Chapter 2
Emilio
I snarled, the stench of fear filling my nostrils. It was one of my favorite scents. Knowing I could elicit that in my victims just by existing brought me extreme pleasure. A smell I didn’t love? Piss. What the fuck?
Growling, I lolled my head toward Santino, who was standing in front of our captive, swinging a serrated blade casually in front of his nose.
Santino tossed back his head and laughed. Asshole.
“See, you’ve done it now, scum. Nothing sets Lio off like piss. You just had to show how much of a lowlife you really are, didn’t you?”
Our captive whined, which morphed into full-blown pleas as Santino pressed his blade up against the bottom of his nose. I winced as the man wailed in pain and the tip of his nose fell to the ground by my paws.
“Please! Please, P-Patri. I swear I don’t know nothing.”
If I could roll my eyes in this form, I would. Honestly, these people were so predictable. Deny. Deny. Deny. Like we hadn’t had irrefutable proof of this bastard’s betrayal before bringing him here? Nico had been thorough with his research, and he was never wrong.
Santino sighed heavily, echoing my own thoughts. “I don’t know nothing,” he repeated in a mocking, high-pitched tone. “I’m really tired of hearing that.”
There was another scream, and the top of an ear fell by the nose.
Santino was playing with his prey. Normally, I didn’t mind, but today I just wanted this to be over.
I’d had this itch under my skin since the moment we’d walked into the abandoned warehouse we used for these things, like something was wrong.
I was tempted to shift to my human form and talk to Santino about it, but I didn’t want to do it in front of this traitor.
I nipped at Santino’s perfectly tailored pants, grabbing his attention.
He scowled at me. Santino was picky about his clothes, but I ignored him and tossed my head toward the snake, my way of telling him to hurry the fuck up. The longer we stayed here, the more the feeling intensified. I wanted out.
Luckily, Santino and I had been best friends since we’d been in diapers.
He’d been the one who’d stood up for me whenever our fathers had tried to punish me for shifting too much.
We knew everything about each other, every tell and sign.
He understood I’d never interrupt him out of impatience.
We relied on our instincts way more than humans did, and gut feelings weren’t ignored.
He still huffed a little, not liking that his kill was being cut short. “Ugh, are you sure? We were just getting to the good part.”
Our captive whimpered. Fucking finally, the screaming died down, like he’d realized he wasn’t getting out of here alive and wanted the quickest death possible.
Everyone in the east district knew about Santino’s techniques, and just the threat of them had even the strongest men spilling their darkest secrets.
I gave my best friend the biggest side-eye my wolf form could manage. He sighed again, dramatic as fuck, and then stepped back. “Fiiiiine. Have at it.”
I rewarded him with a wolfy grin and turned to the traitor.
His eyes widened in fear and he tried to get away, not that it was possible with him strapped down.
As much as I teased Santino, he wasn’t the only one who liked to play with his food, but that itchiness was becoming nearly intolerable.
I had to shift and figure out what was wrong.
I was getting more and more worried by the minute.
While the feeling could be just about anything, this wrongness I sensed now usually only occurred when one of two people were in trouble.
Since one was standing next to me, whistling while swinging a blade as large as his forearm, I feared it was Nico.
Santino must not understand how on edge I truly was.
He’d be losing his fucking mind by now otherwise.
No one fucked with little Nico under his watch.
Even if Nico wasn’t so little anymore . . . .
I shook away the thought and stalked toward my prey. He was begging now, crying and promising us a million things he could never deliver. It was just nonsense to me as I let my wolf take control. I snarled, causing the asshole to piss, again, and then pounced on his throat.
It was over in seconds, too easy of a death for a member of the family who’d gone behind our backs and made deals with a gang with known trafficking ties.
We didn’t mess with that shit, and Santino had plans to deal with the gang itself as well.
I’d been looking forward to this interrogation for days, and it pissed me off to end it now, but my instincts were screaming, SHIFT, SHIFT, SHIFT!
As soon as I spit out the nastiness in my mouth, I was shifting to my human form. My wolf was still too close to the surface to talk, so I didn’t bother. I didn’t even rinse out my mouth like I usually did. I went straight to my phone so I could check on my favorite pain in the ass, Nico.
“The fuck?” I growled, not able to form full sentences. Santino was immediately on high alert and at my side.
“What’s wrong?”
I handed my cell over.
“What is that little shit doing in Grizzly territory?”
I shook my head, the growl forming deep in my chest before I could stop it.
Nico and Santino were the only two people in the entire world I gave a fuck about.
Santino was like a brother to me, and Nico, well, I didn’t talk about how I felt about him, but let’s just say he meant everything to me.
If he was in danger . . . I didn’t care what kind of alliances the White Wolves had with the Grizzlies.
I would destroy them all, until all that was left was ash.
Santino immediately went to my contacts and tried calling his little brother, though I wasn’t very surprised that it went right to voicemail.
“Call Carter,” I told him gruffly. He was supposed to be keeping an eye on him.
Santino nodded sharply, but before he could hit dial, our necks started vibrating. My eyes met Santino’s amber ones, the fear burning in them echoing mine.
The only three people with our handmade white wolf pendants were us and Nico, and they were our fail-safes.
If we were in danger and separated from everyone else with no way to call for help, then all we had to do was press our thumb on the back of the pendant.
They had each been specially made by the head of one of the covens in the area, The Silver Moon—who was under our protection after coming to us a few years ago for help when members had been kidnapped and used by traffickers—and had been designed to only react to whom it had been made for.
Once the trigger was pressed by one, the other two would immediately be alerted.
There was a tracking chip inside each of them as well that gave our exact locations.
It was how we’d known Nico was in Grizzly territory to begin with.
None of us ever took it off, no matter what.
Nico was in trouble.
Santino was grabbing his weapons and barking orders at the guards that were waiting outside the closed doors for us.
He instructed two of them to take care of the body, while he told another to get the car and find Carter right fucking now.
I went to my clothes that were folded neatly on the table we kept here for that purpose.
Before Santino was done with his directions, I was dressed and loaded with my usual human weapons.
With one meaningful look at Santino, we were out of the warehouse, leaving the mess to the guards. It was time to get our little menace.