12. Rafael
Rafael
Beau’s SUV crunched over gravel as we pulled up to the warehouse on the far edge of Sugarpaw Springs.
The place looked like a ruin on the best day. Half-forgotten, sun-bleached metal siding and windows thick with grime, one of them cracked straight down the middle like a jagged scar.
It was the kind of spot you drove past without sparing a second glance… unless you knew what you were looking for.
A single exterior light flickered above the dented steel door. It buzzed like a dying hornet, casting long, stuttering shadows across the cracked pavement.
The shadows jittered across our boots as we got out.
I sat in the backseat until the last second, muscles wound tight, jaw clenched. My bear stirred restlessly beneath my skin, pacing the cage of my bones.
It didn’t like this place. The scent alone was enough to raise my hackles. Too many things clung to the air. Fear, stale blood, old stress, newer sweat.
This wasn’t a place for negotiation. This was where people got cornered. Threatened. Broken. Exactly the kind of place a leech like Avery would feel comfortable in.
Callum stepped out first. He didn’t say a word, didn’t need to. He moved with the precise stillness of a predator that had chosen not to strike yet.
But his aura was pure alpha. Calm on the outside, pressure-cooker inside. Aggression rolled off him in quiet waves.
Rowan and Cyrus flanked him, moving like wraiths. No smiles. No jokes. Just silence and sharp-eyed focus. Good. We weren’t here for show.
Beau slammed his door closed harder than necessary. His bear was close to the surface. I could feel it in the way his shoulders rolled and locked.
“You sure James doesn’t know we’re doing this?” he asked under his breath, voice pitched low for my ears only.
I nodded. “He’d want to be here. But if this gets ugly—”
Callum cut in, flat and certain. “It’s better he’s not.”
We all knew Avery’s type. He thrived on weaknesses, sniffed them out like rot. If he saw even a hint that James mattered to us, to me, he’d use that like a knife.
James… James was mine, even if I hadn’t said the words. Even if he didn’t fully realize it yet. And Avery didn’t get to touch what was mine.
Beau adjusted his jacket and cracked his neck. “Let’s knock.”
There was no doorbell. Just a steel slab that had probably seen a thousand fists. Beau pounded his against it with enough force to rattle the hinges.
We waited.
The silence stretched, punctuated by the distant sound of some machine humming inside, and a dog barking a few warehouses away.
Then came the screech. The door creaked open, rust grinding against rust.
A low-level enforcer peered out. A wiry guy with twitchy eyes and a scar across his upper lip that looked half-healed and badly set.
His nose wrinkled when he saw us.
His eyes landed on Callum first. Then Beau. Then me. And his whole body tensed like a squirrel realizing it had wandered into a den of wolves.
“Boss—” he started.
“Call him,” Callum said, voice calm but sharp as a blade.
The guy didn’t even argue. He bolted back into the shadows like a rat running for cover. I stepped inside last, resisting the urge to snarl.
The warehouse reeked. Someone had clearly tried to mask the rot with cheap air fresheners, those hanging tree-shaped ones you find in gas stations.
The scent was cloying, chemical-sweet, and it only made everything worse.
Stacks of crates lined one wall. A poker table sat abandoned in a corner, chips scattered like they’d been dropped mid-game. Half-eaten takeout containers sat on folding chairs.
This was no clean operation. It was a nest.
Avery descended from a rusted catwalk above the warehouse floor, boots clanking against the metal steps with deliberate slowness, like a showman soaking in applause that never came.
He moved like he owned the place, swagger in his shoulders and confidence radiating as he smoothed down his tailored black shirt and adjusted the gaudy gold watch swallowing his wrist.
That smug little smile of his made my fists itch.
But then he saw us. Five shifters, all carrying the kind of heat that could level this building without even shifting.
Beau with his casual bulk and predatory stillness. Callum with his alpha calm that didn’t hide the storm coiling underneath.
Rowan and Cyrus, watching like twin blades. And me, standing back but seething like a bomb waiting for a reason.
Avery’s expression faltered. It was brief, less than a blink, but I caught it. The moment his confidence cracked and fear edged in.
“Well,” he said, smoothing the corners of his mouth into a new version of smug. His voice was oil-slicked and cold. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“You know why we’re here,” Callum said, voice like steel dragging against pavement. He stepped forward, radiating authority. “We’re here to tell you this ends now.”
Avery’s eyes flicked to the others, measuring the odds. He lifted his chin.
“I’m just a businessman. People come to me when they’re out of options. I’m doing a public service,” Avery explained.
Beau snorted. “You’re extorting scared paranormals with interest rates that’d make a demon blush. That’s not business. That’s predation.”
Avery’s smile tightened. “Careful now. You two don’t officially run this town. We all know Sugarpaw Springs is neutral.”
“It was neutral,” Callum said coolly. “Until you started poisoning it.”
My fists curled tighter at my sides. I wasn’t here for talk. Every second I stood in this place, the image of James, pale, scared and exhausted, flashed behind my eyes.
The haunted look when he thought no one was watching. The silence he carried like armor. Every piece of that pain, Avery had put there.
And then Avery’s gaze landed on me. That sneer curled up just a bit more.
“Ah,” he said, eyes narrowing. “So this is about the pretty little wolf, isn’t it?”
A low growl ripped out of me. I took a step forward, heat flaring in my chest, claws of rage sinking into my ribs.
“Say his name. One more time,” I demanded.
“Rafael,” Callum said sharply behind me. A warning.
I froze mid-step, every muscle screaming. But I held. Barely.
Avery chuckled, but there was strain in it now. His shoulders were too tight, and the smugness didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Touchy. Look, if your boyfriend didn’t want the heat, he shouldn’t have signed up for it,” Avery said.
“He didn’t,” I growled. “It was his brother. And he’s been paying it off every damn month, hasn’t he?”
Avery hesitated. That pause was everything. I’d hit the truth.
“He kept his head down. He paid what you demanded. You used him,” I spat.
Avery didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. His silence confirmed it.
Callum took another step forward, his presence filling the room like a tide. “You and your crew pack up and leave town. Quietly. We’re not asking.”
Avery sneered. “You think you can just threaten me? I have protections. Connections. You lay a finger on me and you’ll be answering to people with more power than you.”
“Protections aren’t going to matter,” Beau said, stepping up beside Callum. “Not when we start spreading the word. You’ve got a long list of enemies, Avery. We both know it. You want every alpha in a hundred-mile radius knowing you’re skimming off their people? Preying on their strays and loners?”
Avery’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. “That’s harassment.”
“It’s a warning,” Callum said, voice cutting like ice. “And it’s the only one you’re getting. You have two days to vanish.”
Avery’s jaw worked, like he wanted to argue, but couldn’t find the leverage. Couldn’t find the fear in us that he usually counted on. Not here. Not tonight.
“And if I don’t?” he asked, forcing a sneer.
I took a step forward. Calm. Controlled. Deadly.
“Then I stop holding my bear back,” I told him.
His face drained of color. We stood there, the five of us watching him like a pack of predators circling an injured animal.
The only sound was the distant hum of a flickering fluorescent light. In the shadows, his men lingered. They were watching and waiting, but none of them stepped forward.
None of them wanted this fight, because they knew they wouldn’t win.
Finally, Avery exhaled through his nose. Gave us a thin, bitter smile. “Two days, huh?”
“Start packing,” Beau said, and turned on his heel without waiting for a response.
We walked out in silence. No one looked back.
The moment the warehouse doors shut behind us, the night air hit like a wave. Cold. Crisp. Clean. I rolled my shoulders, but the tension still clung to my skin.
Beau looked ready to punch a wall. Callum was quiet, his gaze distant, calculating. Rowan and Cyrus scanned the shadows like they were expecting retaliation.
I ran a hand through my hair, the burn of adrenaline still simmering.
“He’s going to try something,” I muttered as we neared the SUVs.
Callum nodded. “Probably. But it won’t work.”
“I know James isn’t going to be happy we left him out of this,” I said, my voice low.
“He’ll understand,” Callum replied after a pause. “Eventually.”
“He might not forgive me,” I added, staring down at the gravel. “But I’ll live with that. If it means he’s safe.”
Callum looked at me then, and for once, his alpha eyes were gentle. Tired, maybe, but honest.
“You really care about him,” Callum said.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.
“He’s lucky to have someone willing to go this far,” Callum said.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m the lucky one.”
Beau pulled open the driver’s side door and glanced back. “Let’s get back. I want eyes on that warehouse in shifts.”
We nodded, piling into the car again. But as we drove back toward town, the tension still sat heavy in my gut. Avery wasn’t gone yet.
And until he was, until James was truly safe, I wasn’t sleeping easy.