Chapter 11 Royal
ROYAL
CATCHING PREDATORS
It’s well after noon when I roll out of bed. The small clock on my desk, illuminating the numbers, tells me I’ve way overslept.
I was too wired to sleep after talking to her, so I stayed up to start additional print jobs to have a fuller inventory.
I’m paying for it now though. I find the small remote on my nightstand and press the first programmed button.
It pulls the bottom of my blinds up in small intervals every couple of minutes.
I’m a wolf and can see in the dark, but if it’s dark, my brain will let me sleep until it’s not dark anymore.
Without looking, I feel around on the nightstand for my phone, but it’s not there.
Shuffling, I look for it amid the sheets and comforter but groan when I remember hearing a thud when I finally flopped into bed.
Looking over the edge, I see the device. At least it’s plugged in and charging.
It takes some effort, but I manage to hook the corner of it with my middle finger and pull it close enough to pick up.
On a normal morning, I can wake up to anywhere between ten and two hundred notifications. Depending on what I sleep through.
There are the usual three or four from Mom and Dad, with their plans for the day and asking me if I’m alive. Two quick replies clear those off the pile.
There are a couple from Kerrianne asking about her robot, along with a picture of Captain. I agree that Captain is dashing in his radish hat and let her know that I’ll have more info on the parts later.
Valor sent me a ‘honey-do’ list of projects he’s working on and what parts he’d like me to take care of. I give him a thumbs-up.
Notifications regarding several tech upgrades having been completed and a dozen or so from the 3D print shop get deleted without looking, and I make it all the way to something I didn’t expect to find.
Leticia D’Medici:
Thank you for last night, it meant a lot to me.
Not if that sounded weird though. I didn’t mean it to be weird. If it sounded weird, I just mean thank you.
There is something about dinner that’s bugging me .
. . could you tell me what the family secret is?
Valor said he’d tell me in two weeks, but I’m getting super frustrated every time I think about it.
There’s something weird about Kerrianne saying ‘we don’t eat people’ AND Valor calling her pup.
I don’t know if it passes the vibe check, and I’m hoping it’s not cannibalism or something.
We’re friends and late-night cohosts, so you should tell me.
Or at least give me a heads-up so I don’t show up next time and get eaten or look stupid thinking the worst.
We could eat her. My wolf salivates, and I try to push the dirty thoughts of Leticia out of my mind.
I read her next text instead of indulging him in that thought.
Leticia:
Please tell me you’re not cannibals and it’s just something funny Kerrianne said.
I snort and click into the three images she sent a few hours later. They’re pictures of beautifully plated Italian food.
Now, I’m the one salivating.
Our mate could cook us that? We could —
I shove the wolf down. We haven’t met her in person. We can’t be sure we’re mates. He’s overly attached. This is attraction to a beautiful woman, and the chemistry will change when we meet face to face.
I go back to the third message. Valor is going to tell her the family secret? How the fuck did he mess up that badly?
A rock sits in my middle, and it’s cooling me from the inside out.
Mom, Dad, and Valor have no mention of it in their messages. Kerrianne didn’t note anything off about her dinner with Leticia.
I let those thoughts ruminate as I stretch and slowly make my way out of bed. But by the time I’ve stretched out and stared at my closet for a minute, trying to remember what clothes are, I don’t have any answers, and I push them out of my brain to focus on joining the rest of the world.
“Royal. You never answered your brother back.” Mom sighs as I ascend the stairs to the kitchen in search of food.
“I sent him a thumbs-up that I’d start working on his to-do list,” I say as I head toward whatever she’s working on to see what I can steal.
Mom bats my hand away from the food, raw green beans, in front of her. “These are for dinner, or did you forget we’re doing Thanksgiving dinner again tonight. The redo.”
“I remember.” I don’t, but no way am I getting caught slacking on everything. “What’s got Valor’s boxers in a bunch?”
Mom stops working and turns to face me. “You didn’t read that message at all.”
“I was going to grab a snack and then go down and start working.” I raise my hands in defense.
“Christ, Royal.” Mom grabs a towel off the counter and chucks it at me.
“What?!” I snatch it out of the air but grab my phone from my pocket before she throws something heavier.
Valor:
Take the information you gave me yesterday from the guy, Marc, and work backward. The guy has videos circulating on the internet of teenage girls changing. Antonella is included.
Find me where they’ve been distributed and who I need to dispose of.
I want this done: yesterday.
My blood turns cold. Doing recon on someone Valor was pressing for information was just supposed to be mundane work. I knew Valor planned to use the guy as a warning to others who might double-cross us, but to show Antonella his darker side . . . That is wholly unexpected.
“Jesus.” I tuck my phone back in my pocket, fighting off a shiver.
My wolf is already pulling a mental list of codes and things we’ll need to get the job done.
My appetite is now completely gone.
“I’m going.” I turn back toward the basement, tossing the towel on the counter as I go.
Time to hunt. My wolf wags his tail, all too excited about stalking a new kind of prey.
Three hours into deleting videos of teenage girls changing and showering from hard drives all across the city, state, and country, I feel dirty for having to live in a world where this happened to start with.
With a ring of disgusting individuals being tallied up and added to Valor’s list of ‘next to die,’ he won’t stop at those who have seen his wife.
My older brother has zero tolerance and will go as far and as deep as necessary.
No one deserves to have videos of themselves like this floating around on the internet. Antonella is, from what I can tell, kind and compassionate. It’s absolutely not a question for me to take the time to do this for her.
I’ve set up a spy bot that goes far beyond what Valor noted, deleting and stripping files from every linked perpetrator on Marc’s ‘friends list,’ dating back over a decade.
Some of these predators go back a lot longer than that.
It catalogs their names and locations as well as how much was deleted from their computers .
. . in case Valor wants to be creative with his pound of flesh, so to speak.
I’ve been so dedicated to working quickly and thoroughly that I blocked out the entire world, including my wolf. But an alarm starts blaring, and I rip myself out of my chair, rushing to the wall where I have three tablets set up for different perimeter securities.
On the alarming tablet, I flick to the open notification.
The camera feed of a security panel at one of our weapons caches, on one of the farthest edges of our territory, comes into view.
Fuckin’ Uncle Neil. What is he even doing out that far? I turn off the alarm since he’s fat fingering the code as he attempts to punch it in . . . again. Why does Dad keep him as pack second if he can’t handle a damn passcode? Valor would do a much better job.
“Thanks, Royal,” he says with a wave to the camera as he gains entry.
I microphone in. “Welcome. Text me next time. You about gave me a heart attack with too many wrong attempts like that.”
“Will do, kiddo.”
I groan at the nickname but walk away from the wall.
What the fuck is he doing out at that cache?
My wolf is back, alert and in the forefront of my consciousness. Our mate will make us feel better. He pushes me to look at my phone.
But without logic, I pick up Antonella’s clone first, which Valor had me set up to keep tabs on his new wife.
She has a few texts from other people, but I don’t bother reading those. I home in on Leticia’s texts to Antonella.
Leticia to Antonella:
Mom is driving me literally insane.
Dad already said I don’t have to go to Italy, but she’s insisting that I do.
Is there any chance I could get invited to Cavanagh Christmas as some sort of good faith . . . joining-of-the-family type deal? Cause I REALLY don’t want to go to Italy.
You should see the dress Mom bought me for Christmas Eve Mass. It’s like she thinks I’m a little girl. It. Has. A. Bow. ON. THE BUTT.
On the butt? My wolf tries to pull mental images of what Leticia’s backside looks like from all the security footage we’ve watched of her.
I wish I wasn’t on his side of trying to remember what it looks like. But we’ve mostly seen her in soft, flowy skirts and nothing that gives either of us an idea of the curves.
She sends a picture of a shapeless kind of frock with what looks to be a big red satin bow somewhere toward the lower midsection.
“Yikes.” I cringe.
Don’t get distracted by the dress. My wolf is nudging me to close out of the picture that he just demanded I open. He changes his focus so quickly my head is spinning. Our mate wants to see us for Christmas.
I set the cloned phone down and pick mine up to send her a message.
Royal:
I’m the worst cohost, and friend, for not texting you back this morning. Got pulled into an awful job first thing.
Forgive me?
I don’t expect a message back, but it doesn’t stop me from hoping.
I stretch and move my desk to the standing position, opening up the D’Medicis’ penthouse cameras on my second computer’s monitors.
The facial recognition software I use starts flicking through cameras to find her when my phone buzzes.
Leticia:
You’re forgiven. But seriously . . . It’s driving me crazy. Family secret?