These aren’t your typical kick-em-in-the-nuts problems, Savy.
But the man with the black truck had warned me not to leave town. More than anything, that told me shit was going down. In my experience, when someone told you to stand still and close your eyes, you needed to duck the hell out of the way.
Maybe a dangerous family was just what I needed right now.
“I’m not running,” I said to my socks and unmentionables. “I’m going to figure out why the hell people are hunting me.”
To do that, I needed to find out about my family in Chicago, and why they were so dangerous that my parents never risked telling me about them.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Too bad I didn’t like to cook.
5
Jaxson
I checked my watch and knotted my fists. One p.m.
The she-wolf was out there hunting, while I was stuck in my hotel room, renegotiating every single deal we had with the scattered Great Lakes packs. They were using the abductions and rumors to damage our reputation and to squeeze me for concessions.
I growled at the werewolf on the laptop screen. “We’ve had the same right-of-passage deal with your pack for thirty years. The deal should stay. Nothing’s changed.”
Mac, the alpha of the Upper Peninsula pack, stroked his grizzled beard. “But it has. We don’t want your city wolves anywhere near our territory, not until these abductions stop. Sorry, Jax,
but that’s the way it is.”
“We have nothing to do with the abductions.”
Mac leaned forward. “From what I hear, CCTV caught the license plate of the abductors’ truck after an attack last month. It was registered to one of your wolves.”
Fuck. The Order leaked information like a sieve. Was that detail what had initially started all the rumors about our pack?
Regina shifted uncomfortably beside me. She could smell my rage. “It was a stolen vehicle belonging to an ex-member of the pack. Nothing to do with us,” she interjected.
Mac ignored the comment and moved closer to the camera. “Then, I hear that three days ago, a trio of wolves killed a witch while trying to abduct him. Two were shifters, but one was wolfborn. That sort of cooperation doesn’t happen up here. But in Dockside...yuh guys are a bit of a mixed breed.”
And I’m pretty sure that that wolfborn was Dane.
I had to restrain my claws and keep calm. Mac couldn’t smell me lying, though Regina would. “These are rumors and speculations. No one from Dockside is involved. But clearly, you want to renegotiate deals. Fine. Good luck getting your fucking product distributed in Magic Side without us.”
Did he really expect me to roll over? I would cripple his pack first and watch them come begging on their bellies.
My old friend raised his hands. “Hold on, Jax. Are you serious? I’m just talking concessions, here.”
My phone rang. Tony.
“I have to take this.” I slammed the laptop shut and strode out onto the concrete balcony of the shitty motel—the only one in Belmont—then answered the call. “What do you have?”
“The woman is on the move,” Tony said. “We assume she’s going to check on her car. Should we pursue?”
More trouble. “Don’t pursue,” I replied. “I should be the main point of contact. Is she in a vehicle? On foot?”
Tony paused. “Rollerblades.”
My eyebrows shot up. “What?”
“Skates. Moving fast.”