lana realized the man had never told her. “He didn’t say.”
* * *
Max was parked on the couch in his apartment, staring at the TV, hoping Wallace was full of hot air and wouldn’t go through with his threats to file a complaint against him, when his phone rang. He grabbed it from the coffee table, cursing when he saw Gage’s name on the screen. Thumbing the green button, he put it to his ear.
“What’s up, Sarge?”
“Get your ass down to the compound. Now,” Gage said in that tone he used right before he usually exploded and started throwing werewolves around the office like rag dolls.
Shit.
Even though it was well after 6:00 p.m. when Max got to the compound, there were still quite a few vehicles in the parking lot keeping Gage’s Charger company. In addition to Xander’s, Brooks’s, and Cooper’s vehicles, there were two others he didn’t recognize. He wasn’t so concerned about the late-model piece of shit with rust spots and a pervasive burnt-oil smell about it that suggested the thing was on its last legs, but the generic white Chevy Caprice sedan worried him. It screamed DPD unmarked car, which meant it was someone from internal affairs or headquarters.
Double shit.
Brooks was there to meet him, a concerned look on his face. “What the hell did you do, Max? Gage and Xander are in there with IA, and none of them looks happy.”
Max shook his head. He’d never felt more like a complete frigging idiot than he did right now. “I got a call earlier from that old guy on Park Lane, Ernest Miller. He said he heard a lot of shouting and sounds of a scuffle coming from the Wallace place. Northeast Division sent out a patrol car, but the wife told them the kids had been watching TV too loud, so I headed over there to check things out myself.”
Brooks must have known where this was heading if the look on his face was any indication. “Damn, Max. Please tell me you didn’t do something stupid.”
Max wished he didn’t have to tell Brooks anything of the sort. The Pack’s biggest werewolf had always been a friend and a mentor to him, and Max felt like he was letting him down.
“Yeah, I pulled a stupid,” Max admitted. “I heard one of the Wallace girls scream, so I busted into the house. I hoped I could catch that bastard in the act of beating one of his kids, but the moment I saw the boy was standing there trying to protect his mother, blood seeping through the bandages on his hand, I lost it. I ended up pinning Wallace to the wall and almost choking him out.”
Brooks shook his head, and the disappointment Max saw on his face was almost enough to crush Max’s soul. “Why would you do something like that?”
Max shrugged. “Because it’s not in me to let that woman and her kids stay in a house with a man who beats them.”
Brooks looked at him like he was a complete idiot. “I know why you did it, you moron. I’m asking why you didn’t think to tell me or anyone else in the Pack. Cooper, Becker, Zane—hell, any of us would have gone with you and helped make sure we got this piece of crap. What, did you forget you’re part of a Pack?”
Max cursed silently. If Brooks had wanted to say the one thing that would make Max feel like crap, he’d done it.
“I screwed up,” Max said quietly.
“No shit.” Brooks’s mouth tightened. “What the hell has gotten into you? It’s like you’ve gone completely off the rails.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It seems like my head is spinning lately. I can barely keep my shift under control at the best of times, and even when I do, I see myself doing stupid stuff without being able to stop it.”
Brooks regarded him silently, then sighed. “I guess I should probably cut you some slack. A werewolf can’t be held responsible for his actions while he’s an emotional train wreck. It’s happened with everyone else who found their One, so why not you?”
Max stared at his pack mate, surprised Brooks was letting up on him. “You think IA will be as understanding with my screw-ups as you are if I tell them my relationship status is complicated?”
Brooks let out a snort. “I don’t see that helping you out very much. But this time, trust Gage and Xander to watch out for you, huh?”
Max nodded. “You sticking around for a while”
“Nah. I’m meeting up with Diego and Zane at a sports bar for the Thursday night NFL game.”
Max snorted. “Zane? He doesn’t even understand the game of football.”
That wasn’t an exaggeration. Their British teammate was all about soccer.
Brooks chuckled. “I know. I’ve made it my mission to teach him. Listen, text me later and let me know what happens with IA, huh?”
Max told him he would, then headed for the main admin building and Gage’s office. The moment he opened the door, a trio of unfamiliar scents hit him. He found two women and a teenage boy sitting at one of the desks in the bullpen, eating barbecue pork, beans, and cornbread while they watched a home makeover show on the TV mounted on the wall on the other side of the room.
As Cooper got up from his desk and walked over to meet him, Max took a sniff. The two women were beta werewolves. One was in her thirties, while the other was a little older, midforties he guessed. The boy definitely wasn’t a werewolf, though his scent was similar to the younger of the two women, so he was probably her son. The women gave him a curious look, then went back to eating. Something told him they hadn’t seen food this good in a long time.
Max glanced at Gage’s office, and his heart sank. Even though the door was closed, he could pick up Vince Coletti’s scent. Of all the detectives from Internal Affairs, why did it have to be Coletti? The man had a hard-on for the SWAT team, for sure. He’d even forced Cooper to attend anger management sessions with a shrink. And Cooper was the most laid-back, in-control werewolf in the Pack.
Max was screwed.
Cooper motioned with his head, indicating Max should follow him outside.
“So, you went back and punched out that child-beating piece of shit Wallace, huh?” Cooper said, then added, “I overheard Coletti talking to Gage and Xander.” He grinned. “Good for you.”
“Yeah,” Max muttered. “Well, now I have to deal with the fallout.”
Cooper shrugged. “Put on your best I’m-horribly-sorry-and-promise-never-to-do-it-again face, and you’ll be out of here in time for dinner with that new babe of yours.”
Max wasn’t nearly as sure of the outcome with Coletti as Cooper seemed to be, but arguing with Cooper about anything was like chasing a greased pig. You ended up look
ing foolish and feeling all dirty.
“What’s with the two betas in there?” he asked instead. “They on the run from the hunters, too?”
“Yeah,” Cooper said. “Grace; her kid, Rudy; and her friend Kari have been moving around the country with an omega who’d been watching out for them. Four weeks ago, a group of hunters caught up with them outside of Norman. The omega sacrificed himself so they could get away, and they’ve been ducking and hiding ever since. They heard about our pack and headed this way. They rolled into here about an hour ago, and haven’t stopped eating since.”
Cooper may have dropped all that on him casually, but there was so much crazy in that story it was tough to figure out where to start. The fact that there were hunter packs operating so close to Dallas had to make Gage and the other senior pack members a little worried. Up until now, hunters had been this vague threat that hovered far enough away for people to be lulled into the belief they’d never come here at all. But Norman, Oklahoma, was barely a hundred miles north of the Texas line. That was damn close.
Then there was the weird part about the omega protecting two betas. From what they knew about werewolves, a protective omega was an oxymoron. When Max pointed that out, Cooper shrugged.
“I had a hard time believing it, too, but Kari said the omega showed up out of the blue and started taking care of them. He seemed as shocked by the behavior as they were. I’m trying to imagine an omega sacrificing himself for anyone, and I just can’t see it. But I think the rules are changing now that the hunter threat is growing.”
Max shook his head. The SWAT Pack still had no idea how word had trickled out that Dallas was a safe haven. All they knew was that scared werewolves had been showing up at the compound in ones and twos every few days since mid-August. Most of the new werewolves were betas, but there were also a surprising number of omegas and even a few alphas. They’d stop by to check-in and make sure it was okay for them to be in the Pack’s territory. Gage would welcome them in and make sure they had a place to stay along with work and enough to eat. Gage was doing his best to keep a head count, but staying on top of the incoming was getting harder by the day. There had to be at least forty new werewolves in Dallas at the moment. That was insane.
Inside the admin building, Max heard Gage’s office door open. He sighed. Might as well go in and get this over with.
Cooper must have heard, too, because he smiled. “Remember. Look really apologetic. And no matter what, refrain from telling Coletti you’ll probably end up doing the same thing all over again next week. People like him frown on that kind of honesty.”
Max lifted a brow. “So in other words, lie to him?”
Cooper opened the door and shoved him inside. “Like your frigging life depends on it, because it does.”
When they walked in, they found Gage, Xander, and Coletti talking to the two betas and the kid.
“Xander will take you upstairs and show you around,” Gage said. “We have some cots up there you can use until we find you a place to stay. There’s a small kitchen up there stocked with food, if you’re still hungry.”
As Xander led the small pack upstairs, Max couldn’t help noticing Coletti’s shrewd, gray gaze following them.
“I’ve heard you’ve been putting people up here,” the dark-haired IA detective said. “You know the department frowns on that kind of stuff.”
Gage didn’t so much as blink. How the hell did his commander stay so cool, Max wondered. Coletti was such a rule-following d-bag it was all Max could do not to pick him up and throw him off the compound.
“They’re people in trouble who need some help,” Gage said. “I’m making sure that no department resources are being used.”
Max expected Coletti to be a dick about it, but he merely watched the two women and the kid as they disappeared up the stairs, then nodded. “Keep it low key. If Chief Curtis finds out, he’ll pull a hamstring running over here to can your ass.”
With that settled, both Gage and Coletti turned their attention to Max. While Gage’s jaw tightened, he was calmer than Max expected.
“I’ll leave you two alone to talk,” Gage said, going back into his office and closing the door.
O-kay. Max hadn’t seen that coming. He fully expected Gage to be present for the ass-chewing Max was sure was coming his way. Instead of focusing on Max, however, Coletti was eyeing Cooper. His pack mate returned the IA detective’s look with an expression that suggested Coletti wouldn’t be making it onto Cooper’s Christmas card list anytime soon.
“Cooper,” Coletti said with a little lift of his chin that guys did when they wanted to acknowledge the other person existed but didn’t want to shake their hands. “How are your anger management classes going?”
“Not bad.” Cooper smirked. “I can look at you right now without giving in to the overwhelming urge to kick your ass, so I guess they must be working.”
With that, Cooper dropped the mic and headed upstairs to join Xander and the small beta pack.
Coletti grunted, then looked at Max. “Can we go somewhere we can talk in private?”
“Not sure what we have to talk about,” Max replied. Regardless of what Cooper said, he wasn’t going to play the game. That wasn’t his thing. “You’re here to suspend me, right?”
“That depends on you,” Coletti said quietly. “Nick Wallace called a lawyer right after you left, saying you broke into his house and assaulted him. Given the number of domestic violence calls the DPD has made to that address, I don’t see this making it into court, but IA views this as a valid complaint, so if you decide you don’t want to talk to me, you’ll be suspended until the investigation is complete.”
Max came damn close to saying the hell with it and let the suspension stand, but that would piss off Gage, Xander, Brooks, Cooper, and everyone else in the Pack. So he swallowed his frigging pride and nodded.
“We can go next door to the training building,” he told Coletti.
Max led the way, expecting Coletti to lay into him the moment they grabbed some seats in one of the classrooms, but instead, the IA detective merely regarded him in silence, his face unreadable.
“I know what happened with your family,” Coletti said suddenly.
Max clenched his jaw. He wasn’t thrilled the IA detective had poked around in his background, digging up dirt, but he wasn’t surprised by it, either. And he sure as hell wasn’t about to let this dickweed have the satisfaction of knowing how much it bothered him.
“And?” he said flatly, almost expecting it when he felt the sharp edges of his fangs grazing his tongue. He was losing control every five minutes these days; why not now?
“And I understand why you reacted the way you did.” Coletti leaned back in his chair. “Given the circumstances, I probably would have done the same thing. Hell, in these circumstances, I have done the same thing.”
Max frowned. “What the hell are you saying? That you’re okay with what I did?”
Coletti shook his head. “Definitely not. You screwed up and let your emotions get the best of you. You took a bad situation and made it worse. Not only did you not get anything the DA’s office can use to stop that bastard Wallace, but you also gave his lawyers a possible wedge they can use against the DPD if we’re ever lucky enough to get this into a court. If that’s not bad enough, you embarrassed Wallace in front of his kids. More than likely, he’s going to take that out on them.”
Max cursed silently. Like he needed the reminder. The idea that those kids might get a beating because he’d screwed up tore at him like a serrated knife blade.
“So what the hell am I supposed to do?” he demanded, not caring that his voice came out as a low growl.
Coletti didn’t seem to notice. He leaned forward and locked eyes with him. “You have to stop being an idiot. Put some distance between yourself and the situation and accept that you can’t save people from themselves
. You have to simply be there to offer a hand and hope the mother or that boy takes the first step and reaches out to take that hand.”
The IA detective made it sound so simple. “I’m not sure I can stand by and wait for something to happen.”
“Then let me see if I can help you,” Coletti said. “As far as IA and the DPD are concerned, there’s a restraining order out on you. You get within a hundred yards of the Wallace residence, you’ll be suspended and your career will pretty much be over.”
Max snorted. “That’s being helpful?”
“Yeah, it is.” Coletti sighed. “Take it from me. Something like this can eat you up from the inside if you let it. You start thinking you’re the only person who can fix this situation, and before long, you’ll find it consuming you until, at some point, you wake up and find yourself standing in the middle of an out-of-control situation with your gun out, wondering how the hell you ever let it get this far.”
Max stared at Coletti. Who the hell was this guy, and what had happened to him? Because it was obvious the man was speaking from experience.
They talked for a little while longer, with Coletti giving Max a lot of suggestions that actually made sense, then promising he’d get family services out there to talk to Wallace’s wife and maybe make something good happen.
By the time Coletti left, Max was beginning to think the situation with the Wallace family might end with something resembling a happily ever after.
He was still sitting there when Gage stuck his head in the door fifteen minutes later. “How’d it go with Coletti?”
“Not as bad as I thought it would,” Max admitted. “I haven’t been suspended at least. But he wants me to stay away from the Wallace family long enough to let the system work.”
Gage sat down at the table opposite him. “You going to be able to do that, given the type of situation we’re dealing with?”
“Do I have a choice?”
Gage shook his head. “Not really. But that fact has rarely kept some of the idiots in this Pack from trying anyway.”
Max couldn’t help chuckling at that, knowing exactly what Gage was talking about. A few of his pack mates had done some really stupid stuff lately.