Chapter 134 Nico #2
As I headed out to help with the cleanup and to try and board up the windows Sinthy’s spell had cracked, I started formulating a plan.
Several of my pack rounded up the bodies of the attackers who had fallen and laid them with as much respect as we could muster by the front gate.
Whenever Sinthy was back to full strength, we’d have her open a portal in the barrier so we could give the bodies to the authorities.
Thankfully, it seemed my own pack had suffered far fewer casualties than I’d initially thought.
Most of the bodies I’d seen strewn about the property had been injured but not dead.
Doc had been working overtime extracting bullets from legs, bracing broken bones, and stitching up cuts.
While we worked, I thought more about what I was going to do.
Even the sorrow of finding my fallen packmates didn’t deter me from what I was planning.
Davis, the guard at the shack, had been shot three times in the chest during the initial attack and lay dead by the gate.
One of Tiago’s pack mates, a young woman named Selena, had also been killed by what looked like a silver knife wound to the stomach.
Two more members of my pack had been cut down in the street close to my house.
A young man named Joshua and another man close to my age, Tristan had been shot in the back.
I’d known him well; he’d dated my cousin Eliza for almost a year, and we’d thought they might become mates.
Instead, they’d decided just to stay friends.
Seeing their pale dead faces, remembering who they’d been, hurt me deeply.
It was like a metal band was wrapped around my heart and squeezed tighter with each second.
As we worked, I kept picturing Sebastian dead in my arms, his last breath hissing out past his lips.
Without Sinthy and Maxwell, he would have joined these three in the pack’s cemetery.
I couldn’t abide that. It was time to do what needed to be done, but I had to have the pack’s approval.
I was alpha, but this was not a dictatorship.
I wouldn’t do anything the others didn’t want.
With the cleanup basically done, I grabbed Gabriel by the arm. “Spread the word. Meeting at the Moon Mate building in two hours. Go.”
Gabriel, who had always been so jubilant and had fashioned himself the class clown pretty much since birth, wiped a smear of dirt off his face and shook his head sadly.
“A meeting about what, Nico? Is now really the time?”
I squeezed his arm in reassurance. “It is. I’m done fighting Viola from the shadows. It’s time to let the world know what we’re fighting against. Go on, tell everyone. I want everyone who isn’t injured there.”
Resigned, Gabriel nodded before moving off to tell everyone.
I found my other siblings and had them give the word as well.
By the time I strode toward the Moon Mate building, nearly the entire pack had arrived.
Maddy’s fingers were twined with mine as we walked.
She agreed with my plan—supported it, and I welcomed that because what I had to say was frightening.
It might very well end up causing another attack.
Grabbing a chair to stand on, I stepped up on it and turned to address the gathered shifters—both my pack and those from the rescued packs.
I gestured to the area where the hardest fighting had taken place.
“The royals have come into our home. They’ve hurt us and done what we never thought was possible…
They’ve made us feel unsafe in the one place that was truly ours.
We’ve done all that we can in the usual ways, but nothing has stopped them.
“Viola Monroe has used her voice to build a worldwide army that wants us and all of our kind dead. I want to do the same. It’s time to send a message to her and the world about exactly what has been happening. I want to tell the world the truth.
“I’m your alpha, but I will not do anything that my pack doesn’t sanction. I brought you all here to ask if you agree. Is it time to tell the world what we know? Can we let our voices be the counterweight to what Viola is saying? What do you say?”
It was short and sweet, but it got the point across. To my surprise, the pack didn’t take long to think about it. After a few seconds, people called out to me.
“Do it, Nico.”
“Tell ’em. Tell ’em everything.”
“Yes.”
“Yeah.”
“I agree.”
“Let’s do this.”
The same sentiment was repeated by everyone. Those who didn’t speak, simply gave me silent nods. Everyone was in agreement.
“I’ll get to work. Thank you, everyone. I can’t tell you how much it meant to me to fight alongside you all. This is our family, this is our home, and this is the place we’ll fight for.”
A small cheer went up as I stepped down off the chair. Donatello was at my side before I could even take hold of Maddy’s hand.
“A message, you say. This sounds intriguing.” Donatello smiled. Even smeared with dirt and blood, the man somehow managed to look glamorous.
Wrapping an arm around Maddy’s shoulders, I nodded.
“Yeah. With Maddy’s name out there, there’s no use hiding her anymore.
I want to tell the world everything. The entire story, not the altered one, the royals have been shoving down our throats for centuries.
I think it could help garner more sympathy.
I hate to say it, but we have to pit the anti-shifter side against the pro-shifters. ”
Donatello nodded. “Fight propaganda with propaganda? I like it.”
“Well, it’s not propaganda if it’s true, right?” I asked.
Donatello chuckled and patted my arm. “My dear friend, every side of every conflict thinks they’re telling the truth. The only thing we have going for us is that we actually are the ones telling the truth. Let me know how I can help.”
All through the afternoon and into the early evening, we spent hours going over what we were going to say.
We organized it onto notecards I would read on video.
I even got Javi to give me details on some of the missions his pack had done under orders of the royals over the years.
Finally ready, Felipe set up the camera and lights.
Nerves ate at me as he readied everything. Donatello stood at the back of the room and nodded, giving me a thumbs-up.
“Are you ready?” Felipe asked.
At my nod, he hit the record button.
“My name is Nicolas Lorenzo. I am the alpha of the Lorenzo pack.”
I laid it all out for the world. The true story of Edemas, the way he’d been betrayed and finally killed, his two hidden children, and the royals’ history.
I told them how the royals and Viola’s entire family had butchered and killed shifters throughout history to try and find this magical vial of blood.
Javi’s stories, the facilities where experiments were done, the torture she put Maxwell through, the babies and children she’d had murdered, and the way Maddy had been attacked and left for dead that night in her bar.
I painted the true picture of Viola Monroe and pressed home the fact that if anyone was a monster, it wasn’t Maddy. It was Viola.
The only thing we held back was Maddy’s pregnancy.
We’d thought at first it could elicit more sympathy from the world but decided against it at the last minute.
The idea of Edemas’s heir being pregnant might cause fear about what the baby might be.
It was better to keep that information hidden until later.
By the time I was done, the video was over half an hour long, but I’d said everything I wanted to say.
I’d even begged the world for help, for protection for shifters and anyone else Viola wanted to exterminate.
I didn’t lay it on thick, but I did try to make sure anyone watching would know that I was serious and that we were facing serious danger.
“Very eloquent,” Donatello said as Felipe stopped recording. “How do you plan to disperse this little home video?”
I shrugged. “We could post it online, but I thought you could help spread it faster.”
Donatello rubbed his hands together greedily. “Ah, yes. I think I know a few people who can assist us.”
Luis uploaded the video to the regular sharing site, and Donatello gave him some email addresses of fairly high-ranking presidents of news organizations. He sent the video to them along with a short letter from Donatello. It took less than an hour for all hell to break loose.
Before the eleven o’clock news came on, nearly every channel broke into their regular programming with banners reading: Breaking News.
Soon my face was on screens, and my voice was echoing across dozens of channels.
Within an hour, Donatello and Luis informed us it was being broadcast on the BBC, Euronews, NHK in Japan, Al Jazeera, and News24 in South Africa.
The video had gone viral and was being shared hundreds of thousands of times every hour.
“I believe we have done what we set out to do,” Donatello said. “I, for one, am going to go to sleep for about thirteen hours. Good night to you all.”
The others slowly headed off to bed, and I joined Maddy in ours.
We lay there, tired beyond belief but unable to fall asleep.
So much had happened in one day. It felt like it had been weeks ago that Sinthy and I kidnapped Maxwell, and all this had gone to shit. How had it only been twelve hours ago?
Sensing my agitation, Maddy rolled over and curled around me.
The hug sent a spasm through me, and I wrapped my arms around her, holding her close to me.
Her scent filled my nose, enveloping me.
As she ran her hands through my hair, a dam within me nearly broke apart.
Finally allowing myself to relax, my body shuddered against hers, and all the adrenaline of the day drained out of me.
“You did everything you could, Nico,” Maddy whispered.