Chapter 21
Bronc
Ahazy afternoon light slanted through the compound’s meeting room as we assembled around the long, scarred table, each officer wearing their frustration like armor.
Wrecker hunched over his laptop, every muscle coiled.
I kept my gaze fixed on him and hoped to hell we finally had a break.
“Please tell me you’ve got something new,” I said.
His jaw tightened, fingers stabbing keys with impatience.
“I’m in the goddamn dark here, Bronc. Two days and we got jack shit on Harrison.
But I’m workin’ other angles.” The scratch of pen against paper filled the silence as I took in the furrowed brows and clenched fists around the table. Nobody liked where this was heading.
“Wrecker,” I pressed, my voice steady even as I felt the same gnawing dread. “Don’t care how you get there, but we need something now.”
He swore under his breath, as close to rattled as I’d ever seen him. “Give me a minute,” he muttered. I watched him hunch further over the screen, fingers quick as his eyes darted with intensity. We were losing ground, and with it, any semblance of control.
I leaned back, crossing my arms as Wrecker continued his furious typing. “This stays quiet till we know more,” I warned, feeling the weight of what needed doing if he didn’t come through.
The room felt smaller by the second, our world closing in.
Finally, Wrecker stopped. He ran a hand through his hair, meeting my gaze with grim satisfaction.
“All right. Listen up.” His voice cut through the room, every officer’s attention snapping to him with the sharpness of men hungry for direction.
“We hit Harrison’s board members’ servers,” he announced, dark eyes gleaming with both relief and alarm.
Harrison Pharmaceutical is researching some big new drug.
Got emails.” He went on, his voice gaining strength with each new piece.
“Talking about DNA manipulation, performance-enhancing shit. Fuck me. They are trying to synthesize DNA. Fucker’s got a research facility, making some kind of drug.
Might be a serum. Who the hell knows? They’re moving fast as possible.
Something tells me he’s aware of Juliet’s blood; thus he took Renda instead. ”
“That son of a bitch,” I growled, my words echoed by the grim looks of agreement around me. My pulse hammered in my neck, anger mingling with the dread. I had known it was bad, but this was the kind of poison that spread.
Wrecker’s expression was pure bitterness as he closed the lid on his laptop. “Harrison was after Juliet’s bloodline sometime after they got engaged it seems, because this all didn’t start until that time.”
Menace, calm and steady like the eye of a storm, interrupted the silence that followed.
“There’s more.” His words dropped like stones, gathering weight.
“Fuck me sideways. This all checks. Remember those reports of missing shifters? They were Midwest packs. This guy’s targeting areas from where her ancestors came from.
He must have researched her family tree same way we did.
Only he started picking people up for their blood.
Then maybe some of them sang about other packs to save their own? ”
My hands clenched into fists, trying to squeeze the truth from the gaps between what we knew and what we didn’t. “Her family kept their shifter heritage sealed up tight,” I said, disbelief tinged with frustration. “You sure?”
He nodded once, the kind of confirmation that sealed the world into new and darker shapes. “Old lineage. Matches with some of what we pulled in her background check. Nebraska” His eyes swept the room, assessing the reactions.
The murmur of voices rose as we tried to fit the pieces together, but nothing looked right when they settled.
My gaze cut through the din and landed on Wrecker.
“We have to get into Harrison’s systems. Full-court press,” I ordered.
“And now we got names, use ‘em. We’re finding that lab and what they’re making. ”
Wrecker nodded, resolute as the rest of us. He’d been in impossible spots before. I knew he’d dig like hell.
Menace’s voice cut in again, an edge of urgency where cool control used to be.
“If we’re right about the missing shifters, he might not even be in the States.
Overseas connections are popping up.” He left the worst of it unsaid, but we all knew.
Once they slipped beyond the borders, the chase would be ten times harder.
“Then look in Central and South America for other legit Harrison Pharma labs. Stands to reason he’d have sway with authorities in those countries. Maybe he’d build an illegitimate lab there, too. Christ, what kind of monsters would be working on something like this?”
Doc looked at me, shaking his head. “The kinds who value money over ethics. And there are plenty of them in this business, brother, I’m sad to say.”
I took the measure of each man in turn, reading fear where it lived behind determination.
The boys didn’t have to say it for me to hear them clear as day: this ran deeper than we thought, with tendrils that reached into every one of their lives.
I thought of Juliet and what she’d run from, and how close this might come again.
Every man at this table might not be a tech wizard, but they damn sure knew how to do research. Arsenal looked me in the eye. “We got your back, Liam. Juliet’s too. This is as much our fight as it is y’all’s.”
JT looked up from his laptop. “What he said.”
Doc reached over with a fist. I touched mine to it. “Brothers.” He said in a growl.
“Brothers.” I returned.
“The second we hear anything, I want to know,” I said, a command with nothing left to question.
They nodded, stiff and focused, needing what little assurance we could offer. Harrison and his operation had already taken too much. We wouldn’t give up anything else. Not if I could help it.
As we started to wrap the meeting, our somber mood only deepened. Menace shot me a hard look, reading every bit of grit and fury I felt.
“That lab has her name all over it,” Wrecker added, looking almost hopeful now that he had a plan to chew on. “I’m gonna bury the fuckers when I get in.”
More voices joined, brief but fierce. Promises to watch their families, to stay close, to move fast. I felt the swell of resolve rise and watched it pass over me, carrying us from the paralysis of fear into the momentum of action.
“We keep moving,” I said, letting my tone ground them the way they needed it to. My eyes didn’t leave theirs until they knew I meant every word. “We’ll find it.”
The meeting closed with the resolve that only desperate men carry.
I watched the officers file out, their silence as deliberate as their strides.
Outside, the low sun cut the land into pieces, leaving sharp lines of shadow as we walked toward our bikes.
Menace stayed close, reading the fight in my eyes.
“We’ll know more soon,” he said as the others started their engines. His confidence rang through the doubt that hung over us.
I nodded, sure of him and nothing else. “Won’t rest till we do.”
It wasn’t a threat, or even a promise. Just the truth I planned to live by until it was done.
Night settled over the cabin like a weight, heavy and uncertain.
I found Juliet hunched close to the TV, shadows thrown long across the floor as her eyes tracked news channels, the remote a tight fist in her grip.
She didn’t notice me at first. The air buzzed with voices as they filled the space with clipped, senseless words about the financial market back east.
Her tension drew tight around us both; her breath hitched and expectant. When I finally moved toward her, a sharp intake of breath let me know she’d registered I was there. “Bronc,” she said, and the relief and anxiety wound together in her voice, thin threads holding her too-still body.
I dropped down beside her, gathering her in as she began to shake. “Shhh,” I murmured against her hair. “Not gonna find her on there.”
Juliet slumped into my chest, the remote dropping from her fingers and thudding against the hardwood.
She smelled like despair and rain, soft notes cutting through the sharper stabs of panic.
“She’s my mother,” she said, choked and careful.
“I know she failed at so many things, but I still have to try.”
I held her tighter, burying my nose against her skin and breathing her in until the calm I willed through our bond settled enough to take hold. Her warmth and her hurt, her presence at the center of my world. “No, you don’t,” I told her. “Just gotta trust me.”
A quiet rippled through the room as she went still. Her pulse fluttered beneath my lips as I pressed a line of slow, reassuring kisses along her neck and shoulder. Finally, her muscles unlocked, and she shivered against me in surrender.
When her voice came, it was low and uncertain. “What if he’s already—?”
“He hasn’t,” I interrupted, fierce and sure. She would be devastated if Harrison made a move before she could find her mother. “He won’t.”
I felt the fight slip from her as she met my gaze, wet eyes turning dark and wide with both belief and doubt. I took her hand, threading our fingers together. “Come on,” I said, rising and pulling her with me. “Know what you need.”
“Bronc?” she asked, but she followed.
We stepped into the cool night air, our shadows stitched close as I led her across the expansive backyard. The sparse lights around the pool lent a ghostly illumination, each delicate ripple in the water throwing pale reflections that danced beneath the moon.