Chapter 17 #2
I decide not to tell her that all I’ve done today is worry.
And wonder. And try to reason out why she’d kiss me like she did last night and then ghost me today.
It’s not just her errand. She still hasn’t texted me back, and this feels like more than just a busy day.
It feels like she’s trying to close a door between us.
My wolf refuses to let her.
Rather than say any of that, I check my phone again.
No messages.
Lexi sits again. “Grey told me,” she says without preamble. “What he found when he was in your head.”
Well, damn. We were going there. “I assumed he would.”
“We don’t keep things from each other. The bond makes secrets—” She pauses. “Complicated.”
“I understand.” Or I did in theory anyway.
“I’m not asking you to explain yourself.
” She leans forward slightly. “I just want you to know that I know. And that I’m glad.
If it goes the way I hope.” She holds my gaze.
“She’s been alone for a long time. It’s taken a toll in ways most people can’t see because she’s so good at making it look like a choice. ”
“She doesn’t prefer it,” I say quietly. “Being alone.”
“No. She’s just terrified of what it costs to not be.” There’s a fondness in her expression as she adds, “She’ll fight it, though. Probably come up with seventeen strategic reasons why it’s a bad idea.”
I snort. “She’s already found at least that many, if not more.”
“You’ll have to really want her,” Lexi warns.
When I look over at her, I see the question in her eyes. She wants to know if I’m willing to put in the work. But if Grey really did share what he found in my head, they both already know the answer to that.
I look at the table. Think about the drive home from the stakeout. Mia’s hands unsteady on the wheel. The walls going up so fast and so clean that watching it happen felt like watching someone close a door on themselves from the inside.
It wasn’t nothing for me either.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say.
Lexi nods like she already knew that’s what I’d say. “Stand beside her,” she says. “Not in front. Not behind. She needs beside.”
“I know.”
“Good.” She straightens. Back to business as cleanly as if the last five minutes hadn’t happened. “Then we understand each other.”
She stands when the door opens.
Marcus.
He reads the room in approximately one second—Lexi standing, me sitting with my hands around a now-cold coffee, the particular atmosphere of something personal recently concluded—and doesn’t comment on any of it. He just closes the door behind him and sets a folder on the table between us.
“I think I found something,” he says.
“What’s up?” I ask, nodding for him to go ahead.
He opens the folder to reveal a photograph. It’s a grainy image taken from what looks like security footage. A woman I don’t recognize, dark-haired, somewhere in her early twenties, standing on a residential doorstep.
“That’s Davina,” Lexi says.
“That’s what I assumed, but thank you for verifying,” Marcus says. He taps the photo. “This is from a neighbor’s security camera. They reported it when they saw the news report that listed her as a missing person.”
“How old is this footage?” I ask.
“Two weeks.”
Lexi looks up at him sharply. “Maybe she’s still in the city.”
Marcus shakes his head. “The house doesn’t look occupied anymore,” Marcus says. “But I have a team sitting on it just in case.” He pauses and produces another photo. “The footage also showed this.”
He puts a second photo down. This one shows another person at the same front door. Broad shoulders. Hoodie. Sunglasses. But it’s not enough to hide the shape of his face. His smug sneer. Especially when he’s looking directly at the camera.
“Ramsey,” Lexi says.
The silence that follows has a specific quality as we all absorb the evidence that Davina is indeed working with Ramsey to dismantle the wards and take down the pack.
“Has Grey seen this yet?” I ask.
Marcus shakes his head. “I came to you first.”
“We need to loop him in,” I say, “And the others.”
“This changes things,” Lexi says. “We’ve been searching for them outside the ward line.” She shakes her head. “No wonder we haven’t found them yet. What if they’re right here under our noses?”
She’s not wrong, but I can see the panic brewing behind her eyes, so I work to keep her focused. Keep her thinking about strategy.
“What about Davina’s connections in the city?” I ask. “Does she have family here? Anyone we can use to get to her?”
Lexi shakes her head. “We found her when we took over Franco’s lab. He kept her hidden all these years, forcing her to work for him there. She said she was serving a life debt she owed him. She made it sound like she never expected that debt to be paid or for her to be free of him.”
“But then you shut down the lab. Sent her home,” I say, and she nods.
“She must have met Ramsey after that. Maybe he found out about her. Went to her for help? She hated Franco. And she didn’t know us. Maybe she thought we would rule just like he did.”
“Actually.” Marcus taps the folder. “The neighbor who gave us this footage said she’s seen this man at Davina’s house several times over the last few months.”
Lexi’s eyes widen. “Months? But that would be before…”
“Yeah.” Marcus is grim.
I know he hates giving bad news.
“If he took that serum you mentioned, he likely got it from her. Which means Davina wasn’t recruited after Franco fell. It happened before.” He looks at me. “They were right to think he’s been planning this for a while.”
I lean back in my chair and look at the ceiling and think about sixty wolves bound to a super alpha whose power is slowly destroying him from the inside out and a hex witch who’s been likely injecting him with said power since before anyone knew there was a war coming.
Then I think about Mia.
Somewhere in this city right now. Without backup. Trying to solve a problem that’s bigger—and likely closer—than anyone realized.
“We need to bring this to Crow,” Lexi says. Her voice is controlled but tight. “He’s better at finding people than the rest of us. Maybe he can work with the city’s traffic light cams and find them that way.”
“Already sent him a message,” Marcus says. “He’s on his way.”
I nod.
Lexi stands. “I need to tell Grey.” She looks at me, the Mia conversation already folded away behind her alpha face. “Thank you, Nash. For your help today.”
“Anytime. We’ll resume the interviews once you’ve had a chance to talk to Grey.”
She leaves. Marcus starts to follow.
“Marcus.”
He stops.
“What did Lovaro say?”
Marcus grimaces. “Harrow resigned.”
I go still. “Did they find evidence of wrongdoing, or did he go voluntarily?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters if I need to kill him.”
“Then resigned voluntarily. Officially.” Marcus drops into the chair Lexi vacated and rubs a hand over his jaw. “He walked out in the middle of the advanced tactics block. Lovaro’s been covering the classes himself.”
“Lovaro hasn’t taught field strategy in fifteen years.”
“Which is probably why he’s been using the words catastrophe, dereliction, and your immediate return in the same sentence.”
I lean back, jaw tight. “The term can survive a few days without me.”
“The term, yes. The board’s patience, less so.” Marcus taps the folder once. “They’re already saying your absence is proof the college can’t function without you. And if the school can’t function without you, then you’ve built a monument to your ego instead of an institution.”
“Lovaro said that?”
“No. I did. But he was circling it.”
“You’re not helping.”
He grins, but it’s short-lived. “I’ll call him,” he says. “Coordinate what I can. But Nash.” He stops, frowns. And I already know what he’s going to say next. “You need to go back and take care of it yourself.”
“I’m aware,” I say darkly.
“It might need to be sooner rather than later,” he adds.
“I’m aware,” I say again, this time with more of an edge.
He holds up his hands.
I look at the folder on the table. At the photo of a woman who has been helping Ramsey attempt to dismantle everything Grey and Lexi are trying to build—everything Mia fought for.
“He’s going to make a move soon. I can feel it,” I say.
Marcus doesn’t argue. I look up at him again, decisive. And hoping like hell that I’m not wrong when I say, “We stay and finish this first.”
Marcus holds my gaze for a moment. "And after this is finished?"
I think about the drive home from the stakeout. The way she couldn't stop almost looking at me and what that means from a woman who is the most deliberate person I’ve ever met.
I think about standing beside her in the meeting room yesterday, watching her run a room full of wolves who would follow her anywhere, and feeling something shift into place in my chest that I don't have a word for yet but that I know I'm not walking away from.
The pack needs me. The war college needs me. Four years of building something real out of nothing, and the infrastructure of it is starting to show the strain of my extended absence in ways that the board can only patch for so long.
All of that is true.
Also true: I don’t know how to walk away from Mia Reyes. I didn’t know two years ago when I honored a vow I should never have made. I know even less now.
Those two things are going to have to find a way to coexist. But that’s a problem for after. Right now, there’s a hex witch embedded in this city and a super alpha with sixty wolves at his back, who thinks he’s already won, and a fledgling new pack that deserves better than what’s coming for it.
“After this is finished,” I say heavily, “I’ll figure it out.”
Marcus looks at me for a long moment. I know he wants to argue, but he knows me too well for that. Instead, he nods once.
And leaves me alone with the afternoon light and the folder and my own thoughts.
My phone is still showing no messages.
I pick it up anyway.
Put it back down.
Go find Crow.