Page 54 of Gavin

“Sure thing,” Gavin said. “Take care. I’ll let you know if I hear anything else about these assholes.”

“You too.”

The call ended and Brick looked at the images as they pinged his phone. They were screenshots of a chat room on the dark web, which explained that Humans Against Shifters were looking for members to join their team. The post promised moving expenses if they were outside of the Northern Ohio area, competitive wages, and the ability to promote within the ranks of the organization.

Brick snorted. “This Foley guy is a piece of work.” He showed the images to Solan, who let out a low growl of agreement.

Then something caught Brick’s eye in the last of the images about recruitment to the HAS organization and their focus on particular shifters.

Admin: We’ve recently switched tactics from one beast group that has proven to be adept at learning to avoid our intentions to drive them away from their locale. Goingforward, we will be focusing on the other groups in the area, specifically those who worship the moon. Five figure signing bonus with proof of hatred of the beasts and ideas for wiping their species off the face of the earth.

“Son of a bitch,” Brick snarled. “Solan, we need to go. Now.”

Solan didn’t ask any questions, simply rose to his feet and headed into the crowd of bodies to find the females.

“Everything okay?” Paris, the fallen angel manager of the bar asked as he cleared the empties from the next booth.

“Yes and no,” Brick said. He handed Paris cash to cover the tab. “I think the shit is about to hit the fan in Thorn Hollow and I need to talk to Adam.”

“Good luck,” he said. “It’s scary as hell to be a supernatural creature sometimes.”

Brick nodded.

He followed Solan and the females outside, stopping long enough to check that the SUV they’d brought hadn’t been tampered with, and then he called them to get in.

“Why did we have to leave?” Harper asked. “I’m not done partying for my birthday.”

“You can party at home,” Solan said. “Things are about to get dicey in Cleveland if you have claws and fangs.”

“I have some interesting news,”Vaughn said as he stared at the bank of monitors in the temporary security office. They were using one of the bedrooms in Maya and Midas’s home until a security building could be built, with supplies arriving in the next several weeks. Gavin, while still being part of the security team, was going to help with the build and so was Sadie. She saidshe’d swung a hammer from time to time and was happy to help wherever, and Gavin just wanted to keep her close.

Because even though two days had passed since her abduction and return home, his tiger still was on high alert, and maybe always would be when it came to her safety.

“What’s that?” Gavin asked.

“Remember when Tess found that dark web chat room that was recruiting for the anti-shifter group?”

“How could I forget?” he asked dryly.

Vaughn looked chagrined. “Right. Anyway, she’s been monitoring it for us, and she found something that we thought you and Sadie would appreciate knowing.”

He punched a few keys on the keyboard and pointed to the screen, which showed a dark web chatroom that was called the Bounty Trade Network, and mentioned Victor Hawthorne, with the chat log detailing a discussion about how he’d lost several clients because he failed to bring in a certain bounty and had lost a lot of money as well as the lives of several people helping him. One commenter said, “He’s lost his touch, he’s been too long in the game and needs to retire.” Another added, “That won’t happen, but I heard he’s walking away from that group and helping HAS work on another group. I doubt he’ll ever get the money he was getting for bounties before though since he fucked up so badly.”

Gavin read more of the chat logs and then rocked back on his heels. “It sure as hell sounds like Hawthorne’s circling the drain.”

“Yeah, that’s what we thought too,” Vaughn said. “We already had word that Foley’s group was going to target the wolves and that as far as we can tell, Hawthorne is still working with him. But now it looks like word is spreading in the underground that he messed up and is losing clients. It’s not as good as finding out he’s been sent to prison for the rest of his life,but Tess wanted me to be sure to let you know so you can tell Sadie.”

Gavin grinned. “It’s great news, Vaughn. Thanks for letting me know.”

“You bet. We’ll keep monitoring the channels and we won’t let down our guard, but it sure seems like a bit of sunshine after some damn fucking dark clouds.”

“One hundred percent.”

Gavin thanked his friend and hurried out of the room, making his way home where Sadie was working with his mom in setting up a container garden on the back porch.

He greeted his mom and hugged his mate, telling her the great news.

“Oh wow, that’s awesome,” Sadie said. “I’m glad it seems like he’s given up on capturing me, but I don’t know if I’ll ever trust that he’ll let go of that entirely.”

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