Chapter Nine
CAINE
“We were just t-told to grab her and bring her here for an exchange,” the Alpha snivelled as his eyes darted between my face and the barrel of my gun, snot dripping from his nose. “I swear, we had no intention of hurting her. We don’t hurt kids. We wouldn’t have agreed if—”
“If you’d known she was a Devereux?” I finished for him, and he swallowed thickly.
“Please,” he begged, and typically I enjoyed it when they begged, but his voice grated on every one of my nerves. “We’re a small pack from district forty-two, just trying to get by. Bottom of the food chain. Business was slow, we were offered a mill if we did this. Who’d turn that down?”
I’d suspected hired thugs, but they were actually loan sharks—not very competent ones. A family business on the road to going bust. I supposed Dylan wasn’t as obtuse as I’d thought.
I hummed. “A million?”
“Yeah . . .”
“I’d say she’s worth at least ten.” I pulled the trigger, and his blood splattered over the concrete floor. His pack wailed and huddled together. They’d be next, but I’d give them a moment to grieve.
My phone chimed, and I fished it out of my pocket with the hand not coated in viscera.
It was a message from Raegan, informing me that Dylan and Minseo were home safe and sound.
I’d sent her to follow behind, even though I trusted Brian and George to carry out my orders—it was merely a precaution.
It didn’t hurt to have extra eyes on them.
I would have done it myself, but there was a mess to take care of, loose ends needing to be tied up.
I hadn’t wanted to traumatise the girl, so once my pack had swarmed in and overpowered the culprits, I’d returned her to her father.
Now they were both out of the way, I could finish the job properly.
I turned to the last one. Not a loan shark. This was a face I recognised—vaguely. A distant cousin I’d been forced to take under my wing since blood was so fucking important.
The rat.
“Matthew,” I said, not bothering to train my gun on him. He wouldn’t be dying today. “Tell me, what did I do to deserve such disloyalty?”
He said nothing.
I’d trained him well.
“Where do your meaningless allegiances lie now, hm? Is it the Veenstras?” He was involved, but he wasn’t working alone.
That wouldn’t make sense. He was as thick as pig shit, and the fact Tobias had been able to track the girl here because of his clumsiness proved he wasn’t the mastermind.
Far from it. He would have been given instructions by another source, and he should know who.
Or at least, what the entire point of this sham was.
“I won’t say a thing.”
My favourite sentence.
I faced Tobias, and he nodded, striding across the warehouse toward Matthew. The beta started to panic, shifting in his bonds as he was gripped by the collar and hauled outside. He’d talk eventually.
They always did.
My focus zeroed back in on the loan sharks.
They claimed they had no idea who’d offered the money, nor were they in it from the beginning.
They’d taken Dylan’s repayments and were approached by an unknown agent, who’d tasked them to kidnap a child for pay.
They were told to hide out here until Matthew arrived for the collection.
I believed that. They would have given me more if they had it.
There was no need to torture them for information, but I couldn’t let them go either.
I couldn’t let them live.
I had to send a message to whoever was behind this. No one takes what’s mine.
“Where is he?”
“His room,” Raegan answered, waiting in the lobby as I walked through the door.
I nodded and headed toward the spiral staircase, but she called out to me. “Might want to change your shirt first.”
I paused, glancing down. There was blood smearing the fabric—another one ruined.
With a hum, I changed direction, making my way to the opposite end of the house.
My clothes were in a room near my office.
I wasn’t particularly attached to it—it was a bedroom and bathroom, nothing extraordinary.
I was rarely in it, though the view was decent.
If I had a telescope, I’d be able to see right in through Dylan’s window.
I showered, washing the grime from my skin and under my fingernails. My bones ached, the heat loosening the pressure in my joints, and by the time I’d finished, dried, and donned a clean suit, I didn’t feel quite so agitated. Though a reminder of Dylan sobbing uncontrollably coaxed it back.
It irked me that I hadn’t known about my child’s existence.
No one should have managed to worm their way into a position where they could take her.
No one should have managed to deceive me.
Now we had the rat, I could figure out what the other pack’s intentions were—assuming it was another of the elites.
It had to be. My cousin couldn’t have pulled this off by himself.
He would have been offered a boon: power, money, sex, whatever vice seduced his pathetic interest, and he’d have taken it greedily.
Or he was threatened.
Either way, he’d decided to transfer his loyalties, to work against me from the inside, so he had to know who he was severing those bonds for.
Perhaps not directly, but he had to at least be aware of what pack they belonged to, and which bastard had monitored my every fucking move without notice for twenty-seven months.
Why had they taken my daughter if they had no intention of killing her?
Was it a ploy to figure out how much she meant to me?
Whether they were picking at the right spot before enacting the killing blow?
To keep me humble? I had no answers, but I’d be vigilant.
Someone out there had known about Dylan’s tie to me before I did.
It wasn’t a coincidence. They’d hired those sharks for the sole purpose of dangling their advantage in front of me.
They’d learned Dylan had given birth to my child, that he’d borrowed money from a loan company, and that was their in.
Their way to kidnap my child, perceive my reaction, and stay somewhat anonymous.
In some ways, the dance around was a mercy.
If the rival pack had taken her directly, they might have killed her.
The loan sharks had no reason to, it wasn’t their MO, and the delay had given us the opportunity to rescue her.
They’d kept her alive for someone else, confining her there until they received their fat paycheque.
The rat had shown up too late for an exchange, but on behalf of who?
I would find out.
I set my eyepatch in place and slipped on my finger brace before wandering down the hallway.
The familiar scent invaded my nose before I reached the top step.
It was now merged with another, subtler, more neutral scent.
I hovered at the door, watching him and the girl.
My daughter. He was embracing her—had he stopped?
The expression on his face was calmer. Relieved.
His eyes were red-rimmed, but the distressed smell was gone, leaving only a sense of elation.
I shifted and the floor creaked. Dylan’s head snapped up, on high alert, and he stood from the bed, shielding the child. I stepped into the room, and he only eased minutely.
“You’re back.”
I hummed at his astute observation. My gaze remained on Minseo, who peeked around from behind him. She was his double, but plumper. Small.
Dylan was conflicted, but after a stretch of silence, he sighed and picked her up, balancing her on his hip. “Minnie, baby,” he prompted. “This is your dad.”
She peered up at her father, prodding at his chest. “Da-ee.”
He huffed a laugh. “Yeah, I’m Daddy.” He pointed to me. “Dad.”
She was confused, and decided to hide in Dylan’s neck. “She’s being shy,” he said. “Probably because of everything.”
I nodded. She would need time to get over it. “She’s . . . brave.” The compliment sounded false on my tongue. I had no practice in being fatherly. Or pleasant.
“She is. The doctor said there were no injuries, but . . .”
My jaw clenched. “But?”
“What if there’s something internal?” His hold tightened. “Or what if they hurt her in other ways? We’ll never know. I mean, she’s not fussing, her attitude is surprisingly fine, but how can we know for sure?”
I understood his implication. “There was CCTV in the warehouse—my surveillance division is already working on downloading the footage. They’ll review it and report to me.”
“Oh,” he said, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth.
A vision came to me. “When I retrieved her, an omega was cradling her. She handed her over without threat. There were toys, a cot, and empty milk bottles.” It was lucky.
Hired thugs wouldn’t have been so courteous, but I didn’t say that part aloud.
“I believe she was either the Alpha’s mate or she was hired to look after Minseo. ”
Dylan appeared somewhat relieved. “I want to see the footage when they’re done. Just to see for myself.”
I nodded. “Of course.”
Minseo turned her head. She eyed me suspiciously, her eyes blazing with the same fire that was in her father’s. “You going to say hello, Minnie?” Dylan encouraged, and after a beat she lifted her hand, waving before burrowing again.
I rarely put myself in the path of children. I never expected to have one for myself. It was an odd situation to grasp. My mother had ensured I was taught the basics, practical lessons on how to be a father, but I wasn’t capable of the necessary emotion.
I was conditioned from a young age to be a leader, to be ruthless, closed off.
It was beaten into me. My brother had avoided the worst of it.
He was a beta, seen as not even worth the energy to punish him for that transgression.
He was free to carry on however he desired, but not me.
I didn’t know what being a normal child entailed.
My mother had tried, but my father would scold him for attempting to make me soft.