Chapter Twenty-Four #2
Kill her.
Kill them.
Kill them all.
I jerked my head to the side, panting heavily through bared teeth. Instinct was possessing me. My mind was severing, my judgment misted with red. I couldn’t evade its beckoning. They took him, they hurt him, they have him. “He’s mine!”
An exhale, deep and stabilising, caught my ears.
A light pressure weighed on my wrist, above my shirt, avoiding skin.
A hand. “You’re stronger than this, Caine.
Stronger than anyone I know.” The touch clamped down.
Encouraging. Anchoring. “Fight it. Don’t give it control of your mind. Not now. Not when he needs you.”
Needs you . . .
With a sound that didn’t feel entirely human in my throat, I let go, stumbling out of her space.
“Fuck!” I pinched the bridge of my nose until my concentration recentred, the primitive haze dispelling.
Subduing. My hand shook from overuse. The pain fuelled me, grounded me, stopped me from sinking back into a rampant hellscape.
Dylan needed me.
I angled my face toward Raegan. “Forgive me,” I bit out, agitated at my display of discomposure. She paused in straightening out her jacket, eyebrow cocked.
“Never apologise to me for feeling, Caine.”
A faint huff escaped me. “Is Minseo safe?”
She nodded. “Though Edith was also under the impression you had ‘a surprise’ planned for Dylan. That’s why she didn’t raise any alarms when he left.”
I adjusted my stance, reining in the strayed dregs of my control, my mind once again my own.
Who the fuck was doing this? They knew Dylan and Minseo were out this morning, they knew I wasn’t here.
They’d forged a message from me, aware of our every move, setting up the perfect trap to lure him away.
“Who’s had access to the house in the last forty-eight hours?”
“The usual,” she said. “No one else has been permitted as per your orders.”
After locating Minseo, I’d reduced visits to the mansion.
All pack business that couldn’t be handled from my office was to be carried out at the centre where we trained our recruits and conducted larger pack meetings.
It wasn’t ideal. It meant I was gone more often, relying solely on others to monitor him, but it ensured no one I didn’t explicitly trust had access to the house. To the systems. To the surveillance.
To my family.
It was a precaution, and now we knew for sure the rat was part of my inner circle.
One of my guards, one of my staff. Someone who could come and go as they pleased without raising suspicion.
They were right under my nose the entire time, toying with me, watching us, waiting for the moment to strike.
Laughing. “Have all the staff and sentinels questioned,” I instructed, my tone devoid of attachment.
“Thoroughly. I want to know their every move, their every thought. If there’s even a glitch on the CCTV where they’re not accounted for, put a bullet in their head. ”
She nodded, though the gesture was reluctant. “Edith?”
“Yes.”
She left the room to fulfil her orders, and I had barely a moment’s grace to focus before my brother and Tobias rushed through the front door. It near swung off its hinges with how forcefully Aaron barged into it. “We found something,” he declared.
I was in front of them before he even finished. Tobias offered up a scrap of cloth, smeared with dirt and blood. I took it from him, bringing it to my nose.
It was Dylan’s.
“Is it him?” he asked, unable to smell the notes of dawn dew and wildflowers himself. I didn’t speak, but the primal growl in my chest was answer enough. “We found it in the woods near Lina and Preston’s bodies. Both clean shots to the head.”
“Anything else?”
“There were traces of a liquid in the leaves. A serum or poison. I collected a sample, and sent it back to the centre with Zoya and Seb. They’re running it through their databases. Whatever it was, it must’ve been used to knock him out.”
I heard my teeth creak. “How much blood was there?”
“Not enough to be fatal.” I was already aware he wasn’t dead, but Tobias’s confirmation was appreciated.
“There was a bullet lodged in the tree near the site of the blood. A warning shot, I’m surmising.
To fuck with his head. It could’ve nicked him, or he could’ve cut his hand when he fell—there was a disturbance in the leaves and finger patterns in the soil, as if he tried crawling away but was stopped. ”
The throb in my ear.
“Did he try to run?”
“Valiantly,” he asserted. “He was almost at the perimeter, which explains the shot. There was also evidence of a struggle, and three sets of footprints.”
There was no CCTV in the forest. It was densely packed with trees and foliage. Even on the path through the centre, range was too limited to be reliable. Sentries should have been patrolling the area. Why had they abandoned their posts?
“Did you get a mould of the prints?”
“Not yet,” he said. “I’m heading back to make sure there’s nothing I missed. But I wanted to bring you what we had. It’s a start—a lead we can work with.”
“Whoever it was is a cracking shot,” my brother chimed in, sounding awed. I switched off. “They could nick his ear while he was zig-zagging through all those fucking trees? Pretty impressive.”
My gaze fixated on the blood-soaked fabric, my wrath looming like a shadow, waiting to consume me.
My chest was empty. Hollow. His emotions had only merged with my own less than forty-eight hours ago and already their loss was mourned.
The bloodlust inside me was savage, frenzied and deafening, but somehow still too quiet.
I needed to feel him again. A hint. A physical indication he was with me.
His pain would act as an incentive, it would drive me to hunt down the bastards and tear them limb from limb.
I shouldn’t need any more motive.
I promised him he’d be safe. That he wouldn’t know suffering again. Why had I stalled? Why had I left him? The bloody cloth creased under my tightening fingers.
I’d failed him again.
“Boss,” Raegan called out upon her return. Her footsteps were hurried. “I don’t mean to pry into your personal business, but Edith said she believes you . . . bonded with him last night. I’m no Alpha, but if that’s the truth, can’t you track him?”
All eyes snapped to me.
My jaw clenched. “I can’t . . . feel him anymore.”
“What?”
“He’s not dead, our pack bond remains, but I can’t sense his emotions. I can’t fucking track him.” My gaze pinned her. “Don’t you think I would have made an attempt already?”
“Shit,” Aaron rasped. “When did you lose it? What’s the last thing you felt?”
“Adrenaline. Terror.” The words were acidic on my tongue. “Then they vanished.”
He considered it, his brows knitted. “When they conked him out, maybe that serum had something in it . . . A blocker of some sort? It’s worth an investigation.”
Tobias perked up at the new information. “It’s possible. I’ll inform Seb, get him to research for any drugs or poisons that could potentially break a mate bond. Even temporarily.”
“Return to the woodlands,” I commanded. “Gather up every single trace you can find, even if you believe it’s insignificant.”
“On it,” he acknowledged before leaving.
I turned to Raegan. “Be prepared to inform the leaders that I’m on the warpath, and if anyone crosses it— responsible or not—there will be no mercy.”
She nodded once, but stayed in her spot. Deliberately.
Aaron cut in before I could bid her to break her silence. “I know you’ll have your tech buddies already on it,” he remarked, rocking onto the balls of his feet. “But maybe we should bring in extra eyes? Fresher eyes, with no ties to our organisation.”
My short patience was waning, though it wasn’t a suggestion without merit. “Can they be trusted to stay silent?”
He scoffed. “This isn’t my first rodeo. It’s a long shot, but I slept with a computer nerd a few years ago. I’ll pay him to have a nosy in the Veenstra’s systems. I think he’ll be too terrified to blab, but I’ll put a bullet in him if there’s any doubt.”
“I don’t care what you do,” I growled. “Just find him.”
An expression crossed his face that was unnatural for him. Sympathy. “You’ll get him back,” he said, his eyes flashing with a deranged light. “And we’ll raze the fuckers to the ground.”
Once his footsteps were far enough in the distance, I faced Raegan. “Speak.”
“Take a look at this,” she said, handing me her phone.
It was CCTV from the parking bays behind Joles.
A black Mercedes, a tinted front window view of a stocky male in the driver seat beside a female passenger.
At a glance, they wouldn’t raise suspicion.
Customers drifted passed without so much as a cursory observation, having no inclination to stare.
They blended in with their surroundings, but my eye caught a detail that’d be missed from a low perspective.
A gun on the dashboard.
My gaze flicked to the timestamp. Three fifty-two.
They waited for him.
“Who are they?”
Raegan reached forward, zooming in on the frame. “Notice anything?”
I studied the new angle, inspecting every inch of gritty footage, until the male shifted his arm into view, his tattoos exposed. “Rovina,” I identified, my top lip curling with a sneer.
She nodded sagely. “Too far north to be a coincidence.”
The Rovina pack were fourth in the pecking order, their numbers would barely make up a quarter of our assets. Their revolt wouldn’t be of any benefit to them. It would be suicide to even attempt it unless they had ammunition, inside knowledge offered by a traitor.
They had an accomplice.
“There’s more,” Raegan added, swiping at the screen again—to an invoice for two hundred Glock 17s.
“There have been similar orders over the past three months, nothing out of the ordinary or particularly suspicious, but this one stood out to me. It’s dated from the afternoon before the pack event.
Pretty hefty request for hours before a party, no? ”
As she said, it wasn’t unprecedented for weapons to be procured in large quantities, especially in the current circumstances.
We were in the midst of preparing for a war, after all.
Except I hadn’t expressed a demand for more arms—or granted my seal of approval for their purchase. “Who authorised this order?”
“You.”
My gaze lifted. “What?”
She scrolled, revealing the script at the bottom of the page. “The signature is yours.”
To the untrained eye, her claim was indisputable. The looping arch over the D, the flick at the end of Devereux, sharp and without frill. A carbon copy. The only difference: I signed with my left hand, and judging by the placement on the dotted line, this was done with the right.
“The day of the event,” I mused aloud. “Dylan and I were . . . not on speaking terms. If they were aware, they could’ve used it to their advantage, assuming my mind would be preoccupied. I didn’t grant this, but they would’ve capitalised on any duties I’d delegated to another.”
Whether personally, or by proxy, every order put into our system had to be sanctioned by me.
Requests requiring even a penny from our vault were to be thoroughly inspected and, if approved, signed before entry.
In this case, a signature being added by the applicant should have raised alarm bells, regardless of their identity not matching.
Unless my representative wasn’t paying close enough attention.
Blinding indignation surged from my gut. I could almost sense my pupils dilating. “Who is so easily distractible to let this slide under the radar?”
Exasperation flitted over Raegan’s face, her jaw twitching. “You already know the answer to that one, boss.”
Torin.
“I’m going to strangle the scatterbrained little fuck,” I barked, pacing the floor. “Bring him here. Right now!”
“Already on his way,” she verified before swerving in front of me, stalling my strides. My eye snapped up, a growl echoing in my chest. A victorious grin split her face. “Caine . . . we’ve got the fucker.”
Her words registered, their implication—I wouldn’t be breaking my oath to Dylan. They were within reach. He would be safe, or I’d die trying.
They’d handed me proof, provided undeniable cause to rain my entire force down on their head.
They’d killed two of my own, and it was enough.
The treaty was null and void. Though the extent of their corruption burrowed far deeper than that.
They’d abducted my daughter. They’d hurt my mate. They wanted what was mine.
Before I was done, they were going to wish they’d never been fucking born.