Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
Victor Hawthorne hadn’t been surprised that his clients had jumped at the chance for his latest acquisition. The albino wolf would bring in six figures, which he’d give a portion of to the men who helped him capture her.
He also wasn’t surprised that among the dozen men that Brent had loaned him for the job, several wanted to assault the wolf. Mercenaries tended to not be the most stable of people, and Brent only cared that they were on his side of wanting shifters dead. He didn’t care if they were criminals or had proclivities that would be viewed as disgusting or immoral to anyone with a conscience.
Not that Victor had a conscience himself. At least not when it came to shifters. They weren’t humans, so they didn’t deserve his compassion. They were a payday and a challenge, and this wolf had been a challenge.
He’d gotten her though.
As he knew he would.
With the client chosen and the deposit already wired to his off-shore account, he awaited details on where and when to meet up to complete the transaction.
His phone buzzed and he answered without looking at the screen.
“Hawthorne.”
“What’s going on? Last I heard you had the wolf. Is she dead? Did you take out any tigers in the process?”
“Brent,” he said, clearing his throat. “She’s not dead. The client who won the bidding war wants her alive.”
“Oh. For what purpose?”
“Don’t know, don’t care.”
“Well, she’s supposed to die. All shifters are. I thought you and I had an understanding.”
Victor never asked what clients did with the shifters, he simply delivered them dead or alive as the client preferred and walked away with his money. “We do have an understanding, but I’m not going to kill a shifter that’s more valuable to me alive. In the meantime, I need a few more men.”
“For what? You’ve got a dozen of my best guys.” Brent’s voice tipped a little whiny and Victor grimaced.
“I want to get the white tigers.”
“To kill them, right?”
“You have a one-track mind.” Victor decided to lie so Brent would stop harping on it. He had no plans to kill the two adult white tigers and the oldest of the children, who he suspected would also shift into a white tiger. “Yes, to kill them.”
“Good. I don’t care about money, I just want shifters dead. Any and all of them.”
“I’m aware.”
“If something goes wrong with you getting the white tigers for your clients, I want to pull out of the town.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m not devoting anymore resources to you trying to capture the rare tigers when what I want is for the entire tiger town to go up in flames with them in it. If something happens and you can’t get the white tigers, you bail.”
“Brent,” he said, protesting. “They’re valuable. Money helps your organization because you can hire good men to work for you.”
“The only good shifter is one who isn’t breathing anymore, period. There are far too many shifter groups in Northern Ohio for you to spend any more of my manpower on the tigers than necessary. I’ll send you a handful more men for your tiger extraction, but I want immediate proof they’re dead.”
The man was an idiot times ten.
“Fine. I’ll send you my location.”
“Good. I mean it, Victor. This fails, we switch to another group.”
Since Victor couldn’t really get into the other groups without Brent’s resources, he was at a disadvantage, so he’d toe the line until he had what he needed from him. In the meantime, the white tigers were calling and he had plans to make.
But first, the albino wolf.
Gavin rushed after Vaughn into the conference room.
“What’s the lead?” he asked.
Vaughn sat at the large table and tapped a keyboard. The screen on the wall showed an image of a line of vehicles driving away.
“So after Ryan found out that the sniper who shot you and your family was a half mile away, I did a search of the traffic cameras in the towns surrounding Whisper Creek. In Hobbs Mill, I found a group of vehicles that rushed out of an alley.” The screen showed a line of vehicles speeding away from an alley between two buildings.
The screen switched as the vehicles left one camera’s view and entered another. “I can’t see in the vehicles from the camera angles,” Vaughn said, “and the plates are turning out to be stolen from other cars so they won’t help us find out who’s driving.”
“Where are they now?” Gavin asked.
“A half hour from us,” Vaughn said. “They entered Bluffton, and it unfortunately doesn’t have traffic cameras.”
“So we don’t know where she is,” Midas said. “But we believe she’s there. Vaughn has been watching the surrounding areas, and those vehicles haven’t left.”
“I can find her if I’m in the town,” Gavin said. “I’ll shift when we get there.”
“We’ve got a team ready to go with you,” Midas said. “Good luck.”
Gavin rushed out of the room. His dad wanted to help find Sadie, so he followed them outside and into the vehicles that were already waiting.
Ryan put the lead SUV into gear and looked at Gavin seated in the passenger seat. “We’ll find her and get her back safely.”
“Thanks,” he said.
He wasn’t going to accept anything less than getting Sadie back in his arms. He couldn’t believe she’d been taken from him.
Hold on, Sadie. I’m coming .
Sadie had just reached the next floor when she heard footsteps coming toward her. In her haste, the ladder squeaked loudly and the footsteps rushed.
“Hey! She’s getting away!” a male yelled.
She shoved the ladder away from the steel beam she was balancing on, enjoying that the males had to jump out of the way to avoid getting hit. She walked carefully but quickly along the beam to the portion of the floor that was finished and looked around. It was mostly open and unfinished, and the support beams looked like a skeletal structure. She could see the sky beyond the beams and hurried to the edge.
Peering down, she saw she was indeed on the second floor and it was definitely too far for her to jump unless she wanted to break her legs in the process. She looked left and right, hoping she might be able to find something to climb down on, but there was nothing.
Which meant she’d have to make her way down to the first floor and get out that way. Except she’d just shoved the ladder away and she was now trapped. At least until the males put the ladder back up.
She looked around the space and decided to find a place to hide since she had no way down right now.
A haphazard pile of wood pallets in the far corner beckoned her. She raced to it, gripping the rebar tightly just as the ladder was put back up against the steel beam and clanged loudly.
“Damn it! I told you to have someone keep an eye on her,” Victor shouted.
“I thought Daryl was watching,” a man said with a pitiful voice.
“No, you didn’t, you ass,” another said.
“I don’t care who fucked up, just fix it. Get her to me, alive , immediately,” Victor said.
As she debated whether she should shift, she peeked around the edge of the pallets and saw first one male and then another climb onto the steel beam and make their way to the flooring.
“I don’t see her,” the first one said.
“There’s no other way down. The stairwell hasn’t been finished yet,” Victor called up. “She’d hiding.”
“What if she jumped?” the other asked.
“Idiots,” Victor said. “Find. Her.”
She squatted down and made herself as small as possible, gripping the rebar. The males split up after a quick discussion, and she could hear one drawing near her. She held her breath and pushed away the panic that clawed at her, and waited for the right moment.
When the male reached the pallet pile and peered around the corner to where she was hiding, she leaped to her feet and cracked him across the face with the rebar. He went down with a grunt and she slammed the rebar into his knee, making him howl in pain.
The second male rushed toward her, and she called for her wolf for strength and shoved the pallets over onto him. He stumbled and went down hard, the pallets covering him.
More males flooded up the ladder as Victor urged them on, reminding them again she wasn’t to be killed.
“Get her however you can, just get her,” Victor called.
Sadie was exposed now with the pallets gone, but she still had her rebar.
The males spotted her easily and she knew she didn’t have time to run.
Letting out her claws and fangs, she braced herself, rebar at the ready.
There was no other choice but to fight. She had to fight her way back to Gavin, and she was going to do it, one asshole human at a time.
Time to let the fur fly!