3. Tristan
TRISTAN
“What do you mean you might know where she is?” Darius snapped, his ice blue eyes flashing at me.
I took a deep breath and tried to remind myself they didn’t have the patience that I did.
Being one of the last Dire wolves, if not the last one alive, I’d had to spend my life running and hiding until the world had forgotten about us.
Other than Orion, all these mate brothers of mine were under sixty years old and grew up in a time of peace.
Losing our mate and having the Collective then turn on us, forcing our hand to give them what they wanted, was a shock to their systems. They were taught that with negotiation that you could achieve what you want, but now they were getting a crash course in reality.
“I told you guys that following the money would give us more clues than you’d expect,” I answered, not rising to Darius’s bait.
Ever since Viv was taken, each of these men had needed to lean on their wolf nature more than normal to deal with the pain of her loss.
Even though I knew in my soul that she was alive, it still felt as though our very heart had been ripped from us.
If I hadn’t had this project to work on, I would have let my old nature take over and been out with Tav—but as I suspected, this had borne fruit.
“So are you going to tell us, or is there a secret code word we have to give you first?” Bentley grumbled, arms crossed, acting like the child that he is.
I gave him a disapproving look but chose to ignore him otherwise.
“As I have been going through the finances, I’ve noticed transactions that have been going to ten different corporations over the past two hundred years.
The reason it caught my eye was that the amount was almost always the same, between four and five thousand a month.
It took me a long time to track down all the companies since some of them have gone out of business, but that would be smart banking if they are a werewolf and live far longer.
So, knowing how to cover those things for my clients, I kept digging, and I came up with three possible answers. ”
“Why do I think this is not going to be good,” Koit groaned, sprawling out over the table.
Over the past months, I had seen the serious side of Koit and learned that when he gets like this, it’s his coping mechanism for uncomfortable situations. Working with Rik and the rest of the pack, he had pulled his weight and shown the true alpha he is and had kept hidden all these years.
“It’s good and bad, depending on how you look at it.
Two of the companies are funding Vadik and his agenda; the other is an American company— Grayson Industries.
I haven’t gotten a handle on what they do or why Sarma would be paying them, but it’s a starting point.
These companies have worked very hard to hide that they are all interconnected, and unless you know the werewolf tricks, you wouldn’t see it,” I explained.
Rik leaned forward, giving me a critical eye. “So how is this good? We already know that Sarma was working with Vadik to get Dr. Faulk’s help; this money exchange doesn’t tell us anything new.”
“In a way, it does. She was still paying him even after Dr. Faulk left the island and was hidden away. What I have to do now is work with Darius to get into the company’s records and find out where the money is going.
Then see if we can find what it’s being used for.
Same with the American angle— why the hell would they be working with them?
I haven’t the faintest clue,” I sighed, rubbing my forehead.
For the months that it had taken me to figure all this out, it seemed so insignificant, but we didn’t have any leads before this, so it was something.
“Does anyone have a feel for what the werewolf world is like in the States?” Orion asked, breaking the silence we had fallen into.
Through all my years of running, I hadn’t ever wanted to leave home, so I’d stayed in Europe even if it’d made things harder. I knew through the Collective that they had contact with the American werewolf leadership, but I didn’t have a clue how things were run.
“From what little I know, they don’t have a central leadership.
Every pack or state is its own territory and do things their own way.
They do have a police force, if you will, that deals with any rogue wolf or situation a pack might not be able to manage,” Darius added, finally having taken a seat in a new chair.
“We will have to be very careful when we investigate them. They have some of the best cyber security, and it’s hard for even its creator to get around it. I should know since I developed it.”
“Fucking hell man, you didn’t put a back door into your own program?” Bentley sneered. “What kind of idiot are you?”
“I never said I didn’t have a way in. It would be bad business if I could hack into my clients’ information at any given time, don’t you think?
I built the damn thing, so I know how to get around it, but doing so could give us away.
Letting them know we are investigating them might not be the brightest choice, seeing as they are the shoot first, ask questions later type,” Darius defended.
“Wait, so you know what this company does?” I asked, jumping on that piece of information.
Darius looked pained as he ran his hand through his hair.
“That’s the thing—they do everything and anything illegal.
You need weapons, drugs, women, money, transport in or out of the country?
They will make it happen. It’s a giant criminal organization, and to be honest, I should have seen them being buddy-buddy with Vadik the moment we figured out who he was.
He is the type they love to make friends with. ”
“That’s it, we’re fucked. There’s no way the seven of us can go against two GIANT criminal groups,” Bentley said as he tossed his hands in the air and got up from the table to leave.
“Sit your ass back down, now.” Rik ordered, letting his alpha energy back up his words.
Bentley snarled and turned on Rik, swinging out with his fist, but Rik was already in action, grabbing Bentley by the throat and tossing him back into the chair he’d gotten up from.
Rik loomed over him, his wolf showing in his eyes, and he growled, baring his teeth.
“Don’t you dare pull that shit on me, we are ALL upset and lost without Viv.
You don’t get to act like the kicked puppy around here when we are all trying to do our best with this situation.
None of us like it, so go put on your big boy pants and grow the fuck up. ”
Bentley opened his mouth to say something, but Orion grabbed his arm and squeezed. “I think now would be a good time to take the advice given to you, my friend.”
Thankfully, Bentley listened and didn’t push the matter further.
“Okay, so do we have any ideas how to deal with the problem Benny here pointed out?” Koit asked with a smirk, knowing he was poking the wolf, so to speak.
Darius huffed and shook his head. “It’s obvious we need to build our own army to fight them. It’s time we went back to our roots and handled things like wolves. They want to mess with us? Well that’s fine, but we aren’t going to give up without a fight, that’s for damn sure.”
“Where do you propose we get this army? The Collective has control over most of the packs that Vadik doesn’t. It doesn’t leave us with many options,” Rik pointed out, stroking his beard again.
“This is where information will come in handy. I believe the reason we can’t find Viv is because she isn’t in Europe anymore—I think he took her to America,” I ventured, knowing it was risky to tell them what I was thinking so early in the investigation. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“I have to agree with you…we are all bonded mates and should be able to find her. The only thing I can think of that would stop this connection is a great distance apart or some kind of manipulation to Viv,” Orion shared, tapping his chin.
“I haven’t seen any visions or dreams of her, either, just what’s happening here with us, and even then they are not proving to be helpful. ”
“You did save me from that shop lady who was trying to kidnap me to keep in her basement,” Koit interjected, shivering at the thought. “Crazy lady and all her herbs and potions.”
“Happy to help,” Orion grinned, but then his face turned more serious. “Even though I can’t see her or feel her through our bond, I know something is wrong. We need to keep working on finding her quickly, regardless of what might happen with things here. I’m afraid we might lose her forever.”
That hit us all hard, because whether we said it out loud or not, we were all thinking the same thing—What if we failed?
“Alright then, Tristan and I will start working on getting the banking information from the companies,” Darius instructed.
“Orion, you have just as many connections as I do. See if you can get a feel for this Greyson Industries and Stateside werewolves in general. Bentley, see if you might be able to figure out if there is a medical way to keep someone from their wolf. When we find her, we may find this is what happened, and knowing what effects it might have on her ahead of time would be smart. Rik and Koit, we need to find a team of trustworthy betas to hold down the fort here, because once we get a lead, I’m not waiting. ”
He’d given us all a purpose, knowing it was the only way we would keep it together.
“I’ll also see if there is anything we can do about the Collective. I don’t trust them to behave now that they know we won’t budge,” Rik said as he rose, giving us all a nod before he left the room, Koit on his heels.
Turning towards Orion, I caught his gaze. “We need Tav for this to work. Any luck on locating him?”
“Other than the dead bodies that I’ve been using to follow him—no,” Orion answered with a sigh. “I’ve had a vision he will be home soon, and I get the feeling he’ll have news for us that will be helpful. If I’d known how dark his wolf nature was, I wouldn’t have ever let him work with me.”
“It’s not your fault. From what I know of his father, he’s been fighting that darkness his whole life, but this time it served to be helpful, so he let it out.
Now the challenge will be if we can put it back in the box,” I said, sitting back in my chair, remembering when I had lost myself to my wolf many, many years ago.