Chapter 29
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
Eight hours after the drug delivery, Hunter stood from his corner table at Sweet Summit Bakery, making a deliberate show of stretching his arms overhead until his spine audibly cracked.
The afternoon crowd had thinned to just a few customers nursing lattes and working on laptops.
He rolled his shoulders, caught Jake’s eye, and walked to the counter where Brie was wiping down the espresso machine.
“Hey babe, I need to run home and grab some clean clothes. Maybe shower.” He leaned against the counter, projecting casual exhaustion. “I’ve been wearing the same shirt for two days.”
Brie turned, wrinkling her nose with exaggerated disgust that didn’t quite hide the strain in her eyes. “Yes, please. You’re getting a bit ripe.”
“TMI, man!” Jake laughed from where he was restocking cups, completely oblivious to the performance happening in front of him.
Hunter grinned, leaned over the counter to kiss Brie’s cheek, and headed for the door. “Back in an hour.”
The December air bit his face as he walked down Main Street, maintaining an unhurried pace.
He stopped at the corner store, made small talk with the clerk about the coming festival while buying deodorant he didn’t need.
Let himself be seen. Normal. Predictable.
Exactly what any surveillance would expect.
He used the apartment building’s side entrance, taking the stairs two at a time once out of sight. His apartment felt different knowing hostile eyes might be watching the building. He did a thorough security sweep while checking for any signs of entry or planted devices.
In his bedroom, he grabbed his encrypted walkie-talkie and called Dom. “Need you in my apartment now,” he told his alpha. “Brennan’s alive.”
Dom arrived via the internal stairs that connected to Steel Protection’s offices, his expression already grim. “What do you mean Brennan’s alive?”
Hunter showed him the video screenshots. Dom’s face went through a series of changes as he absorbed what he was seeing. The grotesque half-transformation. Sophie’s terrified eyes. The other hostages.
“What the…” Dom sucked a breath, staring at Brennan’s ruined face.
“He wants Brie to contaminate all the festival goods with his new formula,” Hunter said, his voice carefully controlled. “One dose creates permanent addiction. If shifters miss doses after that, they lose the ability to transform safely. And end up like him.”
Dom pulled out his encrypted walkie-talkie. “We need the full pack on this.”
Within twenty minutes, the pack had assembled in Hunter’s living room. Hunter ran through the situation again, watching his pack process the horror of it.
“Something feels off about this whole thing,” Hunter said when he finished. “We need to find the hostages without tipping off whoever’s watching.”
“I’ll coordinate from headquarters and monitor police channels,” Dom said. “Any unusual activity, any chatter about missing persons, I’ll know.”
“I’ll stay visible at the bakery,” Hunter said. “Watching over Brie as usual.”
Axel leaned forward. “I’ll attempt a trace when Brennan calls at six.”
“I’ll profile Brennan’s psychological state,” Siren added.
Blaze cracked his scarred knuckles. “I’ll run reconnaissance.”
“I’ll search remote areas with my drones,” Ryder said.
They synchronized watches, established check-in protocols, then dispersed. Axel returned moments later, pulling his laptop from his backpack.
“I need to set up your phone for the trace,” he said.
He then connected Hunter’s phone to his laptop. “When Brennan calls tomorrow night, this app will capture everything. Incoming number, cell tower data.” Axel’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “All forwards to my system in real-time.”
“Can you trace him from that?”
“Depends on his setup. A regular cell call gives us the tower location, maybe a few square miles to search. If he’s using an internet call without privacy protection, we might get his exact location. But if he’s using privacy software...” Axel shrugged. “We get almost nothing.”
“Got it.” Hunter memorized the app’s location on his screen. “When he calls, I’ll give him what he wants to hear.”
“The app runs in the background. The longer he talks, the more data we collect.”
Hunter studied the innocuous icon on his phone screen. Such a small thing to pin their hopes on.
“What are the odds this works?”
Axel met his eyes directly. “Better than zero. Sometimes that’s all we get.”