Chapter three #2
“I don’t know. I’d been so careful to keep my personal life completely separate from my undercover one.
At least I thought I had,” he murmured, once again wondering where he’d gone wrong.
“But somehow, Roman learned about Lark and Kal. The day we planned to take him down, Roman skipped town. But not before he planted a bomb in our house. By the time I got home from helping round up the people who worked for him and arresting them, securing evidence, and filling out paperwork, I was dead on my feet and simply wanted to go home to Lark and Kal. The bomb went off just as I got there.”
“How did Lark get out before it went off?” Xander asked.
“As she reminded me earlier, she’s a werewolf.”
Mike’s mouth curved a little as he realized how thankful he was right then she had that speed and been able to escape with their son.
“I just wish she hadn’t felt the need to run from me,” Mike muttered.
“She admitted she’d been afraid about me finding out she was a werewolf, and was worried I’d tell the world, and that the government would take our son away from her.
While I’m angry as hell at her for leaving with Kal, after having a front row seat to the drama our pack has put up with when it comes to almost being outed to the world as werewolves, I get why she did it.
Hell, in her situation, I probably would have run, too. ”
When no one said anything, Mike picked up his bottle of water and took a drink, exhausted.
Something brushed his leg, and he looked down to see Tuffie, the Pack’s adorable Pit Bull mix, sitting there with her chin on his thigh, gazing up at him with compassion in her soft brown eyes.
Smiling down at her, he reached out to caress her furry gray face.
“I know a lot of crap has been dumped on you today, and if we had time on our side, I’d want you to take some time off to get your head wrapped around all of it,” Gage said.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think Roman is going to give you that time.
Xander mentioned something about wanting a flash drive in exchange for your son.
Do you know what Roman is talking about? ”
“I have no idea,” Mike said, still petting Tuffie.
“When I was undercover in Roman’s organization, he used flash drives to provide detailed instructions for his various business associates, which is the polite way of saying drug dealers, thieves, human traffickers, bookmakers, and pimps.
He might be an a-hole, but he’s an organized a-hole. ”
“And he thinks you took one of them?” Xander asked.
Mike nodded. “I guess. Delivering the flash drives to various people was one of the jobs I did for Roman, but the ones we collected after he fled ended up in the evidence locker. Besides, what the hell would he want with old instructions written for street-level criminals who are in prison right now? The flash drives would be worthless.”
He and his pack mates spent a few minutes tossing around ideas about what might be on the flash drive Roman was looking for, each more ludicrous than the last. In the end, they decided they had no idea what Roman was after.
It had to be something big, though. There was no other explanation why the man would risk coming back to Dallas when every state and federal law enforcement agency in the area would go the extra mile to put him in prison.
“Whether we figure out what Roman is after or not, at some point, he’s going to call you to exchange your son for the flash drive,” Gage said.
“I know,” Mike said.
And if he showed up with a random flash drive and tried to pass that off as the one Roman wanted, it was likely to get Kal killed.
While he was trying not to hyperventilate over that, his pack mates were wondering if Lawrence Stewart was wrapped up in this situation with Roman.
That made sense since Stewart had been involved in the original undercover operation all those years ago.
But right then, Mike couldn’t spare the mental bandwidth to think about it.
Mike was still lost in thought when his cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, thumbing the green button and putting the phone to his ear without looking at the screen to see who it was. “Taylor.”
“You have thirty minutes to be at the courtyard in front of the Dallas Museum of Art with the flash drive,” Roman said bluntly without any kind of preamble.
“If I don’t see you there when I arrive, I’ll cut off one of your kid’s fingers for every minute you’re late.
If I see any of your SWAT buddies, I’ll take off an entire hand. ”
Mike tightened his grip on the phone, his claws extending as his inner wolf tried to come out.
“If you hurt Kal, I’ll kill you,” he growled.
“You can try,” Roman said. “Thirty minutes. Clock’s ticking.”
Mike cursed, but he doubted Roman heard it since the man had already hung up.
“That was Roman,” Mike said, quickly recapping what the man said, even though his pack mates’ had the same keen hearing he did, and probably heard all of it anyway. “I’ve got to move if I’m going to make it to the Historic District in thirty minutes.”
“What about the flash drive?” Xander asked.
Mike ground his jaw. “I’ll grab the first one I can find and hope for the best.”
“There’s almost no chance Roman will do the exchange at the museum,” Gage said, getting to his feet along with Mike and everyone else. “It’s too crowded there.”
Damn. That was probably true. “Where do you think he’ll want to do it then?”
“I don’t know,” Gage said. “But be prepared for him to make you run around town. That means the rest of us will have to hang way back. I have no doubt Roman has a file on everyone on the team, so he’ll be looking for us.”
Mike was half a second away from telling Gage and the rest of his pack to stay out of this one.
That the risk of Roman seeing them was too great.
But he knew that’d be stupid. Roman wasn’t the kind of criminal to let Mike live after he got what he wanted.
And if that happened, he wouldn’t let Kal live, either.
“I promised Lark I’d call her as soon as Roman set up the exchange,” Mike said, glancing at Gage.
His pack alpha frowned. “You sure that’s a good idea?”
“No, but she’s Kal’s mother. She deserves to know what’s going on. Besides, we could use her pack’s help. They may not be cops, but we know they can move fast in their wolf forms, and it’s doubtful Roman will recognize them.”
Gage still didn’t look thrilled, but finally nodded. “Call her. But make sure they know Kal probably won’t be at the museum. They can’t go charging in the moment they see Roman.”
Yeah, that would definitely be bad. And dangerous.
“Copy that,” Mike said. “I’ll also text a photo of Kal to you and the rest of the Pack.”
He’d just pulled up Lark’s number when Xander interrupted him.
“I know we’re in a hurry, but before we head out to confront Roman, shouldn’t we talk about the fact that he can move so fast we can barely see him, much less shoot him?”
Everyone other than Xander and Carter looked surprised at that, which meant Mike had to catch the rest of his teammates up on their run-in with Roman, and how he moved fast enough to leave a blur behind. That raised more than a few eyebrows.
“You think Roman is a supernatural?” Gage asked in surprise. “That would have been impossible to hide when he was in town a decade ago.”
No kidding.
“He didn’t do anything to make me think he was supernatural, even if I didn’t know what to look for back then,” Mike admitted. “Regardless, we don’t have time to worry about it now.”
“Mike’s right,” Gage said, looking around at everyone. “But just be on guard. We may be dealing with someone as skilled and dangerous as we are.”