Wild Fire (The Kingson Pride Book 2)

by Kristen Banet

  “I don’t know! I just used it to my advantage! I had an inside source with the state troopers!” Abel told her, his voice shaky, and she shrugged. “I had been working the board of directors for even longer.”

  “Then you should start running, Abel.” She pointed her gun in the air and fired one shot off. “Go.”

  He ran and jumped into his car, spinning tires as he set off. She watched him drive away and thought about what she had just done. He would be caught and go away for a long time. She didn’t know how prison worked for shifters, but she could imagine it wasn’t very good for anyone, shifter or human.

  She felt a tear run down her cheek and touched it. She’d won. She did something really fucked up to do it, but she won.

  It was worth it.

  It was enough.

  The image of the burning house was everything her anger needed to finally cool without festering in her soul. She could hear the sirens of firetrucks and local cops now. She started her bike up after putting her gun away and tore off down the road. She had to get home and face the pride. Maybe an arrest. She couldn’t ignore the fact that she had started a wildfire in the forest behind Abel’s house. The fire department would be there fast enough to stop that, thankfully. She didn’t really want to go to jail, but it would have been worth it.

  BRENTON

  Brenton looked at the text, half asleep. Someone was banging on the door to his room, screaming his name.

  Riley: I’m fixing a problem tonight, be back by dawn, see file on bar in kitchen. <3 We’ll talk when I get home. Turning phone on silent.

  What?

  “Brenton! Get your damn ass out here!” Zachary’s roar finally made Brenton jump up. Fuck, what did she do? “Riley’s not in the fucking house!”

  Oh shit. He grabbed sweats, barely getting them on as he opened his door and followed Zachary down the stairs. Troy and Andrew were staring at a file while Gabe ran in with his laptop.

  “What is this?” Brenton snarled. “And what the fuck did her text mean?”

  “We haven’t opened it yet but there was a USB with it, so Gabe is going to look at it first,” Andrew flipped open to the first page of the file.

  Abel Cartona’s face stared back at them. Brenton snarled at it but didn’t understand where it was going. There was a note on the back of the image.

  I found him

  Riley

  Gabe plugged the USB in and whimpered at video files that had no meaning to Brenton.

  “Gabe,” Troy whispered, confused as well.

  “I kept one USB, labeled ‘Unknown Female Product Test’ and the date of the day after our capture… I couldn’t bring myself to watch the videos… We had only been home a few hours. I figured I could watch it the next day, when I was feeling better. The videos are of Riley… and what was done to her…” Gabe was shaking, and Brenton went cold. His hands were clammy, his palms sweaty. Zachary cursed several times while Andrew just sat quietly, stiller than natural. Troy’s jaw dropped. “Then the USB went missing that night from where I threw it…”

  “Riley found it,” Brenton assumed. She had to have found it. Then she must have watched it.

  Gabe hit play on the first video and they watched Abel and Riley from a top down viewpoint. There was audio. Brenton wanted to be sick and Gabe was green. The entire pride was feeling it, all looking desperately ill. The next video was at a different angle, showing Abel’s face. They couldn’t watch any of the videos to completion. They didn’t need to.

  “She found him,” Troy whispered desperately, “and look at all the stuff in the file. She did more than find him.”

  Gabe typed after he removed the USB and slammed his hand down on the counter.

  “She did it all with my fucking laptop. She deleted the files, but she didn’t clear the damn recycling bin. I have it all. She cleared my notifications on Abel’s movements, all my research on him, and all my images of him around Denver. She used it all for herself and didn’t say anything.”

  “The file has all of it,” Zachary growled, spreading pages out over the bar. “Look,” he snapped, pulling a picture up. “One of the fucking board members.”

  “Several of them,” Brenton mumbled, looking through it all. She’d done all this and put it together. And she was out getting revenge. He should have noticed this before. He’d seen the anger at dinner, when they pushed her out of the investigation. He felt the rage simmer under her for days, but he’d been unwilling to confront her. She was scared of him, and he let it blind him.

  “She took her bike,” Troy muttered. “We didn’t notice because we left the garage open.”

  “What do you think she’s done? Do you think she’s okay? We have to go after her!” Andrew looked between the pride, and Brenton swallowed. He was right, they had to go get her. She could be in danger. She was in over her head on this and didn’t trust them to handle it.

  Brenton’s phone went off, and he looked down to see who was calling. He prayed for it to be Riley, but it wasn’t.

  “What do you want, Special Agent Corban?” Brenton snarled into the phone.

  “Do you know where your pride member, Riley Stern, is right now?”

  “No, we just found something she left for us,” Brenton put the agent on speaker phone.

  “I hope it’s not the same file she left here for us to find,” Corban was grim. “It’s pretty awful.”

  “If it had a USB stick that I wish didn’t exist, then yeah, we probably have the same file.” Brenton ran a hand through his hair. “What do you need?”

  “The home Abel Cartona bought outside of Denver is on fire. And so is the forest behind his house. Firefighters are working hard to put it out.”

  “We don’t know if she did this and if she did, we didn’t know she would.” Brenton clenched his fists. “But, Special Agent, we’ll be fighting for her in court. She’s going to have every lawyer I can pay for.”

  “We’re not going to press charges. I’m a jaguar, Brenton. I know how we felines work, and this was definitely some feline shit. No one is dead, some trees and a house really don’t bother us. With rain coming in tomorrow, the fire won’t do much. So, no charges.”

  “Thank you, Special Agent,” Zachary sounded so thankful that Brenton was concerned for his damn second.

  “She said we could speak to her at dawn,” Corban continued. “I would like to, just to wrap some things up. Ask her why she gave Abel a head start on us going after him. That’s the only reason that we can think of for her to set his house on fire and call us in.”

  Brenton didn’t understand that either. Why do both? Where was she playing this? She didn’t even kill the fucker in the fire. He would have. And he damn sure wouldn’t have told the SSTF that he was up to something.

  “She told us she would be home by dawn,” Andrew told Corban. It was one am, dawn was between seven and eight. They had six hours of waiting to see if she would be coming home.

  “Special Agent, can you guarantee her safety right now? Do you think she is okay?” Zachary asked.

  “Local law enforcement claims to have seen a small figure on a motorcycle fleeing the scene of the fire. She has a motorcycle license, correct?”

  “And she took her bike,” Troy groaned.

  “We are currently tracking Abel. We’ll have him before the sun is up. We have enough evidence that this probably won’t go to trial. He’s going away for the rest of his miserable existence. She even had his bank statements to prove he spent the money.”

  “Yeah, we got that, too,” Brenton sighed. She was probably okay. But he still wasn’t sure why she did it this way.

  “Well, let us know if she gets home,” Corban hung up. Brenton looked up the ceiling and sighed heavily.

  “We wait and if she’s not home by dawn, we go find her?” Zachary snarled. “This shit is unacceptable, Brenton. She can’t go off and fucking set houses on fire behind our backs.”

  “Yes, and I know,” was all he had to say.

  They
walked to the den, taking the file, USB and laptop with them.

  “Gabe,” Troy started quietly once they all sat down, “how did we miss Abel meeting with all the board members? How did we miss all this?”

  “You were working too hard,” Brenton gave the answer just as softly. “It happens. I’m not mad. And yeah, none of these guys were at the meeting today, so that says something about what’s going on.”

  “She may have saved your business,” Andrew mumbled, sitting in the corner of the brother’s couch. Brenton sat with Zachary. They left the middle one open for Riley, only her. She would know where they were when she got home. If she got home.

  “She did,” Brenton muttered, angry about it. She’d done all the fucking work. He shouldn’t be mad at her, but he was. She’d done this behind their backs and under their noses. Why?

  They sat in silence for a long time until nearly four am when Thomas walked in on accident.

  “Come back later,” Brenton snarled. “We’ve got pride business to deal with at dawn. Tell everyone up there to stay in their rooms, including Finn.”

  “Alright!” Thomas left just as quickly as he’d shown up.

  They got a call, Abel Cartona was arrested.

  At five in the morning, they heard her bike screaming down the driveway. They listened as the garage door closed. None of them missed the smile she wore when she walked in.

  RILEY

  Riley didn’t speed on the way home. She had plenty of time til dawn and she wanted to clear her mind a little. She could still smell the wonderful smoke and fear. It was enough.

  She stopped and got breakfast at a Jack In The Box in Denver, eating at a relaxed pace. She was content in a way she hadn’t been in ages. It was enough.

  She cruised into the driveway, moving much faster than she should have been, but she was able to stop without going into the wall of the garage. That wouldn’t have been good.

  When she didn’t see the file on the bar, she grinned. They would be in the den, and they would be mad. That was okay, she was ready for it.

  She stepped in and saw them all waiting for her, looking tired and furious. Oh, the worry and dismay were there too, have no doubt.

  She said nothing as she walked to her couch, pulled off her black riding jacket, and laid it over the back.

  “Well?” Brenton finally growled.

  “I’ll say this once and only once,” Riley whispered, “leave me out again and I will just leave.”

  She sat down, kicking her legs up onto the coffee table in the center.

  “What?” Andrew’s eyes were massive. Gentle, loving Andrew.

  “You heard me,” Riley looked to him, feeling bad for this. “I won’t be coddled. I won’t be protected. I’ve asked you since this all started to either trust me or don’t, but do not make me ride the fence of being an almost. And what happened when we got back? I became an almost pride member. You all pushed me out.”

  “We were trying to keep you-” Brenton started but she was not listening to that line again.

  “Safe. Yes, I know, Brenton.” She growled. “Maybe you should just trust that you trained me well enough to do that myself or be a member of the team.” She wasn’t scared of him anymore. She wasn’t scared of any of them, and someone like Abel Cartona would never inspire fear in her again. “You’ve spent months training me, before and after the kidnapping. Same with the attempted murder. Let’s not forget the hunters in the diner or the hunters in the fucking house!”

  “Riley-”

  “No, I’m not fucking done yet. I’m the one who went through hell in the compound, you guys just got to watch it. And then I came fucking back for you!” Riley took the file and tossed it. “But none of that fucking mattered the moment we got back to the goddamn house.”

  “You were a wreck after we escaped for the entire trip home!” Brenton roared, standing and pointing down at her in fury. “The entire fucking trip!”

  “I was shell shocked! Of course, I was! But when I woke up that night, you should have accepted me back in! Instead, you guys ignored my simple request to even know what was going on!” Riley roared back, standing up and meeting Brenton head on. “You pushed me out and left me out in the cold on what was happening. So, I took the initiative. I needed it. I needed my own closure and it was so fucking easy to make happen, I want to laugh now that it's done. The hunters haven’t been the only thing in the last month to completely underestimate me.”

  She watched Brenton pale, but he didn’t break eye contact. Neither did she.

  “You went behind our backs,” he snarled. “You didn’t trust us--”

  “You didn’t trust me, either, Brenton. I did what I needed to do, and if I didn’t feel you would have taken it away, I would have told you everything.” She blinked back the tears that came from that statement. “Attitude reflects leadership, Brenton Kingson. You want me to act like a member of the pride, you and everyone else here needs to treat me like one.”

  One would have thought she slapped him with that statement. She finally looked away and he staggered back a few steps. The other guys avoided her gaze, guilty and upset. Angry at her? Definitely. Angry at themselves? Probably.

  “Why did you do it this way?” Zachary asked. She wondered what he would think of her when she answered. “Why not just send it to the SSTF or any other alternative?”

  “He made me feel the fear of an inescapable fate. The fear of being truly helpless. I returned that feeling in kind by making it nearly impossible for him to get out of this. I was nicer in a way, too. I gave him an hour to make a run for it where the hunters only gave me five minutes. He’s going to prison for a very long time, and I got to see his face when he figured it out. It was enough.”

  “Jesus Christ. I hope it was,” the white tiger whispered, pale himself now. “I fucking hope it was.”

  “You three over there have any questions?” Riley turned to Andrew, Troy, and Gabe, all a bit freaked out.

  They all shook their heads.

  “Don’t hold this against yourselves. Even if you had figured it out first, I would have found a way to do it myself. At the end of the day, I needed it. And I wasn’t going to let you all take it away from me.” Riley shrugged.

  “Riley, we love you and we just wanted you safe,” Brenton finally whispered.

  “And I love all of you. More than you can understand,” Riley let the tears roll down now. “It was that love that kept me going during the hunt. But love needs trust Brenton. You all need to trust me, not just love me, or this will never work.”

  “You love us?” Gabe whispered, looking at her like she offered salvation.

  “I love you, Gabe. And Troy, and Andrew, Zachary, and yes, Brenton, you too.” She looked around at all of them. “But leave me out again for my own safety and I will just leave because I won’t have a life of being almost in this family. Almost doesn’t cut it for me.”

  Brenton swooped in, held her cheeks and gave her the kiss of a lifetime. She could only hold onto his arms as he devoured her mouth like a starving man. When he pulled back, she saw tears in his eyes, too.

  “We’ll trust you. Damn it, Riley, we’ll trust you. We won’t push you out again, I fucking swear it.” He whispered passionately, holding her amber eyes with his gold ones. “You started a wildfire by the way.”

  “Yeah,” Riley laughed, “I did, didn’t I? I do feel a bit bad for that.”

  “In more ways than you could know,” Zachary smiled at her, his blue eyes glittering as he stood up. “Now, leave Brenton and come here so I can hold you for a second, and then the rest all get a chance.”

  Brenton released her, and kisses were given to her by all of them. They walked out for Andrew to begin making breakfast. Troy called down Finn and the wolves. When Thomas walked in, she smirked at him.

  “I got mine,” she told him as he walked in. It made him stop, still and cautious.

  “Was it enough?” He asked softly.

  “It was enough,” she grinned
. “It was more than enough.”

  RILEY

  Riley sat with Brenton and the rest of the pride in the boardroom. Several members were turning in the resignations today after being caught working with a criminal to throw Brenton out. Good times.

  Their replacements? The pride. Brenton’s idea since it would keep the board from ever being strong enough to kick them off their throne again.

  “Well, Jamie, you are now the Chairman. Hope you like your new position,” Brenton smiled at the human who had helped them only days earlier. Brenton had spent nearly an hour explaining to Jamie everything that led to this day. Riley thought the poor man was going to have a heart attack. In general, all the board members knew about shifters and the politics, threats, and lives of shifter kind. They didn’t expect to get drawn in most of the time.

  “I’ll try, Brenton,” Jamie nodded to all of them and walked off to take his seat.

  Then the old farts that had decided to fuck with her Alpha walked in. Each had a letter and dropped it on Brenton’s desk.

  “Ah yes… I’ve been told this would happen,” Brenton’s mild tone was everything in this. “Tell me, did you really think someone in my pride wouldn’t figure it out?”

  “No,” one of them mumbled. “We figured between the hunters and the… threats to the woman you are now with, that you would be preoccupied. You’ve had a busy year…”

  Brenton nodded slowly and then waved his hand, dismissing all of them. Riley grinned triumphantly as they all shook hands with their replacements. Including her.

  “Got what you wanted, Miss Stern?” One of them said to her quietly.

  “My Alpha is still on top. So yes, I’ve gotten exactly what I wanted,” she said menacingly. She might have been small, but she was a shifter and she could take any of them any day of the week. “You have a great day.”